Vans Warped Tour
August 6, 2017
Pomona Fairplex – Pomona, California
The 22nd annual Warped Tour had lots to offer this year. From its diversity of bands and artists to all the booths and entertainment. Fans could decide how to spend their day; some were here to see what the booths had to offer. From band merch, to clothing accessories, to jewelry, lots of food, and of course, plenty of bands. Even on a day as warm as this, plenty of fans still showed up in almost all black or fully black clothing. Some dressed for the occasion and showed up in cut up shirts, shorts, and even bikinis. The bands themselves made sure to give the fans a great experience and they did not disappoint. This year offered the usual returning metalcore bands, a couple of hip hop artists, rock bands, and surprisingly, a few metal bands that would attract metalheads that would normally avoid concerts like Warped Tour.
A couple of punk bands at the Hard Rock stage were reminding people of how Warped Tour used to be which were Adolescents and Strung Out. Strung Out had a rocky start into their set as frontman Jason Cruz was running late and so the band called for an audience member if they knew the lyrics to their songs. One fan helped for a while before Bad Cop/Bad Cop bassist Lihn Le helped out for some songs too. Hardcore punk/thrash metal band Municipal Waste was one of the highlights of the tour for metalheads and they drove the crowd insane. Having just released their new album, Slime and Punishment, Municipal Waste had even more fast party metal to get drunk to. Frontman Tony Foresta had no problem telling the audience his thoughts on President Trump and proudly showed the band’s merch displaying Trump blowing with his brains out in the form of a flag and a band shirt. One of the more odd bands playing the tour were the folk/pirate metal band from Scotland, Alestorm. There were quite a number of people that specifically came to Warped Tour just for them. Alestorm just released their new album No Grave But the Sea and had plenty of more songs involving beer, partying, and….pirates. The band has a great sense of humor with their lyrics and are a super fun band to see live whether you’re a fan of metal music or not.
Barb Wire Dolls is a rock band from Greece and they played the Skullcandy stage and had a very energetic stage presence as singer Isis Queen would regularly interact with the audience making every minute of the show count. Nearing the end of the night, the Scumdogs of the Universe GWAR were one of the last bands to play and were another one of the highlights of the show that metalheads were eager to see. GWAR is known for their costumes, theatrics, and their use of blood (red food coloring). Lots and lots of it. A lot of their fans specifically go to GWAR show just to get drenched in GWAR juice and proudly display it after the show. GWAR is also due to have a new album out on October 20th and it is titled, The Blood of Gods. This year’s Warped Tour proved to be another successful event and hopefully next year’s lineup has similar variety as this one.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
Valient Thor [naggallery id=2769]
Barb Wire Dolls [naggallery id=2770]
Bad Cop Bad Cop [naggallery id=2771]
Alestorm [naggallery id=2772]
Adolescents [naggallery id=2773]
William Control [naggallery id=2774]
Strung Out [naggallery id=2775]
GWAR [naggallery id=2776]
Municipal Waste [naggallery id=2777]
CKY [naggallery id=2778]
