With the weather as gorgeous as it was in Mountain View, it made it really challenging to find the will to run around in the huge crowd of people attending Warped Tour. So, I spent a good chunk of my day hanging out with the boys of All Time Low. I showed Alex a few photo basics and he tried his hand at photography. (You can check out a couple of his photos in the gallery!) Later on, I joined them onstage to shoot their set. I still can’t believe how huge they’ve become since I first met them on Warped in 2007 when they were on either the Hurley.com or Smartpunk stage. My, how fast they grow up!
Marysville
I was so excited to shoot Fishbone at the Marysville show! Front man, Angelo has been out on the whole tour MC’ing the Skullcandy stage and performing here and there with different bands, so it was extra special to see him on stage with his own band. Fishbone is definitely not a punk rock legend for nothing!
I was pleasantly surprised later in the day on the same stage when the Addicts played. I didn’t really listen to punk rock growing up so I had never heard of them before, but they quickly caught my attention while trying to zip over to watch Saosin. I wound up being completely sucked in by the make up, the energy and all of the crazy confetti and props and missed Saosin’s set completely (whoops!), but had a handful of awesome shots of the Addicts.
The best part of the day had to be when I bumped into Wade from Alexisonfire chatting with Anthony from Bayside. I stopped to say hello and we wound up walking around to hunt for a slushy vendor, and then sitting together at a picnic table shooting the breeze. It was such a classic summer activity and so nice to spend it with a couple of awesome guys. The perfect way to end the day!
ChulaVista
Second to last day! Where did the time go? And why does it feel like things were really just getting started? Warped has been crazy this year. The drives have been so long that everyone has had to leave by 10pm most nights, leaving very little time for socializing, especially when compared to years past. Tonight we had a late night, though, and an awesome after party put on by AP Magazine. The Punx Dirty Secret parties are some of my favorite after parties, so I was pretty excited about it during the day, which was quite a busy one. I shot three band-on-band interviews! And I shot a whole bunch of photos of some of the bands I really love on the tour this year. Plenty to see in the photo gallery!
Carson, CA
Oh, man. This is it! It’s the very last day of Warped ’09. I can hardly believe it! And what an insanely busy day to boot. Between shooting and packing and cleaning the bus and saying good byes and setting things up and breaking things down – my head was spinning. I managed to see most of the bands I love and learned to love this summer, including Therefore I Am, The Architects, The A.K.A.’s (all three over on “Skullcandy Island,” as they called it), Alexisonfire, Bayside, TAT and Saosin on the Hurley Stage, Innerpartysystem on Hurley.com. I definitely missed some bands, since there just wasn’t enough time, but I certainly packed quite a lot into my last day.
Warped Tour is a strange and awesome thing. It’s definitely not for everyone, as it can be pretty grueling at times. The bands that did it in vans (Therefore I Am, The Architects, The A.K.A.’s, Longway) – hats off to you! They should give you guys a medal for all that you go through just to get your music out there. If that isn’t passion and drive, then it just doesn’t exist. There are so many highs and lows all rolled into one big festival tour and the one thing that makes it all worthwhile is the people you share the experiences with.
Thank you Hurley for sending me out on the road this summer. Thank you Dougie for being the most awesomest co-worker ever! Thanks Nick and Michael, too! Thanks to my busmates on Bus 16 for being the best bus on the tour. Thanks to my Warped friends new and old for the times we had that will be great stories to tell the grandkids someday. Thanks to everyone who followed along with me in my blogs. And last, but certainly not least, thank you Vans Warped Tour 2009 for a killer 2 months; there’s no better way to spend the summer. With any luck, I’ll be back next year to do it all over again!
Until then…
Your Hurley Pit Reporter,
Erin
