The Vans Warp Tour
My favorite people at the Vans Warped Tour turned out to be these two hired cops. I asked if they would pose for this shot in front of the Marines recruiting station that was right next to the drug paraphernalia, hippie, rastafarian tent (man, talk about choosing the red pill or the blue pill). They were swell guys and happy to pose.

For what is essentially billed as a “punk” show the cops were pretty bored. No one was getting drunk because no one was old enough to drink. Which for me was kinda nice. Every-time I went to exchange my eight Warped tickets for a plastic cup of Miller Light there was no line and usually no one else but me in the beer tent. No drinking meant no fighting and generally no one was smoking the purple haired snoop-a-dizzle chronic. So really the Cops were just strolling around in the hot sun trying to have a good time. One guy even admitted he liked some of the music. Hey.

It was a nice day to chill on the blankets, sip beer, smoke cigarettes, watch some half-pipe action (photo), rap with folks, and sing in communal song to the anthems of the day. I had placed most of my bets on The Dropkick Murpheys (photo). They ripped it up. They went on in the hot sun at about three o’clock – brought out their bag-pipe player and ripped into their signature opening song “For Boston”. After that, it was a throw down in the dry hot dirt that was punctuated with great covers of CCR and AC/DC. As we get closer and closer to the 4th of July, CCR begins to creep into everyone’s musical subconscious.

The other band I had a large bet riding on was AFI. Their darker flavored anthems were greeted by a sudden rainstorm that lasted just as long as their set. It was an ominous sky but seemed very appropriate. AFI was probably the high point. They had maximum energy and the new songs sounded incredible. During AFI’s set I was moved to dance around a bit and throw me hands in the air, which made lots of kids point and giggle and snicker to each other, “Look someone’s dad is going bonkers”. Kids today…if they only knew.