The Triangle

Issue date: 7/31/09 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Anna Clay

Tons of musical tours pass through cities every month. Different festivals occur year after year. However, none of these events are quite like the Vans Warped Tour. It simultaneously qualifies as both a tour and a festival that sweeps through North America each summer. To many music lovers, it is an integral part of their summer. It possesses a great diversity of musicians that other tours and festivals lack and musicians on Warped treasure.

"I wish there [were] more tours going on where the bands were really different, super eclectic, so it would attract more kids," VersaEmerge's lead vocalist, Sierra Kusterbeck said.

The tour celebrated its 15th anniversary this summer. Founded by Kevin Lyman, the tour started out with mostly punk and ska bands but has since evolved into a unique showcase of many genres. Despite how long the tour has run, according to Senses Fail guitarist, Garrett Zablocki, Warped has remained the same at the core, except for some musical trends.

"It's kind of the same thing but I guess because we've done it so long and been a band so long [we have] actually start[ed] seeing changes in styles of music that are popular."

Sometimes those changes are not very welcome. The artists that join Vans Warped Tour and return to it for more summers seem to pride themselves on a sense of musical integrity. Auto-tune and meaningless lyrics just don't cut it for some of the tour's veterans.

"[There are] a lot more bands screaming over hip-hop beats and dance beats which is the most ridiculous thing in the world," Bayside's drummer, Chris Guglielmo said, "I cannot believe even one person listens to them."

Despite the displeasure many musicians are showing towards 2009's musical trends, the tour continues to be the summer camp bands claim it to be. More friends than enemies are made on the tour between different bands. Kusterbeck, a first timer on Warped, was surprised by the great friendships she was making so easily, and vocalist and guitarist Tatiana DeMaria, of English band TAT, praised how great of a community the tour is.

"It really is like summer camp … You see us, all of us, sitting there, like, chanting along to everybody else. We'll go side stage and watch our favorite bands, enjoy it. It's a community. We play silly pranks on each other. It's really, really wonderful," she said.

Beyond the music, there is the crew. There are people who set up the stages, work at the merch booths, and make sure everything else about the tour is running smoothly. They are as much as part of the VWT family as the bands. Drexel University music industry major, Kristin Biskup, is spending her summer after freshman year out on the tour working. After years of being in the crowd, she has been able to see the tour in a new way.

Continued...

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