Vans Warped Tour Invades Columbia, MD

Vans Warped Tour
July 18, 2015
Merriweather Post pavilion- Columbia, MD

Saturday, July 18^th 2015 : Vans Warped tour, it’s all about the music, meeting bands and not having to worry about “fitting in”. Now in its 21st year, this music festival and staple of American youth culture, continues to find new ways to do just that in every way it possibly can.

First of all, let’s get right to the issue that everyone immediately thought would ruin their experience at Warped Tour this past weekend: the humidity and the morning torrential down pour that nearly flooded the field where the crew was setting up stages, which delayed the festival almost an hour and 45 minutes later than regular starting time.

Warped Tour is a summer festival, which means the heat has always been the main factor (along with rain sometimes), but with a few thousand sweaty and rain soaked teenagers (who actually wore ponchos, standing outside since roughly the early morning) all lined up all around the grounds, as they chanted “Let us in” when the normal doors time (11 am) passed definitely made the day more unbearable.

Thankfully, the crew who does the Warped Tour has been at this for a very long time. Although the muddy fields were unavoidable, there were plenty of long pieces of plywood to sort of make a path to each stage, even though the pit was NOTHING but a mud hole. Once the rain started to clear up the sun busted out of no where leading to the crew to set up cool-down areas with benches and cooling mists and water-filling stations happy to replenish bottles and CamelBaks alike immediately.

As for the headliners, Pierce the Veil, Blessthefall, Memphis Mayfire, The Wonder Years and recently “promoted” main stage band, PVRIS, drew the expected massive crowds at the Shark and Unicorn stages, which was filled with nothing but a massive mud hole that the attendees enjoyed almost as much as the bands. However, it was the upcoming bands that really left an impression, as is often the case with an event that’s been fostering and supporting up-and-coming artists for two decades. Throughout the day there were so many bands that you had to stop and watch, even if it was for a split second. One band that had somewhat of a “One-hit-Wonder” called Shake It was on the lineup this year and that band is Metro Station. Their set had mostly older fans in the crowd singing along word-for-word, some new fans too were in the mix, but it was definitely a set you didn’t want to miss along with New Years Day, who I think had the loudest crowd, being only on the Journeys stage. Also my favorite hippy, Mod Sun- his energy on stage was just mind blowing, he couldn’t sit still for two seconds. Another must see artist, other than the amazing headlining bands, is the one and only RIFF RAFF; his set was very crazy and oddly enough he had crowd surfers and a mosh pit going, but I definitely think he was just a must see just for kicks.

With that being said, Warped Tour was amazing (Again) this year despite all the delays and all the messed up schedules that had the bands frantically running around like chickens with their heads cut off, it was a good year and definitely look forward to covering next years Vans Warped Tour.

Review by: Alyssa Howell

Blessthefall