This weekend, Warped Tour made its triumphant return for its 30th anniversary with it's first stop in Washington D.C., and we sent promo teamer Nick Polis down to check it out!
Nick's Thoughts
The weekend is over, and saying I am beat is an understatement. Talking with fellow fans, the start of day 2 of 2 was slow going, not at the fault of the Warped Tour. A full day of the signature Warped sound running around an even bigger festival ground than normal would tire anyone, not to mention the "Warped Tour Afters" after show that many went to, then to come back and do it all over again, it took a toll. The ambition from 11 am to see this band, then go see a few songs from them and then run across the grounds to catch the end of another very quickly turned to "wait, I have to WALK over there? I'll just finish this set instead".
Again, that isn't anything to do with the tour, because right out of the gate, they had some high-energy bands kicking the day off. With bands like Knuckle Puck and Miss May I playing early, that exhaustion went away extremely fast and was replaced by the excitement of round two in D.C.
The second day was more of the same as the day before. And by that, I mean Warped Tour nostalgia on steroids. Many of the bands continued to talk about how grateful they were to not only have their home for the summer start up again, but to be asked to play the return.
Day two I feel was the stronger day in terms of how many conflicts I ran into, with classic bands like Bowling For Soup and Pennywise overlapping, and one of my favorite new bands, Angel Du$, starting at the same time as the night's headliner Avril Lavigne. I did what I could to see everything, but at the end of the day, it's Warped Tour and you have to make set-time sacrifices.
Sadly, while we got lucky the first day with the weather as well as most of the second, an occasional drizzle turned into actual rain towards the end of Pennywise's set and went through the rest of the festival. However, I feel that the rain makes festivals and concerts in general a better experience. Phones get put away, the people who aren't having fun flock to either the exits or to hide under cover, and everyone left in the crowd either covers with a poncho or accepts their fate. Everyone is in the mess together, and the sense of togetherness grows, and when the rain starts with a cover of "Stand By Me" and goes right into "Bro Hymn", that togetherness absolutely peaked.
Warped Tour has always been about its community. From the blood drives before the shows even start, to the canned food or money donation at the gate, to the sponsors and local vendors inside. After Warped Tour went away a few years ago, followed so closely by a full shutdown of the industry, that sense of community fractured and faded from festivals and tours. This weekend, standing in the middle of the crowd staring at that inflatable wall, or in the middle of a crowd singing old summer anthems, I felt that community once again. And as Asking Alexandria, Scene Queen, and Avril Lavigne finished their sets and the whole venue emptied out, despite trekking through mud and hidden puddles, the crowd was cheering, yelling, and chanting just for walking back to their cars. It really was a celebration of, as the pack of stickers I picked up says, "punk rock & parking lots for 30 years & counting." Hopefully, emphasis on the "& counting."
More information about the Vans Warped Tour can be found at vanswarpedtour.com.
Want to stay up to date on the Vans Warped Tour in D.C. this year? Click HERE to see more of Team DHA's Nick Polis' coverage of the festival!
