Warped Tour 2o1o and Why It Sucked

Warped Tour 2o1o and Why it Sucked.
Saturday, August 14, 2010

Coral Rad Pants and I have been doing the Warped thing for a number of years, in a number of states of being, she in a number of locations and I with a number of other people. This year was hands down, flat out, beyond all reason the worst Warped ever, and that includes the year both Katy Perry and 3OH!3 assailed us with their respective presence. Maybe it’s because we’re too old to still be doing this to ourselves. Maybe it’s that hardly anyone in attendance has any class or taste and thinks that the second they roll up to the campsites near the Gorge they are no longer required to behave like they are older than nine. Maybe it’s because, as Coral put it, “no one who’s really punk rock would be caught dead at Warped Tour after the first or second year.” We usually have a good time anyway, just us two crazy old ladies and a whole new generation of mewling children who fancy themselves punk.

An aside here, for the kids: if you’re buying shoes at a punk rock festival, then you’re not really at a punk rock festival. It’s only called one because once upon a time maybe it was one, but not anymore. And really, children. Do your school shoe shopping at home, in the mall, like a normal person.

The first thing that happened as we pulled off the freeway in the middle of the desert was a bug flew into the window, hitting the passenger side mirror, slapping Coral across the face, hitting my seat directly behind me, leaving a spatter of viscera on my shoulder before landing in between the window and the weather stripping six inches from my face. This story is much better told in person, so if you get the chance to hear one of us tell it we’ll have you LOL-ing, if only because we are. I haphazardly made my way past the row of Washington State Patrol vehicles, all lying in wait to tag someone who was driving pretty much the way I was driving, only for a different reason. Other people show up under the influence. Coral and I were discovering that this bug had not yet died and appeared to be plotting some kind of revenge upon us as we watched its little hands, then antennae, then head peer from over the weather stripping at us. We can’t stop laughing. I can’t decide whether to roll the window down all the way; will he fly out, despite the fact that one of his wings landed in Coral’s lap, or will be just blow back into the car??

When we get to the Wild Horse Campground, which is only a few miles down a largely uninhabited road, first lined with desert brush and silica, then with corn and dry grass, we’re red-faced from giggling. One of the gentlemen from the campsite picks up the bug for us and we finally get a good look at its poor mangled bug body. This does not, however, stop the insect from stinging the man three times before he drops it on the ground, and I’m suddenly glad it stayed in its place as it surveyed us through its creepy, dying eyes.

We’re led to our spot, as always, by a cordial guy on an ATV. The campground is not as full as it’s been in past years, and in past years we’ve come up to camp the night before the show rather than the day of as we did this year. We begin to get ready; I pour myself a strong drink, we put on make-up and sunscreen, I accidentally break Coral’s bathing suit top and loan her one of the extras I’d packed that was fortunate enough to fit. We’re called over to sit with our neighbors, three guys from Kent, about 30 miles south of Seattle. Two are lit and one says nothing. He wears a wedding ring and appears to be the most sober, but perhaps this is due to the fact that he says nothing. The other two are gregarious and extremely inebriated. Only one offers his name. They want us to guess how old they are. One wears a striped shirt and cannot string together a coherent sentence. Coral and I decide it’s time to get on the bus and go to the show.

Let the irritating magic begin.

First thing, tickets are $5 more at the gates than advertised online. *sigh* Oh, well, right?? What the hell can you do??

Once we get in the gates, nothing is where it’s been in the past, ever. Somehow it made some kind of sense that the big, inflatable schedule was nearest the entrance; logistically this would make it the first thing you see when you walk in. This year it takes at least 20 minutes, if not more (I’d downed 2/3 of a bottle of Jager by then), to find a staff member whose head wasn’t jammed so firmly up their ass that they knew a few things. First, the stage you see in the pictures of the Gorge, with the sweeping, beautiful background, was not the Main Stage, as it usually is. Where was the Main Stage?? They didn’t know. Second, this year you can buy programs that come with schedules for $2. Where?? They didn’t know. So we glanced at one that someone standing nearby had and learned that while we were wandering around trying to find the schedule we’d missed Andrew W.K. entirely and were about to miss Alkaline Trio. Over my dead, rotting carcass by the side of the road do we miss Trio, so off we went into the abyss of smelly teenagers to find the well-hidden Main Stage.

First we find the Alkaline Trio tent which says that they’re not, in fact, playing in ten minutes; they started playing ten minutes ago. But I hear them. So I haul off in the direction of “The American Scream,” and there they are. Happy me!! So, we only missed half their set. They rocked anyway, as usual. When it’s over, which is all too quickly, we wander to the back of the Main Stage area and find the giant inflatable schedule. As I glace over the shoulder of the girls standing next to me, who were either foolish or smart enough to purchase a schedule of their own, I notice that none of the times for the bands Coral and I want to see match the ones of the inflate-a-schedule. So, we decide to wander around and actually find the stages, only one of which is where it’s been in the past.

I buy the last Trio hoodie in my size for $20. Can we say “score??” We smoke a cigarette, drink some water, talk about bands we used to know, like, see live at Warped Tour, people we know. This, Trio, and making it back to the jacked up Main Stage just in time for Dropkick Murphys, will be the highlight of our day. That and laughing hysterically over a dying insect with seemingly-malicious intentions, but I digress.

While we continue wandering, looking for the rest of the stages, I decide to grab a beer and inquire about where to find an ATM. The gal checks my ID but does not notice that I’m not wearing one of those silly bracelets that indicates to the general population that I’m over 21, thereby old enough to be walking around with a beer in my hand. Folks, I’ve been told I don’t look my age, but I don’t look that young. In any case, Coral points out to this woman that I’m not wearing a bracelet. She takes back my beer and asks me kindly to go get one, adding that she could have just lost her job. Apparently I could have gotten in some kind of trouble as well for not having the proper identification that no one bothered to ask me for, but I suppose that’s beside the point. In any case, the woman and I were both glad Coral said something. I got my bracelet and my beer and she pointed us in the exact opposite direction of the ATM 40 feet away and off we went, like chickens with our damn heads cut off.

By the time I find the ATM that the chicken-headed girl didn’t know was within her field of vision and Coral and I took a complete tour of the grounds, I’d forgotten what it was I’d wanted to buy in the first place, but felt like I had to take out some cash since we’d been looking for so g.d. long.

Somehow during all this irritating nonsense, we stumble upon Green Jello. I had no idea they were still relevant, or were ever relevant, or even still around for that matter. They have the crowd chant “Green Jello sucks” and I tweet “I could have told you guys that in 1993.” This prevents me from saying it out loud and potentially getting my ass handed to me.

As Green Jello leaves the stage after assailing my ears for an agonizing ten minutes, an unfortunate band of ragamuffin mallrats called We Are The In Crowd takes to the stage next to them, fronted by an adorable Hayley Williams wannabe who should have stayed home and sang into her hairbrush in front of her mirror like a good little girl. I expect the next time I see these cute little cupcakes it will be on the Disney Channel. I’m sure my 12-year-old daughter would have liked them a few years ago.

Just out of curiosity, what’s with the dudes who think they can get a woman’s attention by spraying her with water and beckoning her over to his merch tent?? At one point I swore to myself that the next assbag to spray me with water and smile was going to get his teeth knocked down his throat. Fortunately, it didn’t happen again or I’d probably be writing this from jail.

So we left, with nowhere to go in mind. Coral and I both wanted to see the Casualties, but neither one of us was at all clear on where or when they were actually playing. So, like the boring old farts we are, I got another beer and we sat in the shade again, listening from a distance to whomever was playing what used to be the Main Stage back when Warped Tour was fun.

We wander some more. I’m tired after two hours of sleep the night before and three hours of driving that morning, so I find a shady spot next to a group of people (and a cute guy) and fall asleep on the ground to Reel Big Fish. The cute guy next to me rolls over and we bonk heads. I barely notice, but he says “Oh, I didn’t know there was someone there.” As usual, wherever they are hot guys, I am invisible. I am in an M. Night Shyamalan movie. At one point I hear Coral’s voice telling someone “she only slept for, like, an hour last night. She had so much homework.”

I have no idea how long I’ve been asleep, but I wake up to a radiant, gorgeous man, rockin’ pink spiky hair and a Dillinger Escape Plan shirt. He’s leaning gently over me and innocently touching my bare knees with a cold can of iced tea. When I open my eyes he smiles and says “here,” and I fall completely in love with him for no reason. I sit up and realize that all the other people with whom I was sharing my shady knoll are now gone and I’ve been sleeping in the middle of the isle where people have been walking. He goes back to the booth he’s working at and we wave at each other, and this is the end of our brief affair. His shirt makes me sad that I slept through Dillinger Escape Plan, too.

As Coral and I decide to finally continue our trek, she trips over a pen and begins bleeding profusely. A large, presumably threatening staff member asks me if she’s alright. I tell him I think so, but he’d have to ask her. I’m about to ask if he knows where we could get some band-aids when he cops a total cockasaurus attitude and says “Well, you’re the one who answered,” and stomps off in a huff like he’s in second grade and I just called him a doody head. In my mind I’m yelling after him something clever, like “Hey, you dick!! Don’t you work here?? Do your goddam job and get my friend a Band-Aid. She’s bleeding like Courtney Love’s liver, for fuck’s sake.” I look up and he’s gone. Tents are starting to pack up, even though the sun is still high and hot, but a gentleman nearby has some bandages and someone at another tent had a clean cloth. We fix Coral right up, hope she doesn’t get the gangrene and lose a toe before we get back to Seattle, and wander aimlessly some more until it’s time for Dropkick Murphys.

This day has not gone according to plan.

Dropkick makes things all better, though. Or mostly better, at least. Coral and I are both distracted by the rockabilly guy in front of us with the bleached-blond hair and the severed-head-in-a-bottle tattoo, and at one point we comment on how no matter where we stand people are always telling us to move. I wish there were more to remember about the Dropkick Murphys show than that. The sunset was behind us, whereas it would have been in front of us if the Main Stage had been in the correct place.

The crowd disburses quickly after Dropkick, because frankly there’s nothing left to see. Coral and I sat down to listen to a ridiculously white reggae band. Not ska, straight up reggae. Coral looks at me in dismay. “You mean no one’s told them they’re not Jamaican??” We both have the ganja song in our heads for the rest of the night.

“There’s your boyfriend,” Coral points out the lovely fellow who brought me the iced tea that’s still unopened in my hands. “You should go talk to him.” Of course I’m too scared to go talk to him. No guy I want to talk to ever wants to talk to me; it’s usually the guys I wish would go away who want to talk to me. Besides, he’s working there and I considered it bad form try and chat up someone while they’re supposed to be working. Meaning I hate it when people do it to me, so I don’t do it to others. “It takes a real man to rock pink hair,” Coral teases me. I smile at him, he doesn’t notice, and we leave.

Back at camp, Coral decides to take a shower and I made up our beds in the back of my truck. What’s about to transpire is exactly what I’m talking about when I say it’s the guys I don’t want to talk to.

One of the stumbling drunkards from nearby comes to help me set up our blankets. I thank him kindly but make a point of saying I can do it myself. I’m reasonably certain he’s not trying to be a gentleman. Guess what?? I was right. The second all the blankets are laid out and the makeshift beds are made, he pulls me down next to him and tries to climb on top of me and kiss me. I pull back.

“Am I being inappropriate??” he asks.

“Yeah, a little.”

We both sit up on the tailgate, and I thank my lucking fucking stars that it’s still a little bit light out and there are so many people around. He asks me if his feet are touching the ground, and I really want him to go away now.

I laugh at his expense. “You really need to have this explained to you??”

That’s right. When in doubt, say something rude.

Once his feet find the ground, he goes away. Mad, of course. The last thing he says to me is “I like your tits, lady.” He’s scowling and pointing at me when he says this, loud and clear for all and sundry. I later see him pointing toward my truck and referring to us as “these uppity bitches over here,” like I owed him public sex for helping me spread a blanket in the back of my truck.

Douchepacker.

Guys like this honestly wonder why they’re single. I wait for Coral to come back, a little too nervous to lie down until there’s someone I trust nearby. When she’s back I change my clothes and fall asleep. I wake up long enough to have a few garlic fries with Coral, and I realize this is the first thing I’ve eaten all day. I go back to sleep.

I’d brought some alcohol and initially thought I’d want to join the revelers after the show. I didn’t. Coral was sunburned and bleeding from the foot. I was operating on two hours of sleep and a nap on the lawn, and after having been nearly molested by a guy who thought I was an “uppity bitch” named Ashley, I was in no mood to party with anyone I didn’t know.

Sometime after midnight I wake up to the sound of goats. Or rather, one goat. As it turns out, it’s the girl from a campsite nearby laughing. She’s loud and she sounds exactly like a goat. Every time she laughs, Coral makes a goat sound that’s exactly like the girl’s laughter and I erupt into a fit of giggles. A guy from the same group starts dancing around like a maniac to Sublime, and in the light of their tiki torches he looks like a bear dancing in pajamas.

At one point I get up to use the toilet. On my way out of the jane, a young kid stumbles into me with his cock in his hand and announces “I’m totally pissing right now!!” I step away from him and stagger blindly into his friend who decides he needs a hug, from me, right now, and grabs me. I spin out of his skinny, inebriated seventeen-year-old grasp as the one reasonable individual in this band of three merry idiots pulls him off me.

I want to go home.



Big ups to Coral Rad Pants for telling me to quit whining and start having fun, and making an otherwise shitty situation tolerable with her mere presence.

Thanks, as always, to the folks at The Wild Horse Campground. It’s always a pleasure.

Thank you to the bands at Warped Tour, the ones we got to see and the ones we didn’t get to. You’re the reason we put up with all this bullshit.

To the organizers of Warped Tour, get it right next time, because this year sucked!!

And last but certainly not least, to the staff of The Gorge Amphitheater, thanks for fuckin’ nothing. You can all go jump off the nearest cliff.