Last week, I had the rare opportunity to go check out the Vans Warped Tour, as a "working media" roving reporter. As such, I got to experience the tour in the shoes of both an average concertgoer, as well as a "vendor volunteer". The "vendor" that I was volunteering to work with was none other than my former employ, Concrete Wave Magazine. This is a recap of my big day out, and some of the impressions, insights, and memories that I took away from it all in the form of a "photo journal".
One bit of advice for all y'all out there in readerland: If Brookesey ever calls you up, and offers you a volunteer gig for something or another? Whatever he's asking for, always remember to say, "Yes!" Trust me on this one: You'll be glad you did.
This years' Warped stop in the Indianapolis metro area was at the Verizon Wireless Music Center... widely known as, and still referred to by the locals as "Deer Creek", which was it's name before the Big Corporate Takeover ensued...
In any rate, Deer Creek/Verizon's Pimp Venue is actually up in Noblesville, Indiana... a cornfield about a half-hour northeast of Indy. Believe it or not, I'd never been there prior to last week... even though I've lived in Indy now for about eight years. Small-venue pub tours are more "my sort of gig", I guess.
"I'm Australian!!! Talk to me!" is what the box says. I was so busy playing the noob concertgoer/roving reporter, that I totally forgot to talk to him. I'm an idiot.
This is where Devin, the Concrete Wave Tour Head Cheese, told me to meet him at: The "Feed Our Children Now!" "booth". I use "booth" in quotes because, obviously, it's a pop-up tent. This organization is one of the "Passport Program" participants (We'll get to that one in a minute), so I was able to totally swoop a pre-stamped passport from these friendly folks.
Devin, the Concrete Wave Tour Big Cheese. For some reason, I expected a big, musclebound, goateed guy to be my guide for the day... something way more akin to a "bouncer", I guess. So much for daydream preconceptions, I guess. Here, Devin's taking a little break before the madness ensues.
Okay: The Concrete Wave Passport Program. A fun little gig that Mikey put together for this years' Warped Tour, and my "must-do" project for the day. I believe that this may have been why Mikey wanted me to be there in the first place- to check this thing out. Because, for the most part, my "volunteering" duties took all of maybe an hour or so, spread out over the entire day.
Inside, we have some well-done advertisements...
And, a whole bunch of text, explaining who the participants are, and what they do. The "participants" were almost entirely non-profit organizations that served to give somebody, somewhere, a helping hand in life. Which I thought was a pretty cool thing for Mike to get behind.
And, here's where you needed to get the stamps rounded up in the "passport". The whole thing looked a lot like a "real" passport... so much so that Devin told me stories of being at the Texas shows, and having Mexican illegals trying to swoop these from the Concrete Wave booth. Funny stuff...!
Goldcoast Longboards was responsible for laying out, and printing, the "passports", so they got a little bit more ad space than everyone else for their hard work on this one. Like everything else that Goldcoast does visually, these came out looking very, very professional, and very, very boss. Good job [again], guys...!
Devin's a smart cookie: He brought along his own "cruiser" (but really, a speedy little slalom setup) for getting around the grounds. Now, I wish I had known that this was "legal" to do, or I certainly would have brought my own time-saving transpo, too.
Devin's setup, for those of us that drool over these sorts of things: A c-blocked Pocket Pistols Duane Peters, wedged Tracker RTX in the front, de-wedged Tracker RTS in the back, and red Abec 11 Zig-Zags. The perfect setup for getting from point A to point B very quickly, very quietly, right under the nose of security, and around those hordes of groupies and over-amped teenagers.
The mini-ramp being erected. Prefabbed steel, about 20' wide and 6' high, with massive coping that stuck out way more than it should have... it looked like quite a handful, but a whole lot of fun at the same time. Unfortunately, sitting in the baking sun as it was... it must have been hella hot, too. Like, scorching road-burn hot. Definitely, "not cool".
Getting to the Concrete Wave "booth" (tent), Devin already had a lot of the hard work accomplished. What I was supposed to actually do, wasn't all that clear to me. It's not like I was slacking off, or that I was late... to the contrary, I was about a half-hour early, and fully ready to rumble... so, all I ended up doing was un-folding a few folding tables and chairs, and getting the Hamboard display secured. Not exactly my idea of "hard work", by any means.
The sudden "time on my hands" allowed me to play "product geek", and get my hands on stuff that I don't ordinarily get my hands on. The red '75 BigZigs were new to me...
... as were, the "classic green" '75 BigZigs. Recently, Chappy [Chris Chaput] moved a lot of the "high-performance" Retro wheels over to the Abec 11 lineup... Abec 11 supposedly being the "performance wheel brand" and all. It seemed to me that all this "move" would actually accomplish, would be to totally confuse people... but, what the hell do I know? Either way, the '75 Zigs look fantabulous.
These 77mm Reflex Formula "Centrax" wheels, though, really caught my eye. They're kind of like, a "Big-Big Zig Zag"... similar overall shape, just scaled up a bit. And, wide as hell, I might add... wider than any wheel I've yet seen (minus the Nershes, which are just ridiculously huge). The corner of the wheel that you can see peeking in at the lower right? That looked like an even bigger Centrax Prototype, in the same Reflex Formula, and probably around 83mm or so tall.
This, was a real treat to [be]hold. The infamous Momo, an absolute mega-giant of a wheel. These are somewhere around 130mm tall, at least 90mm wide, and they weigh about a pound-and-a-half apiece... even with the "weight-saving" Flywheel cores. Chappy races these, if I'm remembering it right, on his GS Slalom setups, since the Chappy-designed 6-wheelers have been largely banned from competition. Just goes to show, you can't hold a genius down. Whatever "rules" you put in place, he'll think himself around in a hot minute (or less).
A beautiful Never Summer "Heist", a through-mount, cambercave speedboard that utilizes a whole lotta snowboard technology. Beautiful, functional, and fast. Precisely what you might expect from a high-end, USA-built, snowboard-derived product...
The top view, and...
Looking down the concave. Methinks that I just might have to break down, and get one of these to review.
Note the metal "hardware plate" (presumably, to keep the nuts from digging into the epoxyglass sandwich), and the integral "bumper" built right into the maple laminates of the deck. Very functional, way durable, and a very nice touch.
Another "product sample" from the Concrete Wave booth: A Riviera. I'll tell ya, I'm still not a huge fan of those graphics...
...but, the rainbow of stained core laminates (much like how the old World Industries decks used to look), the flawless finish of the Paris Trucks, and the new Divine wheel line certainly do attest to some thoughtful engineering, and a real focus on delivering quality stuff.
I found it somewhat bemusing that the Divines looked so much like the Abec 11 Centraxes, shape- and width-wise.
The Concrete Wave "booth" (tent) was right across from the Skullcandy Stage. Here, they're still setting up, about an hour before the gates opened. This stage had a lot of good performers (Breathe Electric, Call The Cops, Confide, We Are The In Crowd)... but, it also made "hearing yourself think" a pretty mighty challenge at times.
The Home Base for the day's festivities. You can see that, once the chairs were unfolded, and the Hamboard was secured ... there really wasn't much else to be done. For some reason, I naturally assumed that the Concrete Wave tent would be much, much bigger. At high noon, though, I wasn't complaining anymore. The sun was hot, the air was stifling, and shade was at a premium. Yet, Devin and I had a whole "booth" (tent) at our disposal! We probably could have sold shade-space by the square inch, and made a fortune... that's how hot it was.
The Hamboard's "Passport Program" sticker was about twice as big as our whole damn tent...! Just joking, Mikey...! More than anything else, the Hamboard was the center of attention and discussion, and basically stole the whole show. As you might expect from a skateboard that measures 6'6" by 17" wide, and weighs in about forty pounds...
What the CW tent did have, however, was a shit-ton of "swag" to give away. But, nothing compared to this entire pallet of stuff that I spotted by the supply trailer. This probably belonged to Vans, as they only had about eight tents scattered around the entire grounds... all of them selling all sorts of stuff, and giving away piles of freebies. I think I left with about three pounds of Vans stickers, all by myself.
This right here, is the Skatera "Girlz Garage". Skatera is an all-new, all-"girlz" board brand. And the Girlz Garage featured Skatera gear, along with what you might call, "Everything Girlz-Related". There was the "I Heart Boobies!" campaign going on inside, some pink and purple guitar/amp combos on display... and a few other things that were basically, overwhelmingly pink and purple in nature.
Here's the Skatera line of completes, along with the Skatera volunteer that didn't seem to know very much about Skatera at all, and even less about skateboarding or longboarding. She was nice, though- I'll give her that much.
I took a zillion photos of "Everything Skatera", but I figured I'd bore you with just one of the completes for now. The Pink Wheels (probably 66mm Sick-Sicks, or 70mm Seven-Ohs) and Paris Trucks were natural choices... but, I'm not too sure how this whole "flowery, black-and-pink" graphic theme is gonna go over with the ladies...
It's definitely a great attempt at getting "women" (sort of like the graphics, I found the whole "girlz" deal to be both condescending, as well as perpetually annoying) into action sports... and, in principle, I'm more than supportive of the whole concept that's going on here... but, as always, the devil's in the details, and the execution.
These three pics were taken over the course of about a half-hour. It illustrates very clearly how things go from "calm" to "calamity" reeeeeeaaal fast, at Warped. Everyone's trying to figure everything out, marketers are yelling and begging for your attention, bands are feverishly vying for your attendance at their stage, for their show... it all became something of a whirlwind that drowns out a lot of details, and results in massive confusion. At least, it did for me...
On the other hand: Maybe I'm just gettin' old, too.
Okay! Back to The Passport Program! I went around, and found the non-profit "booths" (tents)... which were all more-or-less clustered together, lucky me... and, I had my passport full in about twenty minutes or so. This is the Boarding For Breast Cancer booth, where you could feel up artificial boobs, and grope around for the artificial "tumors" hidden inside. This is a great skill to have... especially for guys... because, statistically speaking, a great many breast tumors are actually found by a boyfriend, a husband, or some other "significant other" that might spend a lot of their time putting their hands on a woman's boobies. Seriously! I'm not joking on this one...!!
Breathe Electric on the Skullcandy stage. Fun fact: I bumped into the guys, post-set, waiting in line at the port-o-potties. Half of the band is from Indianapolis (although, the band itself is home-based in Chicago)... so, I got to chat with some current/future rock stars while I was humbly waiting to pee. Pretty weird, huh...?
Every Time I Die, I believe. It was at this point that taking pictures sort of became an exercise in utter futility. Too many people, all over the place. And, too damned hot.
It didn't take long for the grounds to take on a sort of "Woodstock" feel, what with all of the trampled grass, minimalist clothing getting reduced to "barely there" status (due to the 100-degree-plus heat index for this day), and all of the trash that was piling up all over the place... yeah, man. Chaos and anarchy. What the House of Rock was built on, I guess.
This chick was at the "booth" (tent) next door, and she spent the better part of the day getting off on squirting unsuspecting concertgoers with ice-cold water-gun blasts. She was kinda cute, and clearly having a great time, so we caught all kinds of good vibes from our neighbors in the booth-tent ghetto.
One of the weirder things that I could not for the life of me figure out, was: "Where are all of the skateboard companies at?!" I mean, this thing draws in like, a bazillion skaters... shit, man, all I did was spend my entire day talking to fucking skaters, for pete's sakes... yet, the only "companies" that were represented, were Skatera (at the aforementioned "Gurlz Garage"), and the small gang of brands that were along for the Concrete Wave ride (Which were, for the record: The rest of the Abec 11 companies- Retro, Pink, etc- Riviera, Bamboo Sk8, Landyachtz, Hamboards, S-One, and some company that I've never heard of called "Drawn Skateboards".)
Besides that, though? Nobody! Nobody at all...!
Given that the average skater in attendance was probably between 14 and 17, I would have thought that this would have been an awesome place for a Zero (Black Box), a Birdhouse (for the smaller-kid contingent), or a Tum Yeto to show off their wares, and make a face-to-face impression on their "target demographic". Guess I'm the only one thinking on this one, huh...?
In this photo, we have Bart (ringleader of the Old Indy Skaters), doing some 'skate diplomacy' with a member of The Bedford Contingent. There were also kids there from Terre Haute (Hey, Kevin!), and longboarders came down from as far away as Fort Wayne. That alone illustrates the wide variety of skaters in attendance, from every corner of the state.
Yet: Very, very few skate companies in attendance. Fucking weird, man...!
Lining up for the Passport Program giveaways. Lots of stickers and patches, along with a watch, a pair of shades, and a complete longboard were the prizes of the day. Considering that maybe 40 people actually got enough stamps to qualify, those were pretty good odds at snatching up a Goldcoast complete.
How did the prizes get doled out?! Pulling cards out of a box! Fair, equitable, easy, and gets the job done quick. Beautiful...! Again: Not much for me to do but sit, watch, take a few pictures, and look like a retard.
Bart and his daughter Kiley invited me to go meet Andrew WK, so I figured, why the hell not?! I like a hard party just as much as the next hard-partying rock star, I guess. Here, Bart and Kiley are totally fanning out, while Andrew looks somewhere between bemused, and flattered. He really was a cool cat, though, and he clearly adores his fans on this super-sincere sort of level that I honestly found kind of endearing.
I guess that makes me a fan, now, too.
"Fuckin' Bawstun Is Still Way Coolah!" But, I did have to admit that the tees were kinda funny. New York's cool, too, so I'm not even gonna go hating on these guys at all. As long as they're not Yankees fans, then they're fine by me.
"We Are The In Crowd"... a pretty punny testament to how far "punk rock" has truly come. Once? The very bottom of the social-outcast barrel. Now? The hottest and longest-lasting trend among American pubescents. I still prefer to hang out with whoever the "out" crowd is, because experience tells me that they're funner.
"Had more skaters been allowed to skate it, we might have seen more skaters skating it..."
A fairly-standard "product toss" began the end of the festivities...
New-found friends and acquaintances said their first-ever goodbyes...
And, praise and thanks were heaped upon Devin, and his useless-retard, roving-reporter sidekick...
One thing, though! Useless as I may be, I did institute a quick-thinking "recycling program" at the Concrete Wave booth that, as you can see, quite a few empty cans took part in! Remember, kids: Every little bit helps! And, to be honest, it was a nice departure from everyone else's "booth" (tent) spaces that were filled to the brim with all kinds of discarded shit.
"The Solitary Life, and Concrete Wave Magazine: Partners In Saving The Planet." Mike: I'm in if you are, eh buddy...?!
Devin embarks on his last journey of the day to the "vendor trailer" to drop off the last of today's setup, and start thinking about some dinner, a good night's sleep on the tour bus, and tomorrow's gig at some other brand-new, faraway cornfield. It looks like a lot of fun, and Lord knows I've spent many a year couch-touring, back in the day... but these days, I wouldn't trade the warm comforts of home, and the embrace of a truly loving woman for anything in the world.
Fare well, Devin! And make sure you get back home safe and sound. And, thanks Mikey. The Passport Program worked the tits.
Hey, readers, don't forget: Score some of the "thirty pounds of swag" that we collected at the Vans Warped Tour. Go read "The Better Letter Contest" piece about how you can claim your piece of the swag pile. Don't slack off, because four supercool people have already won their prize-packs, and that means there's only six left! Get On That Shit!!!
