Essay About Ska Bands And Outdoor Venues

Its Summer, Time To Get Warped!
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Many music fans do not know what Warped Tour is and the history behind its annual
summer festival extravaganza. The tour, which was created in 1994 by Kevin Lyman and named
after the short-lived Warp Magazine, began when he took a mass handful of his favorite punk
and ska bands, such as Sublime and Bad Religion and shoved them on a tour bus embarking
them on what turned out to be an unsuccessful dismal of a music festival. Kevin was a veteran
producer for the California-based promoters Goldenvoice for 12 years prior to the development
of Warped. He has toured with Lollapalooza and put together events such as the Swatch Impact
Tour and the Vision Skate Escape (Pettigrew, p.80). With the downfall of the outcome of the
first year, there was hesitant if there will be another tour the following summer. “When I started
the tour in 1995, it was a little bit more about the barbecuing and the gambling, and hanging
out,” says Lyman (Kung Fu, 2004). Kevin was approached the following year in 1995 by the
Vans Shoe Company to help promote a skateboarding festival. Seeing it as an opportunity to not
hurt to pass up, he took the chance to put together their ideas into his Warped Tour, and thus one
of the longest reigning carnivals of summer featuring collaborations of punk-rock music and
extreme sports in North America was born (Kevin Lyman, 2004).
The tour which is generally held in outdoor venues, (i.e. parking lots or large fields)
consists of several stages and other erected tents for convenient of foods and beverages as well as
band merchandises, independent record labels, and non-profit organizations. Over the years,
more than one hundred bands have played during the annual summer months across various
venues in the United States. To help with the consistency of the bands performing, each band
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would play up to 30 minutes on approximately 10 different stages, with several bands playing all
at once. The two “Main” stages generally are for the bigger popular bands on the bill. The full
venue area is mocked up to prevent active stage acts to disturb other stage performances across
the venue. For instance, a band playing punk music cannot cause interrupting across the venue
to disturb another stage performing an acoustic set. On a typical day bands would start
performing no earlier than 11:00am and ending the day around 9:00pm. To help find which
stage a favorite band is playing on, there is a large inflatable board placed in the middle of the
venue which provides the listings of the bands and their performance times. The Warped Tour is
not only a place to see the bands but it also has become a fan fair where fans can get the
opportunity to meet with their favorite bands after each performance to interact and sign
autographs.
While the tour started out playing mostly ska and punk bands, it has since progressed to
cater towards the genre of punk rock, metal-core and post-hardcore bands. Several years after
its inception, the Warped Tour went international in 1998 to include venues in Australia, Japan
and Europe. With the coinciding of each tour, Lyman partnered with SideOneDummy