Show Review: Warped Tour @ Parc Jean Drapeau

The rain. The kids. The runny make-up. It wouldn't be a Warped Tour without some acknowledgment about the fact that I am fucking old in relation to the Warped crowd. As they continue to be 16 and wear tight jeans, I realize the fact that my time as an attendant is quickly coming to an end. After swearing up and down that last year was my final year, promises of free entry, good times and a chance to interview some people I really admired me meant that I'd be getting into the (guyliner-dominated, severely terribly-dressed) ring once more to tango with the throngs of eternal teenagers and see some sets from bands that I both love and hate while braving the terrible, unholy weather.

Instead of a chronological list of events, I'd much rather rattle off the positive and negative aspects that I witnessed during the Montreal stop of the Warped Tour.

The good:

• No matter how bad music may ever get, Gallows will always serve as a reminder that it's not all bad. The band's 2 p.m. timeslot on the Hurley stage may have been just a tad too early for some, but compared to the band's inaugural run in 2007 (which found perhaps 60 people watching the band), the turn-out for their set this year was massive. The side of the stage was also loaded with members of other bands (P.O.S. and The Blackout singer Sean Smith could be seen, as well as Warped founder Kevin Lyman hanging out in back at the sound booth), displaying just how popular they were among their peers. The band did not disappoint, and from the opening line of "Abandon Ship" (the way-too-appropriate chant of "mayday, mayday") the crowd responded in kindness to the band's brand of throwback, ultra-aggro hardcore. After the first song was completed, pint-sized frontman Frank Carter joined the crowd, microphone in hand, imploring everyone to join in whenever they knew the words. The band then kicked off "London Is The Reason" off of the recently-relesed Grey Britain record. After that it was a haze of circle pits, hardcore dancing, sing-alongs and other assorted activities a rabidly enthusiastic crowd may participate in. Midway during the set Carter managed to make it to the soundbooth in the back and then used the soundman's mic in order to make it through the next few numbers before rejoining the band onstage for the closer, "Orchestra Of Wolves".  During the final refrain of the song, guitarist Stephen Carter threw down his guitar and threw himself into the crowd, managing to be held up by the mass of sweaty, wet people assembled at the front as he helped his brother Frank shout out the closing refrain of "the hardest thing you'll ever learn/is just to love and be loved in return". An entirely enjoyable set marked by winning moments and great musicmanship.

• The elder mainstage bands all turned up in full spirits and put out consistent, crowd-pleasing bands. Less Than Jake had the unenviable task of playing a 1 p.m. slot that still managed to attract a large number of people as they made their way through the hits ("The Ghost Of You And Me", "All My Best Friends Are Metalheads", "Look What Happened" and "Last One Out Of Liberty City" to name a few) with their ever-present witty banter. They also played "Conviction Notice" (from last year's GNV FLA album) and introduced it by saying that the band had put on a full-length last year that no one gave a shit about. This brings up a very interesting point when it comes to a lot of the elder statesmen (and stateswomen) of the Warped Tour: the fact that while a lot of these bands still continually put out records, a lot of fans (as well as some of the bands themselves) acknowledge the fact that their most well-acknowledged work is perhaps behind them, and as such they manage to treat Warped Tour as a pseudo greatest hits set, serving both as an introduction to new fans who may be catching them as well as a high-five to the fans who've stuck around the band. That was a large problem with Reel Big Fish's set last year: apart from a smattering of classics ("Beer", "Sell Out" and their cover of Aha's "Take On Me") the band crammed their set with new (and forthcoming) material that left much of the crowd disinterested and confused.

Bad Religion (one of the few long-standing bands who has managed to keep putting out relevant material as well as maintain great record sales) also put on a great set, a mixture of old-school hits ("Fuck Armageddon, This Is Hell") to cuts from 2007's New Maps Of Hell such as "The New Dark Ages" and "Requiem For Dissent". Singer Greg Graffin was in fine form, looking like a cross-inbetween a shmaltzy Vegas crooner and a true punk rock stalwart. The rest of the band was in fine form, delivering machine-gun-rapid songs with little pause for a breather, apart from Graffin's announcement that the band would be back in September, as well as questioning the audience about their level of musical commitment. Topping things off with the one-two punch of "Sorrow" and "Infected", they exited the stage to a largely satisfied crowd.

Alexisonfire (who were playing the main stage on the Canadian dates of the Warped Tour) put on a fine performance, largely culling songs from Crisis and Watch Out!. The band treated the audience to "Waterwings", a track from their self-titled debut as well as the lead-off single from their newest effort Old Crows/Young Cardinals, the anthemic "Young Cardinals". The entire band were in great spirits, engaging in between-song banter and riffing off of each other to a great degree. They closed their set with Watch Out! lead-off single "Accidents" and added a large instrumental section at the end, one which allowed singer George Petit to toss himself whole-heartedly (and rather wrecklessly) into the crowd below before being crowdsurfed back to the safety of the stage by the time the rest of the band had finished up.

• Rap acts on this year's tour cranked out fine performances, for the most part. Shad K (as he will forever be known in my heart) showed up with an acoustic guitar and a Cosby-style sweater, delivering a partly self-effacing but fully engaging set that hit home as he played cuts from both The Old Prince and When This Is Over, lyrically seguewaying from one song to the next using clever wordplay, rendering his set into a half-hour journey.

Similarly, Doomtree collective member P.O.S. dropped one of the best sets of the day to a scarce crowd (due in part to the heavy downpour scaring off many). Taking a page from Frank Carter's book, the rapper climbed the barricade and then implored those in attendance to gather around him as he kicked things off with Never Better lead-off track "Let It Rattle", before continuing onwards with a set largely consisting of Never Better tracks (as well as Audition stand-outs "De La Souls", "P.O.S. Is Ruining My Life", "Yeah Right (Science Science) and "Half-Cocked Concepts").

P.O.S. pulled off a set that was full of heart, and at the very core demonstrated an air of authenticity that was sorely lacking from a large number of bands that day. At one point he paused and gazed over at the circle pit currently going on during Anti-Flag's set and then said "you know, they may look like they're having a great time, but I can tell you this: we're having an even better time than the people watching the Anti-Flag set" before kicking into another song. The rapper managed to wear his heart on his sleeve at just the right moments, displaying a vulnerability and strength that was entirely in character with the rather personal nature of his lyrics. A pure joy from beginning to end.

•NOFX and Underoath having self-referencial merch. Given their prior Warped Tour problems, it was a nice surprise to discover that both bands were able to pick fun at each other in a light-hearted manner. Underoath had a shirt which depicted a lizard with crazy hair and sunglasses (who bore a rather strong resemblance to Fat Mike) with the writing "Underoath loves FAT dinosaurs". NOFX also had a t-shirt which depicted a rather crappy looking boat with "NOAH FX" scrawled off at the top. Simply delicious.

The bad:
•Walking in and witnessing Millionaires in full-effect at 11:15 in the morning. It was a terrible scene, as a total of 40 or 50 people gathered to witness three girls deliver a set that was largely devoid of talent or substance (songs with titles like "Talk Shit" and "Alcohol" definitely dig to the deeper social issues, natch). If the group were able to be clever or witty about their subject matter then perhaps it could be a bit more defensible, but the direct approach just makes the material that much more unpalatable as it comes off as juvenile and trite. Similarly, walking by and hearing Brokencyde be as profane as they wanna be (for no real reason at all) while delivering one terrible cut after another really disheartened me. For some reason there was a large contingent of people watching and I wondered just how many were there to watch the trainwreck unfold, and how many truly genuine fans there were. If I was to going to judge based purely on the number of Brokencyde shirts worn, then I'd have to guess that a quarter of the people turned out to really enjoy the set while the rest were there to see what all the online hype was about.

•I'm a big fan of honesty. So when I hung back near the sound tent and watched Innerpartysystem's set on the SkullCandy stage at around 6 p.m., I grew increasingly queasy. I watched as, during the band's 25-minute set, their soundman (frontman Patrick Nissley's brother Andrew) worked harder than 3/5ths of the band up onstage. He spent his time singing backing vocals, words which first appeared to be coming out of guitarist Kriss Barman and keyboarist Kess Cronan's mouths, but upon closer inspection were definitely not given that Cronan was a good foot away from the microphone half the time when he was supposed to also be singing. Soundman Nissley also spent his time tweaking the signal he received from various inputs via a midi controller (the Kaoss mini-KP), allowing various manipulative tricks that appeared to those in attendance (who weren't looking back) as if it was all taking place on-stage.

I have nothing against sound manipulation at all. Hell, one of my favourite bands (The Cooper Temple Clause) had their sound manipulator up onstage, tweaking knobs and flipping faders around. That band celebrated the fact that they had a member whose sole job was to ensure that the signal was changed whenever it fit the song, instead of hiding the member in the soundbooth and pretended that all was well.

Innerpartysystem, on the other hand, are not what they appear to be. I suspected something was afoot back in March when I saw them open for Underoath, as singer Patrick Nissley seemed, at times, to be nowhere near the microphone yet his voice was still loud, clear and constant. Witnessing yesterday's events, I finally understood what was going on. I think the band's doing a disservice to its fans by not bearing it all on-stage and having a large part of its sound up there.

•The same goes for bands that are either playing to backing tracks or live-correcting their vocals. If you can't do it live, then why bother trying to cheat? Hardly sounds punk rock to me. Why perform live if you're being largely aided by artificial means? It unfortunately does not make a lot of sense. Kevin Lyman conceded that some of the bands on this tour aren't bands that he'd necessarily listen to, but he also claimed that bands ended up on the tour due in part to the demand set out by what he perceives to be the Warped tour demographic. A tragic tale of capitalism winning a battle of the ever-present punk rock war.

•The rain. Fuck off, strange global weather trends. Damn.

•The fact that there's one main stage, instead of the usual two. That means that if you dislike a band (like, for example, my intense apathy for 3Oh!3) you have to wait an extra half-hour in order to see someone else you may enjoy on a large stage. People might argue that it also gives fans a chance to check out other stages (and perhaps it does) but the sound quality is rather lacking on the side stages and the quality of this year's roster left something to be desired.

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All in all, a very strange journey was undertaken during the course of the day, with many highs and lows at any given moment. Perhaps true punk rock (in its boxed, packaged form) is now the norm, but the tour's willingness to explore other musical avenues (both good and bad) means that the tour offers up something for everyone, even the purest at heart.