WARP TOUR

Today was the Vans Warp Tour in the Utah State Fair grounds in Salt Lake City, UT. I must say I was quite impressed with the bands there despite only being interested in a few of them. To say the least, it was a bitter-sweet experience however. Naturally I will begin at the beggining:

Last night I hardly slept (not even an hour), and the cause is most likely the pain. The Tour began at eleven but I carpooled with two girls (one driving) and another guy (a now exboyfriend of one of the girls) who each live in different cities so we had to leave a little earlier. The "nice" thing, or intitially, was that it was a linear pick-up system, i.e. the cities were relatively close to each other so it would be a fluid transisition in picking all of us up as we traveled to Salt Lake City (because all of us live progressively north of SLC.) However the "designated driver" had no idea where the other carpoolers lived so she came to my house first (which is intermediate of the other two) so I could direct her. So we went and picked up the other girl who lived south of me, and then we turned around and went north for about 10 minutes (and thats via the freeway) to pick up this other guy. Before I continue I would like to touch up on the relationship between this girl (i.e. the girl other than the driver) and this other guy: they were going out in a "boy friend-girlfriend relationship" after this girl had a rather dramatic separation from another guy; however these two hardly had a meaningful relationship to be honest. But "they" recently broke up after this girl told him that she did not want to be in that "type" of relationship, and he openly and rather annoyingly (given from her description, so I'm not going to attempt to objectively judge the situation) refused the breakup citing to "change." As a side note, this happened several days PRIOR to the concert, and interestingly enough going to the Tour was her birthday present to this guy; needless to say things were rather awkward between these two. In addition, the driver and I have a minor history together, but that was dramatically severed after I told her I didn't like her more than a friend, so that added to the group dynamic. However I would say that we handled the situation well, as did the other two-so they deserve an around of applause!

But we arrived in Salt Lake actually a little before eleven despite the awkward pick up but parking was rather difficult to arrive at. As a result, we had to park about five blocks away which made my stomach sink some because of my leg and I knew that I was going to do plenty of walking inside the tour. But I didn't expect anything different (but I fervently hoped), so we walked to the Fair Grounds (as a humorous sidenote I had to use the bathroom so we stopped by someone's house so I could use it. The place smelled of the distince smell of urine, which the owner embarassedly explained was a result of her child having an accident. This is not a particular problem to me, and the experience was flavored up some by the rambuncious dogs and the INCREDIBLE manners of the home owners. It really was a happy home-that incedentally smelt of urine.) As we got to the gate there naturally was a long line but it was not stop-and-go as is hallmark with unusually long lines: it moved quite fluidly and at the pace of normal walking so no particular complaint there. I would like to make a comment on the people that I was surrounded with and totally disqualify a social assumption: the entire specturm of stereotypical "emos" and "goths" were seen, complete with "long hair", tight pants, some makeup, bandanas, band shirts (which should come to no surprise...)..etc. Some conservatives would claim these youth were "hostile looking" or "intimidating" and even some quote-un-quote ultra conservatives would claim as "bad". I saw ABSOLUTELY NO evidence to back up these claims-In fact I would go as far as to claim that these flamboyant individuals (which they truely were) were even more welcoming, considerate and humble than most of the people I associate with at chruch. Of course there are exceptions to both sides but from the sample that I interacted with and observed (which in my opinion was quite large-but I wouldn't take me too seriously given that I'm the only one claiming that I did) this generalization seems fitting. Thus the stereotype of a person being "bad" based SOLEY on hair, clothing, taste in music...etc, in my opinion, is completely fallicious and literally not rationally based and to believe so is more of a social menace than what this group is usually associated with.

To be honest the music of the bands is not my first choice, but I really did enjoy it. However my favorite perfomance that I saw (and I saw about six) was Maylene and The Sons of Destruction, and whose band members carried the stereotypical look of those from the South (they hail from Alabama)-with beards and long hair (I was honestly surprised I did not see a Lyndard Skynard shirt on any of them lol), but I feel that they looks really cool. They are really quite the people too (or based from their stage performance), and I derive this conclusion based from how the members interacted and talked to the audience: the main singer would get off stage and went around and gave hive fives to some of the audience members, and in some cases hugs. Also, the way in which they addressed the audience was respectful and I was quite impressed with their demeanor and stage antics. In addition the music was FANTASTIC. After them I saw A Day to Remember (which I don't really have a taste for), but they were better live I felt. At this point kids began to mosh pit-which in my opinion is completely ridiculus and pointless, but endlessly entertaining and fertile ground for mockery in the way they would systematically swing their arms randomly (its not an oxymoron).

However, the social antics in my carpool did not end at the car trip. I left the group shortly after we arrived to see some of my other acquaintences and my little brother and his personal group, but in addition there was a slight agenda to get away from 1. the group as a whole due to the awkwardness of the situation 2. get away from the other guy who would follow me around because honestly he is a drag and quite boring. So throughout the whole Tour I would break up with the group and find this other group who I would only stay with for about five minutes because honestly they bore me too so I would limp from one stage to the next watching perfomances alone and listen to the music and watching the crowds and the people (the only evidence that I could find to support these people as bad would be the language-but to me that is relatively low on the list compared to other things like judging or racism...etc.) Honestly that was the funnest times of the Tour-parusing through the lines of tents and looking at the facsinating band shirts and listening to the music by myself.

But Warp Tour is like Woodstock '69 (which I would have done ANYTHING to be at, cause that IS my first choice of music) in more ways than one: the water and food conditions. Some bottles of water were four, five sometimes six dollars. Fortunately I brought my own backpack loaded with water bottles so I was set with water-but I did have the other problem of it being incredibly warm. Also, food was rediculously priced and so I hardly have eaten anything today (because I foolishly didn't eat breakfast). So when we finally left we headed over to a 7/11 and I bought a double big gulp.

When I was not listening to the music (or standing or sitting and listening to the music to be more precise, pretty much anywhere you went you heard some band playing at the nearby stage) I was looking for an As I Lay Dying shirt for a girl I know. I kid you not I went up and down the lines of tents at least fifteen times in attempt to look for these shirts to no avail. The reason I searched so fervently is NOT because I have an affectionate tie to this girl (although she is cute), but it gave me something to 1. distract from the leg and 2. think about and "solve" (i.e. the problem of where the shirt is.) But I did see a sign that said the band was doing signing at 2:30 so I decided to get her an autographed poster instead of a shirt (which then saved me more money to buy me another shirt, but she promised to pay me back so that was not the primary concern. By the way, I got a Family Force 5 and Maylene and Sons of Destruction shirts.) By the time I got to the linup, which was around 2:15 because the sign said to get there early, the line was already 100 people long (which didn't surprise too much.) So, I went up to a group of girls about a third of the way away from the signing tent and asked if I could be infront of them because it hurts to stand (which is completely true, but it was more of a manipulation tactic because I had no desire to stand there that long for a band I don't particularly like-but I told her I would and she is my friend so I decided to do it.) They said yes (to my shock) and so I didn't have to wait TOO long. As a side note, don't criticize As I Lay Dying based on the personalities of the bandmembers or their appearance because based on my experience they are some of the nicest people I have ever met (which by this time did not surprise me at all.) Now I just have to give that one girl the poster.

But, from the lack of GOOD water and lack of interest in the music anymore (I actually wanted to stay to see Family Force 5 but the others were reluctant to stay until the 7:30 showing) we left. By that time was leg was in incredible pain, I was becoming dehydrated and I did not sleep so I argued that we just go home (in hopes that I would be taken home.) But the others wanted to stick around and "party" as they put it-which, honestly, came as a surprise to me because of the whole boyfriend-girlfriend dynamic that was going on and it was pretty obvious to me that no one was having fun. But, half joking I still argued they let me home, and to my surprise they actually did, which meant driving on the freeway for about 15 min from where we were to my house. So, they gave me some trouble for being a party pooper but honestly I did just want to go home, and expecially since the activities they suggested doing involved more walking. So, they dropped me off and now I'm just resting my leg and about to take a hot bath to relax the muscles around my nerves as I finish publishing this post.

In conclusion, today was interesting on many experiencial dimensions but as a byproduct there was some bitterness on my part, but also some pure delight. I wouldn't take it back if I could, but wouldn't necessarily go through all the parts again.