Monday, June 29, 2009

The Warped Tour Part 2

The Warped Tour 2009 (Part 2)

I experienced similar situations a couple more times but sometimes the bands would dictate how long I watched them. I watched Aiden for about 4 songs and they have quite a stage presence despite being the ugliest band on the festival and their lead singer is insane (12 foot stage dive off of a speaker). But I knew Gallows would be starting so I raced across the venue to the other stage and sprinted when I realized they were already playing.

Gallows gave the best performance of the tour hands down. Their lead singer Frank Carter has an intense, tough-guy stage presence that invokes a high-energy fervor in the crowd, especially among fans. He compliments his energy by coming down into the crowd and doing his vocals from the pit. He did this for most of the set and I personally gave him a shove and yelled into the mic, “Ventura is the reason!” a nice improv Frank added for their song “London Is the Reason” from their latest and greatest album Grey Britain (2009). Another highlight was when they had the crowd run around the sound booth (something they attempted at Warped ’06 but only a few ran including myself). This time the crowd was overwhelmingly excited and stampeded over people and trashcans, as the mosh pit whirled like a tornado. They played their last couple songs with all members except the drummer rocking out inside the mosh pit, I still wonder how those cords weren’t broken or unplugged.

As Gallows walked off the stage I ran towards the other main stage to catch the last half of The Ataris set. They sounded great live and their new material is much better than their last album, which was atrocious. They ended it with a revamped version of San Dimas that brought me back to my freshman year in highschool. I’ll be looking forward to listening to and reviewing their upcoming new album. Next I watched Scary Kids Scaring Kids who sound better live than on their albums, especially due to the raw talent of their lead vocalist Tyson Stevens (his screaming and singing was perfect). Finally, I checked out The Devil Wears Prada, a band that I don’t think gets enough credit, especially from the metal community. For some reason most metal fans shunned them and so they are tackling the hardcore scene, which I believe makes more sense for their style. They got a decent response from the fans in Ventura, although people were tired due to it being the end of the day. I think they won over some fans and they sounded excellent. Notably the crowd was digging the pounding breakdowns and the bands synced head banging was a good sight for the younger punks to be exposed to.

Anti-Flag and Bad Religion sounded good as usual and if you enjoy punk music and haven’t heard these classic bands, please check them out. The band that surprised me the most was A Day to Remember, whose interesting mix of pop-punk and mosh-core has garnered them widespread attention. They actually sound really good live and their breakdowns are worthy of a sizable mosh pit. They seemed to have a very devout fanbase for such a new band and everyone knew their lyrics. The other newcomer that I think deserve some attention is I Set My Friends On Fire who blend electronic beats with post-hardcore and pop-punk. These guys are still teenagers but put themselves on the map with their cover of Soulja Boy’s Crank Dat (its amazing!). I can see them going places and they definitely rocked the crowd at Warped.

Nasty Awards:

Best Performance: Gallows
Best Vocalist: Tyson Stevens from Scary Kids Scaring Kids
Best Drummer: Alex Rodriguez from Saosin
Best Screamer: Mike Hranica from The Devil Wears Prada
Best Old Band: NOFX
Best New Band: I Set My Friend On Fire
Biggest Surprise: A Day to Remember
Heaviest Band: Underoath
Funniest Band: NOFX
Ugliest Band: Aiden

Was it worth paying $35 to see 14 of my favorite bands in 1 afternoon?
Hell yes.

The Warped Tour

Warped Tour 2009!

I went to the Warped Tour yesterday in Ventura, CA and it turned out to be an epic show with some amazing performances. I must preface this post by explaining that I am 22 years old and so I was in the minority of over 20 year olds at the festival. Even though most of the bands had members that were older than me, the overwhelming majority of the fans were teenagers, in particular 12-16 year old kids. Most of them were followers of the punk rock, hardcore or emo scenes and so they dressed like it was Halloween and had terrible haircuts. These odd sights did not faze me though because I was there for the music; some of the bands I had been listening to for over a decade.

One of the best things about Warped Tour is the fact that you can check out dozens of bands in one day from many different genres and styles of music. However, one of the worst things about the festival is the fact that sometimes you’re favorite bands will be playing at the same time. This made my experience at this year’s Warped Tour pretty frantic and chaotic, although certainly not boring. What sucks about Warped is that the more diverse your music tastes are, the harder it is to see all the bands you wish to see. In previous years the festival has done a better job at spacing out the bands, but as my music tastes have broadened, I have found it increasingly difficult to manage my time at the show.

Even after that rant I must say that I was able to see Thrice, I Set My Friends On Fire, Anti-Flag, A Day To Remember, Underoath, Saosin, NOFX, Senses Fail, Bad Religion, Aiden, Gallows, The Ataris, Scary Kids Scaring Kids, and The Devil Wars Prada (14 Bands). Unfortunately I missed Less Than Jake, Escape the Fate, Streetlight Manifesto, Bayside, Therefore I Am and Alexisonfire and this was because I was watching other bands or they played too early (another criticism). They should consider adding a few more bands, making the set times longer and stretching the festival out to two days to solve these problems. Well, seeing 14 of the 20 bands that I wanted to see is not bad at all.

So I had the difficult task of trying to watch a few songs of one band and then had to race to another stage to catch half the set of different band. This was only a serious problem during the afternoon because Saosin began playing at 3:45 but NOFX started at 3:55 and Senses Fail at 4:15. I watched the first 4 songs from Saosin and then ran over to catch the end of “Linoleum” by NOFX and stayed for the rest of their set. By the time I had fought through the crowd to get to Senses Fail, they were thanking the crowd and played their last song (which sounded great). Saosin seemed to be having problems with their sound equipment (I’m not sure whose fault this was) but their vocals sounded pretty bad despite the fact that Cove Reber is an incredible vocalist. Their drummer lives up to his reputation: absolutely legendary chops, he has excellent fills and drops beats better than Neil Peart. NOFX also lived up to their reputation and were the best seasoned punk band of the tour. Despite Fat Mike’s desire to talk more than rock, they sounded perfect when they were playing and had a pretty interesting set list. My advice to them is to save the jokes and chatter for their headlining tours and just play their music during short sets on festivals.

Check Out Part 2 Next!

Welcome to Nasty Nat's Musick Blog

So you’re probably asking yourself, “What the hell does this guy know about music?” or “Why should I respect this guy’s opinions?” and the answer is not simple. In fact, I hope to use this blog to gain your respect and maybe provide you with some music you never would have listened to. So what gives me real clout to discuss the art of music? Well, the simple answer is that I have been listening to many genres of music for over a decade and attended numerous concerts and shows. My digital collection of music is now over 200 gigabytes and includes artists from almost every genre. I must make my music tastes clear though, I do not particularly like popular music and I tend to seek the underground and progressive bands and genres. Even so, I will review bands that get radio play and DO have popular appeal, but my true goal is to support and promote the smaller bands and genres that have not garnered the type of media attention and fanbase that the big bands have.

My particular music tastes have changed and evolved over the years but I have always been in love with punk rock and heavy metal. These two genres and their numerous subgenres are what gets me out of bed in the morning. Of course, I love all other forms of music from gangsta rap to electronic house to jazz jam bands. I think that our need to put everything into genres detracts from the music itself, but it is necessary as a point of reference. I will always briefly describe the subgenre that I believe a band fits into but I feel that talking about similar bands and influences is a better way to understand what kind of music the band plays. Some bands are such a confluence of different elements that they defy genre or have created their own space, for instance Dave Matthews Band can be considered a mixture of jazz, folk, pop and jam. The point is that comparing bands is more effective than pidgin-holing bands into a particular style or genre, yet some bands truly set themselves apart.

I will probably review more albums that I actually like than ones that I think are shitty, but I’m not afraid to criticize an album that has received popular acclaim. I will be choosing albums that I think are progressive, groundbreaking or simply need to be listened to by people that love music. There have been countless times in my life that I have “discovered” a band or artist months or years before they get any real attention so stay tuned if you would like to hear about the latest and greatest bands. Even so, well-established bands that make really bad new albums or “sell out” will certainly be trashed on this blog. But I want to reiterate that my intention is to promote bands and music that lack popularity or media attention.

I will have a ruthless rating system and the rating of the album will be posted at the top of each entry, my reasoning will of course follow. I will use a 10 star system with specific titles, so 0-5 will be considered Atrocious, 5-7 will be considered Mediocre and 8-10 will be considered Nasty. If an album actually hits 10 it will be considered “Deliciously Nasty” and you will be obligated to obtain the album in some form. The rating will take into account how the album stands against other artists in the genre as well as the artist’s own discography.

I want this blog to have a dynamic dialogue with its readers/followers. I do not simply want to lecture, I want the people that read this to make comments and even argue with me. However, this needs to be constructive analysis or it will be utterly worthless. If you simply respond, “You’re wrong, this album sucks!” then you come across as a moron and you automatically lose the argument (and my respect) due to lack of support. Please make comments but back up what you say with some constructive points about why you think so. Be creative and have fun because that’s what music is all about!