Wanna know who rocked the hardest at the Vans Warped Tour date in Carson? If you ask me, this younger generation can’t even hold a candle to the twenty-thirty year old bands that graced the stage this past Friday. Lucky for California, we’re the only ones on this tour that even had the Punk Rock Legends stage! At least the rest of the tour still has Face to Face and Bouncing Souls scheduled on the Teggart stage.
Face to Face, a band for nineteen years, came out with a blast of energy. By the looks on their faces, they didn’t want to be anywhere else but on stage playing for us. They were animated, and interacted with the audience, belting out song after song including their radio hit, “Disconnected.” The fans were head-banging, jumping, and singing along. The same held true during the Bouncing Souls set. You’d never guess they’ve been around for about twenty-three years. The band was on fire, and the vocals of Greg Attonito were strong and solid. Greg even came out into the crowd to high-five and fist-pump with the fans! He had a huge smile on his face the entire time, and it’s no wonder with the type of overwhelming reception they got from the huge audience gathered in front of them.
Swingin’ Utters, a twenty-two year old band, gave their all over at the Punk Rock Legends stage. Singer Johnny “Peebucks” just about destroyed his voice, but still managed to power through the set. Johnny was jumping around and keeping the energy up for the audience. Hardcore fans in the audience had their fists in the air, and screamed along with Johnny. The rest of the crowd either marvelled at the legends on stage or ran around in the circle pit with their hawks flying behind them. They ended their performance with my personal favourite, “Next in Line.” Be sure to check out our exclusive interview with guitarist/vox, Darius Koski, in our Band Features department. He is one of the most REAL guys you’ll ever know.
Other bands to play the PRL stage were FEAR, GBH, The Casualties, and The Adolescents. They all had a pretty good-sized audience, consisting of long-time loyal fans and new punk kids w/their mohawks and tight tapered jeans and their tough-as-nails attitude.
The Adolescents ended their set to a cheering crowd and commanding the audience to direct their attention to the Skullcandy stage next door. The Dickies, a band that’s been around for over thirty years, began immediately. Bassist, Greg Hanna, was in a multi-colored polka-dotted costume complete with attached ears and a tail. The band busted out a plethora of props fitting for each song. During “Waterslide,” vocalist, Leonard Graves Phillips, wore a scuba mask, and on “You Drive Me Ape,” he came out in a gorilla mask! They made use of devil horns, and a blow-up doll as well. Leonard gave a solid vocal delivery. I was pleasantly surprised at how great he sounded. And he had more energy than a 2-yr old; he was jumping and dancing and flailing his body to and fro all over the stage. He was constantly getting in his bandmates’ faces and freaking people out with his maniacal movements funny faces. It certainly wasn’t a boring show. During their Black Sabbath cover of “Paranoid,” the crowd went wild and the circle pit was insane. This was my absolute favourite performance of the night and coincidentally the last for everyone; they were the last band to end their set. What a way to end an amazing day at Vans Warped Tour.
