Heck Yeah Summer!

I know this is a really stupid looking picture, but whatever. The point is, this picture is from.... ready?

Warped Tour!

That’s right folks, I went to my first Warped Tour this year! For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s very simple: it’s a tour. With bands. The end. The girls and I have been planning on going together for an extremely long time now, but it didn’t quite end up working out that way. On the way up to Salt Lake, it was me, Brianna, Chanelle, her boyfriend Kelin, and my friend Carter. It was kind of a random thing to have Carter there, but he really wanted to get a ride up, so we were willing to tote him along.

We decided that we’d rather go up on Friday (the concert was on Saturday) than get up at like 5 am on Saturday to go, so everyone loaded up Chanelle’s van (which, by the way, is the only vehicle I ever want to take on a road trip again. It is AWESOME) after I got off work on Friday and headed on up! My dear sweet kind loving brother Keith and his equally fantastic wife Rachelle were gracious enough to allow me and my four friends stay in their house for the night. It was really kind of a last minute thing, so I really appreciate them putting up with us, despite my lack of planning. (:

The next day, the boys (Carter, Kelin, and Keith) stayed at the house while Rachelle, Brianna, Chanelle, and I headed for the Gateway to do some shopping, since Chanelle had never been there. We met up with Chelsea while shopping, and eventually were able to successfully kill a couple of hours before Warped Tour started at 11. When the time came, we all headed back to the house, said our goodbyes to our incredible hosts, and took the van to the fairgrounds. For some reason, we decided to park the van behind someone’s house that was offering parking for $7. I’m really not sure why we chose to park in a sketchy lookin back yard, when there was a perfectly good parking lot at the fairgrounds, and it only cost $5. Weird.

I wish I could literally relive the entire day for you. It was just so incredible! Some of the bands I ended up seeing (if you don’t recognize some or any of the following names, don’t feel bad) Hey Monday, Every Time I Die, Reel Big Fish, Fake Problems (more on that later), Riverboat Gamblers, Andrew W.K., The Cab, Mayday Parade (also more on that later), and probably a lot more. And in between shows, you could always walk around to the bands booths, buy their stuff, and possibly meet the band. Or if you were REALLY lucky, you and your friends would just be strollin around and have some guy come up to you and start talking ridiculously fast about why smoking sucks, then find out he works for the anti-smoking TRUTH campaign. He was funny. (: And after only a minute or five of our time, we ended up getting free shirts and suspenders!

So about Fake Problems. Recently, they’ve become one of my favorite bands. They just have a really unique sound, and the guy has a crazy sounding voice, but in a good way. They also wrote the song "Heck Yeah Summer", which this post is named. They have another one that's awesome and it's called "Life's A Drink, Get Thirsty!" Anyways, Chelsea, Brianna, and I were just walking around enjoying the essence of Warped Tour when I heard a familiar voice. Lo and behold, Fake Problems! I had no idea they were going to be there. So we went to their stage, and there were only like 20 other people there, if that. So we were very close to the stage. So close, in fact, that while I got some video footage of it on my phone, you can see in the video that the lead singer (Chris Farren I think is his name) like acknowledge the fact that I’m taking video and play it up. It’s sweet! So I just have this video of him pretty much singing to me. Meanwhile, there was a guy walking around selling their latest album for $5. I thought “well I’m just going to buy this eventually, where it’ll probably be like $10. Might as well get it now.” So I did. After their set was over, we went back to their tent/booth thing just to see what kind of shirts they had, and what did I find instead? Chris Farren and Derek Perry (bassist)! I asked them to please sign my CD, and they were very excited to do so. Then, looking around and seeing that there wasn’t really anyone else at all interested in meeting these fellows, I asked if they took pictures. They both smiled real big and said “Well yeah! We’d love to take a picture with you!” So Mr. Perry moved aside the assortment of shirts to let me behind the table and into the booth, and we got this sweet picture!

Seriously, those guys were so cool. I hope they're at Warped Tour next year.

This was the CD i had them sign. The album is It's Great To Be Alive.

MAN I love those guys! That made the entire trip for me. They were really sweet, too. And I’m just gonna say this, but I did not expect Chris Farren to be that hot. Judging from his voice, I thought he’d be just like this grubby middle-aged man. But he can’t be older than MAYBE his mid-twenties, and he was very clean shaven and attractive. The guy from The Cab, on the other hand—total opposite. He has a really sexy voice, but looks like a cross between Justin Timberlake and an Ewok. (The JT part isn’t really a compliment.)

This is Fake Problems performing. If you can see Chris Farren's face up close, he looks just like my friend Keith. It's awesome. (:

We had predetermined that we were going to leave after Mayday Parade performed at 6, because a couple of people in our group needed to get home ASAP for various reasons. That story is a good one… Mayday Parade was one of the most popular bands at Warped Tour, so I’m really not sure why they didn’t get the main stage. Anyways, I sacrificed seeing Anarbor just so I could get to the stage that Mayday Parade would play on like half an hour early. First mistake. I got a liiiiiittle too close to the front, so I had the entire weight of everyone behind me shoving me into the people in front of me when the band came out. That was awesome and all, but also quite stressful. At one point, the lead singer said that he would give a high-five to any crowd surfers who made it to the front. That created a frenzy of people jumping on top of the crowd, most of them bashing me in the head/face with their nasty concert feet. At one point, some guy tried to pick me up and throw me on top of the crowd but I wasn’t havin any of that nonsense. After the first song, Brianna and I just had to move back. We ended up somewhere in the middle of the crowd which ended up not being too bad. Other than the whole “do I have a black eye from that one?” thing, the concert was pretty rad. Everyone was singing along and being awesome… man I love Mayday Parade. (:

We did leave after them, which ended up sucking for me, because Dropkick Murphys was at like 8, and they ended up being a sick concert. They did “Shipping Up to Boston” and “The Dirty Glass”, which are two of my favorite songs by them. Also, they allowed some fans to get up on the stage with the band at one point, two of which were my friends Chasen and Jod. But still, we had a fun drive home, which Chelsea came on this time. (:

Conclusion: Warped Tour is definitely something to look forward to next summer.

P.S. I move next week. Whoo!