Vans Warped Tour ‘06 Entertainment Art First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre Chicago, Ill. July 30, 2006

We next started looking for the Casualties on the Teddy Bear stage. Difficult to find at first because no where on the stage does it actually say "Teddy Bear." Apparently you needed to look very closely to notice the low contrast bear drawing backdrop on the top left of the stage, and also realize the two outdoor main stages have different backdrops. So it took us the first few hours we were there just to figure out the layout. The staff was very quick to point us where we were going, however 4 out of 4 times that we followed these instructions they were wrong.

Sound on the Teddy Bear stage, as with most of the outdoor stages was surprisingly good considering it was A) outdoors, and B) a punk rock show. As for the Casualties themselves, while they were never one of my favorite bands, hell I never really liked them at all, I do have adolescent memories of listening to the Casualties while in the back of my friends' cars. They played a pretty standard set as far as punk rock goes, and talked about some usual punk rock clinches, but the kids ate it up and the mosh pit rated 3 out of 5 on the violence scale.

While wandering around learning where the stages were, I caught some of Tat on the elusive Shira Girl Stage. They're touring over here, hailing from across the pond, and they brought some good stuff with them. No mosh action in the crowd, but I was impressed by their set. Sound on the Shira Girl stage was pretty good as well, though it had the least volume of all the stages.

After that I went and checked out a band I actually did like in my adolescence. So I was back to the Teddy Bear Stage for The Living End performance. While I'm not following these guys anymore, their live show is still something to see. I've never been witness to anyone else that can play an upright bass that well, or throw one around so much while playing it.

To keep busy I went and investigated Emanuel and Stretch Armstrong back to back on the Vagrant and Volocom stages respectively. These stages were set up side by side in the actual pavilion so that one stage could be setting up while a band was performing on the other. That's a bad idea in my opinion. I could hear the drummer from one band checking his drums while the other band was performing.

Also, the acoustics in the pavilion are just terrible. The only way it sounds remotely good in there is if you're up close enough to the stage not to hear the acoustics. But it still goes bad because they didn't have any subwoofers near the center of the stage, so you couldn't feel any bass unless you were on the far edge of either side of the stage. The main stage was cool if you managed to get a spot on the far edge and were able to see everything was alright, but standing anywhere else the sound sucked.

Emanuel played some kind of generic melodic hardcore that I was starting to get into. Stretch Armstrong played tough guy, probably straightedge hardcore and sounded exactly like every other band that I've ever heard from that genre. Maybe I just don't get the genre as a whole but I have to give it a thumbs down. Surprisingly enough, the mosh rating for the hardcore bands was only about a 1 on the violence scale. The music seems so much more angry than punk rock, but the kids just weren't getting into it at Warped.

There wasn't anything else interesting until Joan Jett and the Blackhearts played, which was a real treat. They were over on the Teddy Bear stage so everything sounded perfect, I recognized some songs, and they just rocked. I don't remember the crowd reaction very well because I was so immersed in the show. After Joan I tried to give a fair chance to the pink spiders, but my two word review of that band is "nothing special."

Anti-Flag followed Pink Spiders on the Jack-in-the-Box Stage. I haven't seen AF in probably 6 years, and the band hasn't changed at all. Same message, same speeches, same songs, not that there's anything wrong with that, I loved them when I was 16. But AF just kind of lost their appeal as I matured. I left Anti-Flag early to head over and see the Groodies on the Shiria Girl Stage.

The Groodies rule, I knew that before I went to warped tour, so I was really happy to see a good crowd for them and some people were even singing along. For the Groodies, I guess all I'll say is that I grew up on punk rock, and with a few exceptions , I really don't go out to punk rock shows anymore, but the girls in the Groodies rock hard enough to bring me out time and time again. I like things I'm familiar with so this was the highlight of the show for me.

Once the Groodies were finished I rushed over to see what I could of Against Me on the Teddy Bear Stage. From what I've been told, their new stuff doesn't seem to have the same effort put into it as their old songs have, but luckily I missed the new stuff and mostly only heard old songs. It's some straight up punk with a folk feel to it that really caught my ear. I wouldn't go out of my way to find them again but I had a good time while I was there.

I stuck around the Teddy Bear for NOFX, who played some old songs and brought out feelings of nostalgia in me. The mosh pit was kicking it up to 4 on the violence scale for these punk rock veterans. My favorite part was when Fat Mike was defending statements he made earlier in the tour by stating he didn't have anything against Christians or God, he was just trying to say Christian bands are totally ridiculous. (Underoath was on the tour too).

The last band I saw that night was Chicago native Rise Against. If NOFX's mosh pit was a 4 out of 5, Rise Against somehow pulled a 6 – the whole place went nuts. I remember seeing their first few shows and I never had any idea the band would grow to get this good or get this big. They energy in their performance was awesome, and I was really digging their new material, but feeling old and out of place I couldn't stick around for their whole set. My body was ravaged by the entire day of running around in the sun, trying to take in as many bands as humanly possible.

During my departure I thought about how I felt like an outsider this year. I remember going to the Warped Tour when I was younger, and it was an escape from everything I hated about the suburbs for a whole day. I got to get away from school, and my parents, and spend a whole day with close friends surrounded by peers from all the surrounding states. Peers I could actually identify with, which I didn't have a lot of when I was 16. It was a great time when I was younger, but it's a scene I've outgrown by the ripe old age of 23. I'm going to pass my Warped Tour torch to the kids from now on.

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