when i woke up in hawthorne,
i took ocean down to the fairground to see everyone
so beautiful that i drown in the waves of the haircuts
spin kicks and jumps
well i got my bottled water and my nachos,
it came in under twenty bucks
i got this bad taste in the back of my mouth
from my time on the back of a bus
this summer vacation, it's cheap and it's true
it's ideals are intact, it's the best we can do
this time you turn into your own enemy
not sell outs but dictated economies
So if the name doesn't point it out, I guess I will have to. This post is about the Warped Tour. Most specifically why I didn't go this year, and why I prolly won't go next year. And now that some people have hit the comment button already to write something stupid, im gonna start writing.
I chose not to go to the Warped Tour quite a while before it even rolled around. At first, I was excited, like always, to see who was on the bill. Only then was I a bit distraught over the fact that the only band I would want to see was Against Me! and The Bouncing Souls. That was my first push away from it.
As summer came and progressed, I came to fall in love with a new band, The Lawrence Arms. And the possibility of ever seeing them play the warped tour was pretty much impossible as they were kicked off and banned from the tour in 2004 for talking shit about how absurd the idea of the Warped Tour is. Brenden Kelley, bassist/vocalist for The Lawrence Arms said this...
Warped Tour, it’s destroying the economy of DIY; and it’s doing it very methodically and very successfully in that [the] summer touring season used to involve a bunch of bands, like Alkaline Trio for example, jumping on buses and taking smaller bands, like us and The Black Maria for example, on tour. There would be all these bands that would do that, so all these support bands would have great tours to go on. Kids in every town would have a bunch of different shows to go see, like over the summer. Small clubs would have big, good shows at least once a week if not twice a week, three times a week; and kids would have stuff to do. Now, all those big bands go on the Warped Tour. When they come to town, it’s for one day. It’s in a band shell, small clubs all across the US are closing down, they can’t afford to be open. Bands like us have to tour against the Warped Tour, which sucks; or tour on the Warped Tour, which sucks even more.
Now, I am an intelligent human being and I know not to form my own opinions based on what other people say or thing. But upon seeing a different view of it, it made me start thinking about it, and the whole notion of punk rock as well. I find it all to be very hypocritical.
Now, there are two ways I could go with this, I could sound like the punk rock idealist and say that everyone is a poser and fuck everything OR the crazy punk rocker who just says fuck everything and then tries to pick a fight with you. I am going to do neither, but I do want to do one thing, convince people that I do not want to be associated with the punk rock mentality, I have grown past that.
Now, this doesn't mean that I no longer enjoy punk music, that is nowhere near true. I just think that having a mentality that says that all corporations and capitalism is a bad thing doesn't make sense to me anymore,especially when these same people are buying their clothes at Hot Topic (which is owned by Abercrombie and Fitch), smoking cigarettes (which are some of the most evil of corporations out there), and going to the Warped Tour which is sponsored by such "evil" corporations (Ticketmaster/Clear Channel anyone???).
Now, for those people who do like the music on the Warped Tour, good riddance, you have one up on me, pay your $40 and go see the bands you like, have a great time, but please don't bug me about it, I really don't want anything to do with it anymore.
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