Warped Tour 2008 Day 1 (part 1?)

ah, yes, a long gap in posting, but this blog hasn't died yet. i've just been really busy with Rock for Justice, getting ready for Warped Tour.

you're probably thinking - Warped Tour? Didn't that happen earlier this summer?

The tour actually ends this Sunday, but we recently found out that we could get a few spots on the latter half of the tour - basically as many stops as we wanted, as a non profit. Since the tour had already started up by the time I found this out, we weren't able to officially join up with the tour as a non profit and we definitely didn't have the capital to be able to afford the bus and funds necessary to get across the country, we decided to just do the local dates - San Diego and LA.

San Diego was yesterday and it went pretty well.

I'm guessing I might post more on the tour later, which is why this is only a tentative part 1, but I felt a little like sharing my thoughts on this year's tour, apart from the non profit. The official blogs on the RFJ page will hopefully show photos/interviews/video of our experience on the tour, but they're posted as a collective opinion :) so this is me talking now…

This year's lineup, from a musical standpoint, was a little disappointing. I've never really been a fan of Warped Tour, to be honest, mostly because of the rampant commercialism. Festivals, of course, are always freaking sweet because they showcase a ton of bands in one place, for one price, but Warped takes it a step too far, in my opinion. The fact that every stage is sponsored and that banners and ads are everywhere takes a slight edge away from the rebellious, anti-establishment punk rock dream that Warped is still trying to live. The lineup this year didn't do much to help that. Again, from strictly a musical standpoint, the acts lacked the diversity of previous tour lineups and when you have Katy Perry playing the tour, you know that Warped has pretty much become for tours what MTV now is to music television - a celebration of the current trend among 12 - 18 year-olds. (Nothing against Katy - she is a cool girl, but just saying…a far cry from Rancid and NOFX.) This year, they had an Old School stage, which featured older acts and there were more veteran acts, like the Vandals or Horrorpops, but those stages had far less attendance than, say, Cobra Starship or Forever the Sickest Kids.


But, yeah, that's just as a musical critic. I wasn't there as a musical critic, but as a non profit, and, in that aspect, the tour pretty much rocked my face off. I have always appreciated the fact that Warped, more than other tours, has allowed non profits the opportunity to speak out on the entire tour. Since the tour caters more specifically to the younger generation, I think it's key for any non profit really to try for a spot on Warped. You will get to talk to and reach out to so many kids who may end up being the next world changers. And, as a huge part of Rock for Justice's mission statement is to raise up the people who think they can't help, Warped was an absolute blessing. So many people bought into what we were doing and were incredibly encouraging. Our booth didn't have much of a Rock for Justice presence, as we're still working on getting shirts and more event plans out, but we have brought our friends, the Give a Damn? documentary, on board and they pretty much pimped out our booth…in all, great success.

To get to talk to so many bands and to hear how many bands actually desired to step outside their music and use their positions of influence for good rocked. I've heard some depressing stuff about a lot of the bands on the tour and, so it was good to hear a lot of them step away from their diva or rockstar images. They might have been putting on a front for us, but I don't think that was it. The backstage area was such a chill environment, and myself and a few others spent a majority of our time back there, that we were literally hanging out with the bands - not hanging out in the sense of meeting them once at a concert, but spending some concentrated conversation and down time with them. It's hard to be fake then, in my opinion, and so that was very encouraging.

It was kind of a bummer to be denied video access, but that's going to come when we're back on the tour Sunday in LA. The venue put up restrictions to video crews at the last minute and there wasn't much the press company could do, so they just denied video access to all crews, except for the really major ones. Not a big loss - but we'll have to pack some acoustic performances and video interviews into one day now. I think it's do-able. We were done with all our interviews by 6 and we talked to quite a few bands.

I did keep thinking, however, about how much I wanted Rock for Justice to complete its mission of standing apart as a non profit that puts the tools for action into the hands of people. There are certain non profits (not to name any specifically) that had trendy shirts, tour with bands, and bump elbows with artists, but the actual mission of the organization is a little difficult to define. In some respects, the non profit becomes just another band - they get the benefits of being paid to travel on tours and hang with famous groups. I almost think that groups like this become their own celebrities. When a non profit conducts almost as many interviews as the bands that support it and when it has its own tour bus and uses its name to get into concerts for free - I think there's a problem. I want nothing more than to see Rock for Justice live out in the lives and hands of people who see its mission and are inspired. More on that later probably, but my one fear as I look beyond Warped Tour to RFJ's future is that this is as far as RFJ will go - that we might become a name-dropping organization that schmoozes with celebs, but doesn't bother to do legwork to actually help the organizations it is supposed to be helping raise awareness.

By now, I'm just aimlessly rambling, so time to cap off this post. I'll be back at Warped Tour on Sunday and I will definitely let more thoughts trickle out in the coming days. This is my personal blog, so while what I say may be a bit lengthy at times, I hope I can give a more intimate view on some of the behind the scenes work of what I'm doing.

until next times,

cheers,

-m