Warped Tour

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Warped Tour is a touring music and ethnic food extreme sports festival. The tour is held in venues (generally parking lots or fields upon which the stages and other structures are erected) with capacities which range from 10,000 to 30,000. The skateboarding shoe manufacturer Vans has sponsored the tour every year since 1995 and it is often referred to as the Vans Warped Tour.

In recent years, the Warped Tour has featured as many as 100 bands per show. The bands play for up to 30 minutes over approximately 10 different stages, although the biggest bands generally play the two "Main" stages. A typical day would have bands starting at 11:00am and end at 9:00 p.m. with several bands playing at once. The individual band times and stages where each band play is marked on a large board usually centered in the middle of the venue. The full area is set up to prevent music from one stage disrupting other active stages. One band, by fan vote, is allowed to play ten extra minutes at each show. Every year there is a "BBQ Band," which, in exchange for the privilege of playing on the tour, must prepare food for the bands and crew for the barbeque which is held most evenings.^[1] The tour started as a skate punk, and third wave ska tour, but in recent years has featured mostly post-hardcore, pop punk, and metalcore acts.

1 History
2 Tours
3 Band conflicts
4 Criticism
5 Compilations
6 In popular culture
7 References
8 External links

[edit] History

The Warped Tour was created in 1994 by Kevin Lyman, who got the idea while working on skateboarding shows—such as the Vision Skate Escape and Holiday Havoc—which included music with skateboarding contests. The Warped name comes from the short-lived Warp Magazine published by Transworld—it tried to combine surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, and music into one glossy package.

In 1998, the tour went international—including venues in Australia, Japan, Europe, and the United States.

In 1999, the tour started off in New Zealand and Australia in the New Year. It then started up again in the United States for the northern hemisphere summer—before ending up in Europe.

As well as music, this tour brings many attractions including a half pipe for skaters and bikers. The tour also features many booths creating a flea market like atmosphere, having tents for each of the bands to sell merchandise, independent record labels, magazine publishers, non-profit organizations, and sponsors looking to market their products to the tour's audience.

Sponsors are a vital part of the Vans Warped Tour as the revenue they provide subsidizes many of the tour's expenses—allowing ticket prices to be kept relatively low.

As one of the most successful North American concert tours, The Vans Warped Tour continues to prosper selling over 500,000 tickets a year.

[edit] Tours

See also: Previous Warped Tour bands

[edit] Band conflicts

A few bands have left the tour due to conflicts they had with the tour or with other bands:

The Vandals were asked to leave after Joe Escalante called members of Good Charlotte, "faggots", resulting in a fistfight.
The band Guttermouth was supposedly removed from the 2004 Warped Tour for insulting My Chemical Romance. The band later stated that they left themselves due to "that '10 or so' unnamed bands didn't jive with Guttermouth's way of doing business, and in some cases, threatened them with violence."^[2]
On the 2005 Calgary date, the singer of Calentura alleged that she had been raped. Her band quit the tour shortly after this.^[3] No arrests have resulted.
In 2006 NOFX frontman Fat Mike was making fun of Underoath and their religious beliefs and criticizing their stance on gay marriage, but emphasised that he befriended Underoath's band members at the start of the tour, had very civilized conversations with various members right up to Underoath's departure.^[4] A statement from the band claimed that the members "felt it necessary to take some immediate time to focus on our friendship, as that’s more important than risking it for the sake of touring at this time."
According to Fat Mike, on the 2006 tour, From First to Last was upset about not being able to play before 2:00pm on the main stage, and refused to play if they were not guaranteed that.^[5] From First to Last stated they left the tour due to vocalist Sonny Moore having nodes on his vocal chords.

[edit] Criticism

Joe Queer of The Queers stated, "You play music because there’s something inside of you that says you have to play music. Now you get bands like Fall Out Boy that are basically created in the studio. The Warped Tour changed it. I just don’t like that shit. All the guys in the bands remind me of the jocks I hated in high school. Fuck it, I’m not going. To me a punk gig is a small sweaty club with the audience right in your face knocking over the mic stand and boogying off the energy."^[6]

The band Propaghandi lashes out at the tour in their song "Rock for Sustainable Capitalism", which contains lyrics categorising the tour's bands as "shitty" and criticising the Vans sponsorship due to the Vans company's use of foreign labor.

In 2006, NOFX's Fat Mike commented on the number of Christian rock bands playing the tour, stating, "We’re on the Warped Tour this year, and if there is a prayer group, we are gonna destroy it. It really makes me sick to my stomach to have a big punk rock tour with a prayer group on it."^[7]

Brendan Kelly of The Lawrence Arms said that it kills smaller concert venues, since all the big bands go on one tour together. The band alleges that this also caused The Lawrence Arms to get permanently banned from Warped Tour when Brendan Kelly said this on stage. On The Lawrence Arms 2006 album Oh! Calcutta! there is a song entitled "Warped Summer Extravaganza (Major Excellent)," a reference to the band's experiences on the Warped Tour.

[edit] Compilations

Every year, a record label draws songs released by many of the bands that perform during the Warped Tour, and release them in an Warped Tour Compilation. The compilations have been released by SideOneDummy Records. The 2006 edition started what will hopefully be a new trend: It was released before the Warped Tour actually started. This allowed people to buy the CD, listen to the songs, and choose which bands they would want to hear if and when they go to their stop on the tour. The following is a list of links to the individual Warped Tour Compilations:

2006 Warped Tour Compilation
2005 Warped Tour Compilation
2004 Warped Tour Compilation
2003 Warped Tour Compilation
2002 Warped Tour Compilation
2001 Warped Tour Compilation

[edit] In popular culture

Punk Rock Holocaust, a comedy slasher picture, was filmed principally at the 2003 Warped Tour.

A DVD about the experiences of a PETA representative while advocating for his organization on the Warped Tour, Wake Up Screaming^[8], was created after the 2005 tour.

The Warped Tour is mentioned in blink-182's song, "The Rock Show", in "So Sick of You" from The Unseen, and in "Rock for Sustainable Capitalism" by Propagandhi.

The Warped Tour is featured as a venue in the game Guitar Hero 2 in the location of Austin, TX -- which ironically has not had a Warped Tour date scheduled in several years.