Live Review: Vans Warped Tour

This year, Warped was a mix of pop-punk and screamo. Add the complete lack of cringe from both types of fans and some well considered line-up scheduling and you've got a great day.

For the pop punkers there were Man Overboard, The Used and penultimate headliner Simple Plan. The band with all the buzz, Tonight Alive, stole the show. They seemed genuinely glad to be back home. Jenna McDougall held the crowd in the palm of her hand, encouraging everyone to crowd-surf forward and give her high fives. She also made a special appearance later on with Simple Plan for Jet Lag.

The screamo side of things kicked off early with Hands Of Mercy bringing the crash symbol sounds to stage two. Things got progressively heavier as For All Those Sleeping, Confession and Hatebreed followed. Of course the highlights were The Amity Affliction and Parkway Drive, who both drew a crazy huge crowd to the tiny stage area.

The Kevin Says stage held some nice surprises with New Found Glory and The Summer Set laying down a dance-pop-punk vibe. The oldtimers were taken care of too with classic sets from Reel Big Fish, including S.R. played five ways, and MIllencolin running through most of their early stuff.

The Offspring proved to be a perfect choice for headliner with the pop-punk singles Why Don't You Get A Job and Pretty Fly (For A White Guy), as well as their loved Smash hits and some of their heavier full-on thrash circle pit tracks.

As always though, there were a couple of random moments that really made the festival. The truly guerrilla gig played by Corpus had the Viral guys furiously looking for AJ Maddah to come and whoop their arses, and the cheapskates who came alongside the pier by boat for a free show. The ultimate moment though came in the glorious afternoon sun, watching Steve Caballero and co doing their thing on the half pipe with New Found Glory ripping through their Sticks And Stones album in full. That is exactly what Warped is all about.