NEWS: Punk Rock Circus: Warped Tour Invades Guitar Center Sessions

MUSIC: Punk Rock Circus: Warped Tour Invades Guitar Center Sessions

My memories of the several years I've attended the Vans Warped Tour are as foggy as the next person's, though there are a few that perforate the haze, still clear and shiny in all their awkward glory as if it were yesterday. I worked the tour in 2004 as a photographer, on assignment with

the Vandals to promote their album Hollywood Potato Chip. God only knows why, but as I stepped onto the tour bus I swung my camera bag into a plastic champagne glass, dousing their PlayStation with Mimosa. I can still feel Joe Escalante's penetrating stare. Second to shitting on the tour bus, this is as bad as it gets.



But somehow I survived, nailed the photo shoot and, save dodging a Frisbee from guitarist Warren Fitzgerald later that afternoon, made it out alive. I also traded some videographer my socks for a Pabst Blue Ribbon, but that's another story. It was, after all, just another day on the Warped Tour and these kinds of stories are nothing compared to those of the bands themselves.



"It wasn't a bus, it was a transportable dance party," Tom DeLonge (ex-Blink 182, Angels & Airwaves) says about some of his fondest Warped memories. The year was 1997 and Blink 182 was crashing on founder Kevin Lyman's tour bus. "It was disco in the back and my bed was one of 23 bunks and I was like on the bottom floor next to everyone's smelly shoes."



Tom continues, "I remember this kid we just picked up on the Warped Tour, or Kevin did, just out of nowhere. A cool kid, very much a stray, and he stayed on the bus. I remember at the time, Mark [Hoppus] from Blink jumped into his bunk naked -- on him -- and he was screaming for him to get off. He had to spit in Mark's face [laughs] to get Mark off him. And that's what I always think about the Warped Tour, it's full of great circus acts."



Mere days before the 2008 Warped Tour kicked off on June 20th in California, I met with DeLonge and some of the other circus acts at the Guitar Center in Hollywood for a special edition of the Guitar Center Sessions -- an educational program designed to encourage discussion amongst musicians and allow fans to seek career-fostering advice from the bands they look up to and admire.



Alongside DeLonge, the Guitar Center Sessions Warped panel included founder Kevin Lyman, Brett Gurewitz (Bad Religion, Epitaph Records founder), Philip Sneed (Story of the Year), Max Bemis (Say Anything), and Joe Escalante.



Back in the green room before the panel begins, neither a Mimosa nor Playstation in sight, Joe Escalante and I are chatting about what brought the Vandals back to the Warped Tour after several years absence. "To play the main stage at the Warped Tour, to me, is the pinnacle of punk rock," he insists. "Go beyond that and you're in some other business. But in the business of punk rock, Kevin has made it so this is the pinnacle. We're just proud to be there and we feel lucky to come back again."



This year marks the Warped Tour's 14th summer bringing punk rock to kids across America, making it the longest running tour of its kind... ever.



Talking more with DeLonge and Kevin Lyman, I ask Lyman how the years have changed things for the tour and whether or not we can expect any more shenanigans on his bus à la Mark Hoppus' now infamous nude attack.



"My tour bus doesn't quite break out as much," Lyman smiles. "I used to be a peer to everyone and we used to all hang out and get crazy, but now it's like I'm either a mentor or a disciplinarian in a lot of ways. Now it's more like band guys want to come and hang out under the tent, drink PBR, or play poker. But it usually doesn't digress into trying to jump a BMX over a picnic table."



I thank the guys for their time and let them get ready for the panel, due to start any minute. I can already hear the swarm of fans talking excitedly in the makeshift auditorium outside the green room door.



As the band members make their way towards the stage, the crowd erupts, and my ears are met with a deafening roar. It becomes clear that the Warped Tour is far from slowing (or quieting) down anytime soon. I think back to what DeLonge had told me just moments before, "The Warped Tour will never go away. It will just get better and better."



For more information on Guitar Center Sessions go here, and for the latest on the Warped Tour go here.



Also, check out pics from the panel below.





Brett Gurewitz (Bad Religion, Epitaph Records founder)





Tom DeLonge (Ex-Blink 182, Angels & Airwaves)





Tom DeLonge and Joe Escalante (The Vandals, Kung Fu Records founder)





Tom DeLonge, Joe Escalante, Brett Gurewitz





Kevin Lyman (founder of the Warped Tour), Max Bemis (Say Anything), Philip Sneed (Story of the Year)



Photos courtesy of Girlie Action and Guitar Center Sessions.

Fact: Gil Mantera's Party Dream are playing Warped Tour this year.

Fact: I would pay like $20 to see see this just to see GMPD and the Vandals. $37.25 is a bit steep, tho.

I can't believe people pay any attention to Tom DeLonge after the way he left Blink 182. Fucking pathetic! There are other ways to approach leaving a band than not showing up for a charity event, having your manager call at the last minute, then subsequently changing your number... Douche...