unsceneunheard

It's a little late hey, but I have been working, and recovering from vacation and all that stuff. I'd blog about every individual Warped but I genuinely don't have *that* much energy I wish I was a little duracell bunny, but sadly I am not. So lets just cover the final date of the Vans Warped Tour that I attended this year. It was probably the busiest days, and one of the best (because I didn't throw up - not once!)

Englishtown, NJ - 28th July 2008

Myself and the aussies head out of Manhattan in the early am with some of the 'best' googlemaps directions I've ever come across (that's not saying much), and eventually arrive a little past 11am. The queues are a million miles long, but luckily we'd managed to wrangle more vip/guestlist passes from some good friends on the tour and thankfully didn't have to hang out in the heat for too long in the wait to get inside (we were actually really lucky I don't think we hand to queue for any of the shows - horray!).


Mel, Cris, Bel and me

I run around for the first thirty minutes or so trying to find the wonderful Savannah (tryingtofindthewords), who somehow managed to acquire me a photopass for the day (the fact that no-one else could still boggles my mind; though later I actually found out that if I'd asked just *one* person, I probably could have had one for every one of the shows we'd attended - but oh well).



So yeah I'm eternally greatful to Savannah for hooking me up with that oppertunity - because it was one of the little things on my list for the year that I'd have loved to do. The full set of photos (aka the BETTER photos) I took are over at www.vivalascene.com - and if you like what ya see please let me know in the guestbook over there =D

But anyway so I meet up with Savannah and get sorted. We wander around a little while and head on over to the Alternative Press tent to say hello to the epic Luis aka Mendoza. I take stalker shots when he's not looking...naturally



Eventually Savannah and I part ways for most of the rest of the day – covering separate bands you see – plus! She was doing some epic interviews, so sadly we didn’t get to hang out too much. My mission for the day you see, was to try and cover more bands that I’d not shot before, and give myself a go with bands whose set I’m not familiar with – because naturally that’s always more of a challenge.

My first stop of the day was Norma Jean. A band I’ve heard a lot but never seen live. So I had to shoot them, clearly. Because one aussie in particular is quite the fan





She took stalker shots of me from the back of the stage…



After Norma Jeans set finished up I dashed across to the other side of the park to get in some snaps of Relient K. This is when I realised I’m actually kind of short, or something. I’d like a stepladder for shooting festivals I think




Then in passing I decided to sneak a few snaps of British “metalcore” band Bring Me The Horizon – who again, I’d never seen (and now I never hope to again). Their photopitt was crazy with photogs – slightly scary for someone who is used to only sharing with two or three people max.




Bumped into Erica (ericalovesit) briefly while trying to fight my way through the crowds. Things were set up kind of crazy in Englishtown (did anyone else notice this?!?!) and I worry that the merch tents adjacent to the Hurley.com and Smarkpunk stages suffered for it – the crowd couldn’t move, it was a claustrophobic stand still.

Eventually I wriggled my way through and dashed back to route66 to shoot one of my favourite bands in the world - The Academy Is. I hadn’t shot them since January 2006, so this was exciting, even if there were a billion ‘togs in the photopitt (some of whom had compact cameras coughIhatethat*cough*) But as per usual they put on a spectacular performance – and I’m so so excited about the new album; you can tell how excited and pleased they are with it, and that makes me happy.







Myself and the girls hung around a while backstage chatting with the tai boys…it was amusing to see Butcher wearing more clothes than usual!



Then we all wandered across to get some drinks and head over to the other main stage to watch Say Anything. They were epic. We watched from the back of the stage, and really it was energetic and fun. The crowd were super into it and everyone was kind of dancing a lil and singing along and I stood static like a goober because as much as I listen to Say Anything I don’t know all the words ☹ I think my brain is at full capacity for songs now





Mel being a happyface




Bel and I then make a quick dash across the park to catch a lil’ bit of From First To Last – I got some sweet snaps of them, and hopefully now I’ll put in to shoot them when they make there way over to the UK in October to open for The Blackout.





Sadly 10/15 minutes into their set we had to rush on over to the Hurley stage to see our buddies in Broadway Calls; some of the tours real underdogs if you will…



Brilliant set from them as always, and as usual like a complete nerd I was the only person in the somewhat pitiful crowd who was singing along with every song. I guess I’m a bit of a loser ha.




Gym Class Heroes were up next at Route66, and seeing as I’ve seen them some twenty times I figured ‘hey its probably time to shoot them’. I sadly didn’t get into the pit till the second song, and I had to run back aross the stage just one song later, so I didn’t get to devote too much time to them, but it was a fun set from what I saw – possibily played a big favourite a little too early, but I’m not really complaining.






Cobra Starship were the last band we caught on or final day out at the 2008 Vans Warped tour, and again we managed to crew on up to the back of the stage to watch them. A lot of family and friends were out at these shows on the east coast, so it was a pretty neat surprise to be able to get up on there (I suppose Gabe shouting ‘cool’ or ‘uncool’ in kids faces backstage may or may not have put them off trying a bit though, hahaha)






After the set there was some light mingling with the cobra crew behind the stage, and the girls and I got a compulsory ‘asian tourist’ photograph with Gabe.



Typically I’d then say ‘and this was a great end to a great day’; but then we were asked/commanded to attend the evenings festivities at the barbeque and of course we couldn’t say no…



Mendoza be craaaaazy





Sparks seemed to be the beverage of the night; there was dancing and singing along to cheesy 90s music and a lil bit of hip’hop too. Naturally I stood around awkwardly and occasionally played photographer. It was a lot of fun though. I got to hang out with some great people :D





















Some goodbyes were the toughest, but we got our family warped tour peecture, and Mendoza did a wicked job taking it:



We did our run around the buses saying goodbye to friends old and new as the buses started their journey to the next city, and we started our drive back to the city for our final few days as the faceparty…