I got this from here http://members.tripod.com/~voodooglowskulls/warpedtour2000.html

Vans Warped Tour 2000 - New York, NY 
July 24th, 2000 - Randall's Island


Review By: Gary


It was almost that time again. Time for the Warped Tour 2000, but I didn't fell the way I had felt in previous years. This year I was reluctant about going. I had mixed emotions...on one hand the Warped Tour has some pretty good bands and can be a day of fun...but on the other hand the tour has changed and become way to big...so big that last year they decided to add rap artists. I have nothing against rap or other styles of music for that matter (however I don't like rap either), but I do have a problem with including rap on a PUNK ROCK tour (through out this review I will say all punk rock and by this I mean punk, ska, hardcore, oi, and closely related types of music). A matter of fact I think everyone including you, me, punk fans, the punk bands on the tour, and even the owners should have a big problem with hiring rap groups for what is supposed to be a punk rock tour. They not only did this last year but they went out and did it again this year. I guest they figure that they can make more money by including different types of music because this will draw a bigger crowd. But when you look at this crowd what do you see? Well if you didn't go then I'll tell you what you see...a large group of people at the concert are even "punks"...and they are ruining the tour. 


With all of that said I got to the concert at about 12 like the ticket says, and there is a line about the size of a few football fields. And come to find out this isn't the ticket line, this is a line just to walk into the place. The staff had no clue what was going on, all of them saying that the concert starts at different times. I've never been to something so unorganized. At about 1:30 I finally got into the concert and I had already missed two bands. Last year I only had to wait 15 minutes to get in, this year I was waiting for an hour and a half! That is just ridiculous.


Anti-Flag was playing at the time. They really got the police's attention when they said "F**k Police Brutality" and then began playing a song about it. Talking about police there were a few hundred offices at this show, which was a lot more than the previous Warped Tour's I had gone to in Northampton, MA. They don't have it there anymore. I guest it's because they want to play in bigger cities to attract more people. The Suicidal Tendencies played next. I only watched them for a little while but did notice that they had a large circle pit. I watched them for a little while then began to walk around to see all of the booths.


Many of the people at the booths could care less about you. They are ruid and arrogant. At the Epitaph booth the people there were friendly and very nice. They were giving away free tapes and stickers. But it wasn't like that at the Nitro booth. My friend went to buy a CD at Side One Dummy Records, a few of the dollars were folded so the guy flipped out and said "Don't do that man, Don't live your life like a slob" and he continued on like an asshole, but we walked away. It's funny how people bitch about Epitaph because they are a big punk label, but they remain as enthusiastic as they were when they first started. A word to the wise to bands and labels, the people at your booths represent you. You could be the nicest band in the world, but if the people in your booths are ruid and arrogant that is how we picture you. The way those people act is the picture we take home with us at the end of the day.


I was very supprised to see The Mighty Mighty Bosstones play at 3. At the 1998 Warped Tour they were the headlining band and played last. This year they should have played later. They played very good, but I was disappinted that I could barely hear their singer Dicky Barrett. The sound guy should have turned up his mic. He was very funny and was making jokes throughout their set. During the Impression That I Get they let members of the audience on stage to dance. The Boostones were definitely one of the best bands I saw all day.


Up next was Save Ferris. I didn't think they were good at all. Actually they weren't even supposed to be there. Their singer Monique Powell was making stupid jokes that weren't even nearly funny so I began to walk around again. This is when I got something to eat. The food prices were outrageous. It cost $3 for a bottle of water. At a store it would cost $1 or less. For a cup of french fries it was $4, and I am really glad I changed my mind about getting the pizza. After looking at it you could tell that it wasn't fully cooked and the cheese wasn't even melted. $5 for a half cooked small pizza is just ridiculous. Most of the people buying it thru it on the ground because it was so disgusting and they wouldn't give you a refund either. Talking about the ground I wouldn't want to be the person cleaning it up. From the look of it you would think that no one knew how to use a trash can. The only problem was that there were only a few trach cans and they were all full. If the concert was planned better the clean up wouldn't be such a big problem.


While all this was going on about 200 fed up people tiried of waiting in line to get into the place crashed the gates. Only to hear tour promoter Kevin Lyman say through his bullhorn "There are cops on horseback here and these cops have guns. They're gonna shoot three of you just as examples." First of all that was a f**ked up thing to say, and isn't something to joke about. This guy must be a real prick. I also wasn't surprised to hear that the gates were crashed. If the concert was more organized and people weren't waiting in line for hours, which is just ridiculous, then none of this would have happened.


I was very dissapointed to see the next act, Jurrasic 5, play because they are a rap group. They played at around 5:30 which was after many punk bands which were 100 time better than them. Nofx was playing after them so when they said "throw your hands in the air" everyone waiting to see Nofx flicked them off. Then they made a comment about the type of music on the tour and they called it alternaive. Another thing that was very annoying was that they kept turning up the volume. At one point you could hear the speakers making weird noises. I thought they were horrible and don't believe rap artists should be on the Warped Tour.


Nofx played next and I was very relieved to hear their music rather than rap. They played a very good set. They played one song because someone made a sign for it, and made many jokes throughout their set. It almost seemed like they wasted most of their time making jokes which was bad because they only played a few songs, but their performance was still good. Nofx drew one of the biggest crowds of the day along with one of the largest moss pits.


Snapcase played after Nofx but I was sitting down during their performance because my feet were tired from walking around all day. I didn't really get to see them but I did notice that they had a huge circle pit going.


The Long Beach Dub All Stars were a band that I had never heard before but I wanted to watch them because I was curious to see what they would be like. I was very suprised to hear them come on stage and play Sublime. I know that two of the members of Sublime are in the band but I expected them to play their own music. Come to find out their set was made up of about 98% or Sublime songs. I didn't like the fact that they were using Sublime to make themselves bigger and they played the Sublime songs pretty poorly.


Green Day, the band that I was waiting to see all was up next, and let me tell you the wait was well worth it. They did play a lot of their popular songs but that was ok. When they played knowledge by Operation Ivy a guitarist from the audience was picked and brought on stage to play. After the song they made him stage dive into the crowd below. At 8 singer/guitarist Billy Joe Armstrong asked how much time they had left, someone on stage told him they were out of time but he said "I don't care we're going to keep playing." I was suprosed that the biggest band there was the only band that wasn't worried about the 30 minute time limit, which shows that they aren't there just for the money. I was glad that they continued to play for a total of 45 minutes. At the end of their set drummer Tre Cool knocked over his drum set and then lit it on fire. Green Day was definiatly the best performance of the day.


The last band to play was Mxpx which was very suprising. I noticed that they had gotton bigger since the last time I had seen them. At the begining of Mxpx's set I walked over to their tent expecting to meet them after they played because there were flyers posted that said they would be at their tent after their performance but apparently they canceled that so I went back to the stage and continued to watch them. You could barely hear the guitar, when Tom was playing a solo you couldn't even hear it. I left while they were playing because they weren't as good as when I had seen them two years before.


All in all this concert had many bad aspects to it along with some good ones but mostly bad ones. Some of the bad things were the ticket price increased $8 this year from $22 last year to $30 this year, $3 for water!, very long line to get in, ruid people at booths, rap bands, the tour promoter threating that the police were going to shot people, the concert was very unorganized, and the fact that more than five of the bands advertised to be there weren't there such as The Hippos, Papa Roach, and others. And those were just some of the problems. Overall I guest the show was worth it but if all of these problems exist in the future I am going to have to start finding new tours to go to such as Punk-O-Rama which is an all Punk tour.