WARPED
TOUR
Seaside Park;
Ventura, CA; 06/29/01
Reviewed by Pud
The greatest touring punk show on earth came through Ventura today, bringing established stars like Rancid, 311 and Pennywise as well as up and comers like The Army of Freshman, The Ataris, and Good Charlotte.
Armed with back stage passes (thanks to my wife, who "disappeared" for 10 minutes only to return with them. You do the math on that one) I began to check out the five stages rocking non stop.
Hosting more than 35 bands, this show was every punker's Christmas morning. One of the best things about the Warped Tour is that every year some band comes out of nowhere to just kick some serious ass. Last year it was Weezer and this year it was two bands.
The first artists(?) to make an impact on the huge crowd was FEAR. These punk legends have been around since you were listening to the Partridge Family. Though FEAR never got Big Time famous, they are royalty in the punk community. Today they showed why. They fucking blew the kiddies away. They played all the hits and showed that they can still be viable to the punk rock community though they are in their forties. Always the gentleman, Lee Ving asked the crowd to show their boobies, but alas, only my wife complied. As a surprise, Red Hot Chili Pepper Flea joined the band to play bass on a few tunes too! That didn't suck.
Seeing a lapse in security, the wife, kid and I snagged a very cool spot on stage, off to the side for the next band, Rancid. These Bay area punks were billed as one of the headliners, and they quickly set a tone of frantic rebellion to show why they belong on top of the hill. Rancid is a punk rockers' punk band. They absolutely stuck every tune with precision and soul. But their real strength is engaging the crowd as equals. Guitarist Lars Frederickson even commended Ventura/Oxnard for its legendary punk scene featuring Aggression, Dr. Know and the ever-acclaimed Ill Repute. To top it off, after they played, they jumped off the stage and went to their booth to talk to fans and sell t-shirts. Very cool.
Other bands kicked ass too, but I'm getting tired of writing. There were tats and boobs everywhere, blah blah blah, go see it for yourself you metal heads, You'll have fun. Punk rules!
For more information, please visit http://www.warpedtour.com.
Back to RoughEdge.com Home Page
Copyright © 2001 by R. Scott Bolton. All rights reserved.
Revised: 06 Oct 2019 11:48:57 -0400.
