Yes, I went to the Vans Warped Tour. You are probably asking yourself, "Why would a rivethead go to a corporate, pseudo-punk festival show?"
For starters, I wanted to see Apartment 26 and Jurassic-5, both of which deserve more radio play in their respective genres. I also won the tickets, and the only thing better I had to do was to work. Also, some rather loud bands played(including import thrashers Animal. That show rocked.)
So I waited four hours until the Apartment 26 show. I met their drummer when I noticed equipment boxes saying "Sister Machine Gun" and inquired about it to some roadies.
Early in the evening Apartment 26 took to the "thrid" stage, aka a fold out U-Haul. Yet their energy level on stage was over the top. The bassist can pull some truly evil looking faces with his hollow-blue eyes and long, ponytailed blond hair. Meanwhile, Biff, the lead singer, seemed a bit feral with no shirt on and an excited look in his eyes, as he ran around the stage and jumped on the speakers covered in glistening sweat. At one point, he also crawled up a band of speakers, trying to get to the top of the trailer/stage. He was unsuccessful despite help from a roady, so he crawled back down.
Apt. 26 never slowed down during the 30 minute show in 95+ degree weather, to which Biff commented "I'm from England, and it's never this hot there." His British accent is unnoticable in the band's vocals. During the last song, Biff jumped onto the inch wide barricade that separated the audience from the stage and finished from this vantage point, with help from those of us in the front row to maintain his balance.
Apt. 26 were also cool guys to talk to, as I talked to Sister Machine Gun's former drummer, now with Apt. 26, before the show, and Biff afterwards.
I asked Biff why the band didn't play "Doing It Anyway," to which he said "That's a club only song, so we can get some good lighting effects going on. I really like that song though."
Whoa! Lighting effects! It's hard to imagine these guys putting on a better show, but I guess it is possible, as the band ended by Biff running offstage and saying "We'd like to do one more song, our next single, but our 30 minutes here are up. Sorry."
The songs from the album are even harder in concert. I'll be sure to check these guys out the next time they come to the southeast...hopefully it'll be in a club, so I can hear "Doing It Anyway."
