|
One change in Vans Warped tour: fewer goatees
By GINA VIVINETTO, Times Pop Music Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 1, 2002
The annual Vans Warped Tour isn't exactly an exercise in diversity. Fans of the tour, in its eighth year, know to expect loud punk or hard rock acts featuring mostly twentysomething white guys smothered in tattoos and piercings. (Note: a lot fewer goatees this year, thank goodness.)
Here are some of the more popular acts in this year's lineup:
Alkaline Trio: The emo punk band's third album, From Here to Infirmary, got on last year's Billboard 200 charat by virtue of what the band calls its "alcohol-fueled love songs" and "love-fueled alcohol songs."
Bad Religion: For two decades, the Los Angeles group has delivered feisty, intellectual punk rock. (Lead singer Greg Graffin interrupted the band's career to attend graduate school and schedules tours around his hectic teaching schedule.) Song themes center around the sociopolitical and use big ol' words that make fans furrow their pierced brows.
The Casualties: Recognize the New York City hard-core trio by each member's gigantic spiked hair and old-school sense of fun -- fun being smashing your stage monitors and exhibiting antisocial behavior that today's scrubbed clean punks lack.
Flogging Molly: The Los Angeles band plays Celtic punk with tin whistle, fiddle, accordion and lots of feel-good jiggy jams, as heard on the new Drunken Lullabies. And, hey, the band features a real live woman, a rarity onstage at the Warped Tour.
Hot Water Music: The Gainesville band is another lumped into the emo dump. The quartet plays fiery punk with the signature wailing vocals by a boy done wrong. The band has done the Warped thing before and also headlined last fall's political Plea For Peace tour.
MXPX: This trio from Washington is known not just for playing melodic punk but for being mighty polite guys, too -- as in, "We don't tell girls to get naked onstage," says singer-bassist Mike Herrera.
New Found Glory: This Florida five-piece plays hook-laden punk at its most catchy on the new Sticks and Stones. Guitarist Steve Klein asserts that this time the guys are venturing out with the lyrics. At least one song, he says, is not about girls.
NOFX: Los Angeles' NOFX for 20 years has been making brash punk and has toured every continent (well, not Antarctica). NOFX's latest is a two-CD set called 45 or 46 Songs That Weren't Good Enough To Go On Our Other Records. (Interesting note: In 1991 the band welcomed second guitarist El Hefe, whose claim to fame is that he played Miguel in The Bad News Bears.)
No Use For a Name: The San Jose, Calif., quartet are torchbearers of the skate punk scene. Hard Rock Bottom is the latest, and it's filled with melodic songs with all sorts of tempos, even one slow one!
Quarashi: No way. A hip-hop band from Iceland? Quarashi isn't just weird geographically; on debut Jinx, the quartet raps, scratches on a turntable and features former Icelandic skateboard champion Stoney Fjelsted.
Reel Big Fish: The Orange County ska punk giants last month released Cheer Up, their first album in four years. It's more of the same upbeat reggae-flavored rock, peppered with bright horns and fun lyrics. The guys even threw in a sweet a capella version of New York, New York.
Something Corporate: A piano at the Vans Warped tour? California's Something Corporate features Andrew McMahon's fierce ivory tickling over guitar, making a sound that's edgy and elegant, heard on the debut Leaving Through the Window.
* * *
The Vans Warped Tour kicks off at noon Sunday at the USF Sun Dome North Lot, 4202 E Fowler Ave., Tampa. $26 advance, $28 day of show. (813) 287-8844, (727) 898-2100 or (813) 974-3002.
Back to Weekend
© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111
|
