The Warped Decade (by Jay Hale)

I remember the first time I heard about the Warped Tour. It was back in 1995 when I was flipping through The Boston Phoenix looking for The Rat’s weekend show listings. Fresh out of high school and falling in love with punk rock I thought “A package tour featuring No Use For A Name, Sublime and Sick Of It All? Sign me up.” However, I didn’t have a car and my friends and family weren’t easy to convince. Needless to say, I didn’t make it out to Northampton, Mass., that summer. That first tour was the only one I’ve missed. Since 1996, I’ve covered over 20 Warped shows from Montreal to San Francisco for three separate publications and I’ve documented them with about 100 rolls of film. I’ve been backstage, on stage, on busses, holding court at barbeques, played soccer with Tre from Green Day and then there was that one time back in 1997 where I introduced Limp Bizkit after the Bosstones wrapped up their set. I’ve been tossed off stage by Stewart about 12 times and got chased by Henry Rollins after taking pictures of him doing chin ups. I watched the Ataris count out about $40,000 of merch money to send home before driving across the Canadian border. I could go on and on about my Warped Tour war stories but I’m sure you’d rather hear from those who make you want to brave the summer heat — the bands.

Jim Lindberg (Pennywise) -- Pennywise — the band most associated with the Warped Tour not only because of their close ties to the surf and skateboard communities but because they’ve crisscrossed North America as part of the traveling punk rock circus a whopping four times. Ironically, despite becoming synonymous with the nation’s longest running package tour, the band was not part of Warped’s inaugural voyage. Their first trip, however, is one they will never forget.

July 30, 1996, was just like any other day on Warped. Pennywise and the rest of their tourmates were gearing up for the arduous border inspection en route from Montreal to Boston. That was until the phone rang with news from back home in Hermosa Beach. And the news wasn’t good.

That evening, former Pennywise bassist and longtime brother-in-arms Jason Matthew Thirsk was found dead from a self-inflicted gun shot wound. The band was devastated.

“It was just totally surreal,” recalls frontman Jim Lindberg. “You just felt like you weren’t in your body at the time.” Although they were thousands of miles away and in another country, Pennywise had to be home with their loved ones and help alleviate their grief. They hopped a flight and headed west. The scene in California was emotional to say the least.

Lou Koller (Sick of it All) -- Ponder this scenario for a little while. You are one of the pillars of New York hardcore — a band that gave the movement validity when it was transforming into a sea of thrashing guitars and speed metal — not to mention one of the elite bands who traveled the nation during Warped’s maiden voyage a decade ago — and you’re playing on the east coast. You have nearly 20 years of service under your belt but for some unfathomable reason, you have to reintroduce yourself to a crowd of 12,000 “punk rock” fans. Does that sound mind-numbingly frustrating or what?

“Hell yeah,” replies Sick of It All frontman and hardcore legend Lou Koller. “Well, [we had to reintroduce ourselves] at least to the first three rows of kids who were waiting to see New Found Glory. But that’s one of the reasons you play the Warped Tour — so new kids will see your band. Not that it helps all the time. The new generation, if they haven’t seen you on MTV or something like that, they have no interest. They need to be spoonfed everything.”

Trever Keith (Face to Face) --Face to Face is one of the bands that brought you to the dance; one of punk rock’s great gateway drugs. They always have been and if they didn’t finally call it quits this past summer, they would have continued to be such. Claim you were never a fan? Bullshit. I’d wager that one of your first shows featured Face to Face and they broadened your horizon, allowing you to delve further into this crazy beast we call punk rock. You may not find Trever Keith and his rotating band of musicians cool today but you did once before. Perhaps that’s why so many of their fans — and the band members themselves — were offended at the second-class status they received during the Warped Tour 10th Anniversary show this past summer.

As Keith, bassist Scott Shiflett and drummer Pete Parada took the side stage on their fifth and final Warped Tour, they were visibly upset, Keith especially. The crowd was sparse as 150 yards away Bad Religion and Less Than Jake played opposite them on the main stages. This certainly didn’t help alleviate the dour mood hovering over the band and their entourage but instead of using the performance as a soapbox to express their displeasure, Face to Face took the high road, swallowed their pride and put in the maximum effort as they’ve done thousands of times since forming in 1992.

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