When you’re on tour for Warped, life’s good

By John Benson

Similar to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet that also serves Mexican cuisine, sushi rolls and French delicacies, the punk-based Vans Warped Tour is a fan-friendly smorgasbord of musical styles that caters to all tastes.

Among this year’s high-profiled featured acts on the annual summer tour are Against Me!, The Academy Is..., Angels and Airwaves, As I Lay Dying, Bouncing Souls, Every Time I Die, Gym Class Heroes, Pennywise and a few dozen more. The Vans Warped Tour is scheduled to play Thursday at the Time Warner Cable Amphitheater at Tower City in Cleveland and July 29 at the Post Gazette Pavilion at Star Lake in Pittsburgh.

“It’s our fourth summer taking part in the Warped Tour but we’ve always had various levels of success I guess you could say,” said Gym Class Heroes drummer Matt McGinley, calling from St. Louis, Mo. “We started out playing extremely small tents and touring in a mini-van, and now we’ve worked our way up to the main stage and we’re rolling around in two big tour buses.”

Life is good for the Geneva, N.Y.-based alternative hip-hop act, which is using this summer’s outing as a marketing tool to advertise the release of the band’s fourth studio album “The Quilt,” due out in September.

“This has been awesome because we’ve been done with the album for a few months now and it’s pretty exciting to actually be able to perform stuff for new crowds and see their reaction and how songs go over,” McGinley said. “It’s very exciting for us.”

It’s this constant enthusiasm from band members and musical audiences that seemingly year after year keeps the Vans Warped Tour fresh. Specifically, it’s the infusion of new and diverse musical talent that forces audiences to come back.

“When I was a kid, it seemed like the Warped Tour was where you could catch a rising star,” McGinley said. “I can remember being in high school and going to see groups like the Black-Eyed Peas, Eminem, Jurassic 5 and Deftones. These were a lot of bands that were just beginning to have a buzz.

“So in that aspect, the Warped Tour hasn’t changed that much because there’s always a lot of bands on the verge of making it big, and it’s a good opportunity for fans to see those bands on a smaller scale.”

One such band is pop-punk outfit Mayday Parade. The Tallahassee, Fla., group is now touring its 2007 debut, “A Lesson in Romantics.” For many acts, achieving Vans Warped Tour status is tantamount to finally making it.

“This is like a dream come true being here,” said Mayday Parade singer Derek Sanders, calling from a recent New Mexico tour stop. “I’ve gone to the Warped Tour since I was a teenager and always dreamed of playing the whole thing.

“Last year we got to play a little bit of it, but this year is the first year we feel like we’re a real band on the tour. We have the bus and everything, so it feels really good.”

There’s another increasingly common phenomenon associated with the Vans Warped Tour that involves a DIY approach by unsigned and unknown bands. They actually travel alongside the festival from city to city and set up shop outside of the musical venues. The idea is to expose the band’s music via flyers, CDs and stickers to as many common-minded folks before and after they attend the all-day festival.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Sanders said. “We followed the tour in 2006 when were only a band for like six months and we had recorded our EP. And throughout the two months, we sold 11,000 CDs. It gave us a huge jumpstart to the band.”

It appears as though the message around the Vans Warped Tour is not only paying close attention to those bands playing inside the concert venue, but also those groups hawking their wares outside the gates.

“Absolutely, those are the people – I don’t want to say working the hardest but – working really hard,” Sanders said. “We did that for a while, and it’s not an easy thing. It’s driving in a van, not getting any sleep and you’re doing it all to get out there and try to expose yourself, which a lot of bands aren’t willing to do.

“So I think it’s definitely worth giving them the time of day and at least checking it out. If you don’t like them, that’s fine, but at least listen. You never know, you might discover a band you like a lot and that would be sweet.”