It was a very hot Saturday to say the least. Perfect weather for a music festival. Held at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in Tinley Park, IL, Warped Tour is steadily making its way across the country satiating punk rock lovers everywhere. After an hour and a half traveling by train to get to the venue, I was ready to hear some music. Unfortunately I had no idea about the layout of the festival, and no where online was the schedule for the day posted. After asking around for 20 minutes, we finally found the “official” schedule booth, which was some guys selling a piece of paper with the map and schedule on it for $2. It probably cost $0.05 to print. And while I’m complaining about money, the $11 beers were outrageous. Ok, on to the bands.

We jumped into the main amphitheatre first to catch Reliant K, grab some shade and figure out our plan of attack for the day. At 2pm we went to see Less Than Jake, and also caught the last couple songs by Asking Alexandria. Less Than Jake put on an amazing show as always and I even got a little skanking in. We headed over to their band tent after the show to meet the band and grab some signatures. They are some really cool dudes. Afterward, we walked back to the main stage to see HelloGoodbye. I only saw the first part of their set, as I really wanted to catch a band on a smaller stage called Passafire. Really chill band with a great ska/reggae/dub style. Following Passafire, we took a break from the music to walk around the band tents and meet some of the smaller groups hanging around and persuading people to come into their tents. Among some of the other bands we met, The Venetia Fair seemed like some pretty cool cats and their music was pretty good. I wanted to catch their show, but Less Than Jake was at the same time. I also ran into Ethan Luck, the drummer for Reliant K. Real down to earth guy. Walking to the next band, I stopped by to see The Expendables playing an acoustic set from their band tent, so I stayed and listened for a few minutes. I saw them open for Less Than Jake, and they really rock. Pepper was the last show we ended up making it to. I’ve been a big fan of them for a couple years now, and they really put on a good show. Our phones and cameras had died by the end of the Pepper show and we were starting to lose people, so we decided to take the long journey home. We also realized at this point that some of the bands we had come to see weren’t performing in Chicago (Jack’s Mannequin, Gym Class Heroes, Yelawolf, 3OH3!) which we found very disappointing. Although I didn’t get to see some of the closing bands I would have liked to, I met some great musicians and awesome people at the festival. Besides the extremely expensive food and drink, the festival was a success. Check out the pictures on my Facebook page and peep the short video recap below!

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