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Vans Warped Tour July 6th and 7th 2006
So i (jonnyhavoc) has decided that i am going to have everyone write there own stories about vans warped tour here, insted of my own perspective, well have all of ours!
So i will start,
The night before (july 5th) rick, mike, and barry came to my house. We stayed up allllllll night making cds and printing our shirts. ckecking for last minute things. I think rick got about 45 min of sleep. more then the rest of us! Well we drove from buena park to chula vista. its in san diago, almost to mexico, 2 hours later we were there. Mexican Food, 7-11, Park, Wate, Drink, Skate. One thing we forgot or dident bring was a dolly and or a wagon. at chula vista there was a big hill and a little walk. let me tell you. that was a pain in the ass...So we were shanging out with i am ghost and a band from austraila (cant rember there name). in the mean time rick and i went to see Anti-Flag. They played an amazing show. it was my first time seeing them live, screeming there chants, moshing, it was great. i deffently want to see them again. after that we also saw SKINT, falter, cold fusion, ROCKET (girl band that was amazing) and a few others. We had to be on at 3:40 i bleave. We played out of control, poridge, P.K.F... 2 acoustic songs and PENGUINS. OH OH AND RIGHT BEFORE PENGUINS WAS OVER AND THEY WERE STILL IN THE MIDDLE OF THERE LAST ACOUSTIC SONG SOME DRUNK GIRL GOT UP ON STAGE AND STARTED PLAYING MY DRUMS. I ASKED HER IF SHE HAD TO PLAY FOR ME BECAUSE I SUCKED... SHE SAID YEA! I YANKED THE DRUMS STICKS OUT OF HERE HANDS!!!! allright We played a good set, met lots of kool people, food was great. But the ride home was no good. rick drove and he almost feel asleep a few times... but we made it home safe. The band all met at my house for some sleep. about 15 minutes home we all were out like a light!!!!!!!!
So day 2 (july 7th) We slept in till about 7 or so i dont rember. got to pomona a little bit earley it was nice. So we mooved all of our equipment (this time i brought a dolly) and got all of our stuff to the hottopic stage, passes out about 100 flyers saying what time we were going to be on the HT stage. 5 min. later this lady comes up to us and tells us that we are being moved to the famly stage. it was a little tent with some carpet. right nextt o the bathrooms. it was shitty, lame, but it was the best stage there forsure. the most punk one at least. i was happy to play there. Today we played at 1:30, played a few extra songs including one we made up on stage! i got to see the i saw antiflag walking around, moshed for less then jake. almost broke my wrist, drank a lot fo beer, passed out countless flyers. I think i liked the seccond day better.... more people, and funner people. yes!!!!!!! Sorry for any spelling errors. i am exosted from playing and have no idea why i am still up... good night -jonnyhavoc
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I think I (Barry "The Bear" Levine) will pick up this blog next. Our Warped Tour was very educational about the realities of being on a big show. I know the old stereotype of the rock 'n roll life is that it's all fun and parties. Boy is that wrong! Yeah, it was a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of work, and it can take a lot out of you. If you have to travel hundreds of miles between shows you won't exactly be in a "party all night" mood. I thought the best way to show how strenuous it can be is to give a diary of the first day of our stint, showing what really happened. So here goes:
Warped Tour Diary for Thursday, July 6th:
1:10 AM Mike picked me up at my house and we drove down to Jon's place in Buena Park where we spent the night. We got there around 1:50 or so and tried to crash for a couple of hours. Rick was the only one of us who actually got any sleep, getting a whopping whole 45 minutes of shuteye.
4:00 AM Time to wake up, get ready, load up all of our gear and go.
5:00 AM We hit the road for the drive to San Diego. There were already a lot of vehicles on the freeway, even that early, but we managed to make it down to San Diego without running into heavy traffic, arriving around 7:00 AM or so.
7:30 AM Breakfast at a local 24 Mexican place.
8:00 AM Drive on to a back lot at Coors Amphitheatre to wait for check-in. By now the clouds of the morning are burning off and the sun is breaking through.
8:30 AM With the sun finally out it's time to apply copious amounts of sunblock to our bodies. However the very top of my forehead was unreachable due to my mohawk being spiked up, and, sure enough, I got a nice red spot there.
9:00 AM Check-in at the back gate to get our band credentials. That goes smoothly.
9 - 10:30 AM Moving our gear from our cars to the area near our stage. Since we didn't have a dolly or cart we loaded stuff up on Rick's and Jon's skateboards and pushed everything to the Hot Topic Stage tent where we stored it. It took a couple of trips to get everything.
10:30 AM We get our set time: 3:25 PM. We also get our dinner tickets.
11:00 AM The gates open and the audience starts streaming in! It was right around now that I went to the front to get my press credential so I could interview bands for my show at KSCR.
12:00 PM So we're all wandering around the Warped Tour area, and somehow we all separately wind up at the DIY stage where we saw this really good band called Skint playing. They're from Utah, and they're really hard.
12:30 PM Off to see Anti-Flag on one of the main stages. Rick and Jon enter the central pit and are throwing out leaflets all over the place. I saw some guy being busted by security. I don't why, or what he was on, but three security guys were having trouble wrestling him across the grounds to wherever it was they were taking him. Anti-Flag rocked, as they always do. Kind of scary to think that a song they wrote 9 years ago ("Die For Your Government") is even more timely now than it was when they first wrote it.
1:00 PM Back to the press area to find out when bands will be giving interviews. The press room is nice; it's inside, has fans, and a real bathroom.
1 - 2:30 PM Hanging out, checking out other bands and booths, passing out flyers, drinking water, drinking beer, just chilling.
2:30 PM With less than an hour until our set I tape an interview with Page Hamilton of Helmet. He's really tall, and very laidback. Had to cut the interview short at the end to get back to our stage.
2:55 PM We start moving our gear out from under the HT Stage tent to near the ramp up to the stage so we can move it on to the stage as soon as the band before us finishes its set and clears out.
3:25 PM We move our stuff on to the stage and start setting up. That actually goes pretty quickly and were ready by:
3:35 PM WE ROCK OUT!!!!!!
3:55 PM Set's over and we move our stuff off of the stage and back to the HT tent. More drinking of beer and water ensues.
4:15 PM Back to the press room where I interview Anti-Flags #2, and give him a couple of our demo CDs.
5:15 We all go to dinner (one of the perks of being in a Warped Tour band is getting free food). The food is actually pretty good. We're all pretty tired by now so we decide to pack up our stuff after we eat.
6 - 7:00 PM It takes a couple of trips to get everything back to our cars, and this time we have to deal with moving everything through the crowds packing the place.
7:10 PM (or so) The drive back begins. Everyone is fighting sleep at some point. Jon has to talk a lot to keep Rick (who's driving one car) awake. Mike can't remember 40 miles of the trip (his odometer goes from 180 to 220 apparently in an instant) while I nod off constantly, which is not easy with a mohawk spiked out behind me.
8:45 PM Arrival back at Jon's place. By now we've all been up for a day and half straight without sleeping. We all crashed pretty damn quickly!
Friday, July 7th The second day was much like the first, except that since the show was in Pomona it was only about 20 - 30 minutes away from Jon's house so we were able to sleep in until 6:30 AM. Also we got moved to a different stage and had to rewrite our flyers on the spur of the moment. But we stayed a little later and saw a few more bands than on day 1. We got back to Jon's house in the early evening and chilled for a while, but we were all too tired to really party hard. Mike got me back to my apartment at about 11:40 PM that night, a bare forty-six and a half hours after we left; perhaps the most fully packed two days we've all had in a long time.
So that's that. It was definitely not all partying. There was a lot of work involved, and I have nothing but respect for the bands and the crews that can do the whole tour, or large parts of it. It requires a lot of stamina. But it was fun; it was a lot of fun! I wouldn't have missed one second of the experience.
Mike:
Rick:
12:41 AM
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