Vans Warped Tour 2010 - Monmouth Race Track

Dillinger Escape Plan

Story and photos by Jim Testa

The Warped Tour remains one of the last bastions of true egalitarianism - every band, from the loftiest headliner to the lowliest newbie, gets treated the same way: Names pulled from a hat every morning to set the schedule, and a half hour set for everyone. When idealism collides with reality, though, you can get some very messy results, and that's what happened at Monmouth Park. Our Jersey Beat crew - me, Phil Rainone, and Tim Norek - arrived at 12:30, not unreasonable given the announced 11 am starting time and the fact that we sat for an hour in unavoidable bumper-to-bumper traffic on Rte 36. But as we were picking up our passes, we could hear Reel Big Fish inside playing their last song, and when we got our first look at the schedule, we realized that we had already missed not just RBF but Andrew WK, Ace Enders' I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody's Business, The Rocket Summer, Taylor Momsen's Pretty Reckless, and Never Shout Never. Granted, not all of those bands were on my A-List, but you can bet that every one of them was on somebody's, and making bands like The Rocket Summer play at 10:30 am - when, one suspects, even the earliest arrivals were still getting their tickets scanned and their backpacks searched at the gate - just doesn't make sense.


The bearer of bad news

That said, this year's Warped Tour played out like most of the others I've been to. It certainly didn't look like the economy - or what many considered a very lackluster lineup - hurt the draw. The big stages still drew thousands and thousands of kids, along with the usual smattering of parents and press geezers like ourselves. (Tim, by far the youngest of our crew at 25, probably felt old among a small army of 'tweens and high schoolers.)

Welcome to the Vans Warped Tour

With no Bouncing Souls, no Bad Religion this year; with most of the classic punk acts - Fear, Dickies, Adolescents, Angry Samoans - having left the tour long before it got to New Jersey, I found myself roaming around looking for something to enjoy. AM Taxi, whom I had written off as a glossy major label pop act, actually caught my ear with a bit of Rise Against grit. Fight Fair, with two members taking advantage of the heat by showing off bodybuilder physiques, earned a nice response with their bouncy pop songs. All American Rejects played their big radio hits and the kids jumped up and down. A little gray hair didn't keep SoCal skatepunks Face To Face from inspiring a few circle pits. Alkaline Trio, Motion City Soundtrack, and Sum 41 all played late in the afternoon, making sure their fans got to see them. Of course, so did Confide, Call The Cops, After Midnight Projects, Left Alone, Dr. Madvibes, The Mighty Regis, The Sparring, and a few dozen other bands that no one ever heard of. Well, maybe the kids who missed Andrew WK or Rocket Summer got to discover their favorite new band.

As long as you remembered the sunscreen and had enough cash on hand to keep the $4 bottles of water coming, it was a fun day. Jersey Shows had a small tent set up near the entrance with winners of their local battle of the bands, and I saw some of my favorite bands of the day there -- a young pop act named The Call Out with great stage presence and some very catchy tunes (even their Michelle Branch cover worked somehow.)
I-Drive features Joe Grushecky's son, and if you've never heard of Grushecky, trust me when I tell you that his Iron City Houserockers were once considered potential heirs to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. His kid's band's not quite there yet; I found them a bit generic. But he's definitely got the old man's charisma.

I wish the luck of the draw didn't result in some of the most popular bands on the tour playing before most people could reasonably get to the venue; that might need to be rethought. On the other hand, Kevin Lyman and the other promoters are offering twice as many bands as Bamboozle for half the ticket cost. If you ran this thing sensibly, it really wouldn't be Warped Tour anymore, would it?

MORE PHOTOS

Fight Fair

I Drive (Pittsburgh)

The Call Out (Middletown NJ)

Jersey Beat crew Phil and Tim


The New Royalty (Freehold NJ)


The Call Out - Meet 'n' Greet