2 posts tagged “warped tour”
Well, I'm back from Warped Tour. Man. Where do I even start? This was by far one of the coolest things I've ever done, and I really wasn't looking forward to coming back to the office. Aside from missing my cat and my queen-sized bed, I could have definitely stayed on the road a bit longer. I think that it would be really rad to do the tour for an entire summer, just once. (Which is why I already pitched an idea for next year.)
As far as the tour went, I didn't get to see a whole lot of bands perform during the day. AP has a tent where they sell subscriptions and host signings, so that consumed most of my time. We have two people hired to be in the tent full-time (and street-teamers at select locations), but it's still a decent amount of work, particularly at take-down and set-up (or during any big-name signings--you wouldn't believe some of the crowd control we needed to implement for these bands. What you may believe are the people I had the most trouble with were parents trying to "get an autograph for their kid, after driving three hours" blah blah blah. I heard it all. People.There's a line for a reason. No shoving.)
Anyway, most of the bands on Warped Tour aren't of the variety that cause me to, shall we say, "geek out." This was probably a good thing since you're around the band peeps fairly constantly. However, it was really cool to feel like part of a community every day. The production and sponsorship people working in the tents and keeping the event running were really great. It was definitely interesting being on a bus with 17 other people from all over the country, waking up in a new city (if not state) every morning. My bus, # 15, happened to have the youngest guy in production. He turned 19 while I was on tour and he grew up in Manhattan. He had never seen a Wal-Mart until this tour. My mind didn't know whether it should be blown or jealous. I guess if you grew up in NYC and started taking the subway alone at 12, you wouldn't really be missing out with Wal-Mart absent from your life. Still. It's a weird concept. Not that I endorse Wal-Mart, but it's just always been there as far as my experience goes.
If you want specific details about my Warped experience, you should check out the AP blog (link is in the previous entry). As far as general observations, I think these were my two biggest:
1. It's really cool to meet our readers
In light of everything that's going on in this world (and my newspaper background), sometimes I have serious doubts about where I'm placing my energies. I mean, how much does a music magazine matter in the grand scheme of things? Very little. Who cares what we think about Band X's album compared to Band Y's? However, it was really cool to meet so many of our dedicated subscribers and hear about how much AP means to them and how much they love what we do. I think I needed to be exposed to readers in big batches like that, since most of my friends hadn't even heard of the magazine when I got the job. Even if we're not changing politics or improving neighborhoods, we are making a product that brings some people joy. Even if it's on a superficial level, I can still be down with that.
2. I really wish I was a tattoo person
I've never thought I would get one/wouldn't know what to get/am afraid of the needle gun thingy, but. I saw some suh-weet tattoos out on tour, and Oliver Peck (famous tattoo artist and ex-husband of Kat Von D if you watch Miami Ink) is the resident Warped tattooer. He travels around with Warped with his mobile studio and inks the bands and production people. I couldn't bring myself to get one, so I bought a pair of the special edition Vans slip-ons he designed. But in a different life, I'm definitely a girl with a sleeve.
So yeah, here are a few Warped pics:
The first is me and Artie, one of the guys on my bus. He works for Vagrant Records and we hung out. The second and third are me and the other two people working in the AP tent: Lycia (from Atlantic) at the Mustacho Basho party in Detroit; and David (also from Atlantic) in the AP tent in Cleveland before the monsoon hit. The last pic is Anthony Green, frontman of Circa Survive, out to dinner with me and a whole bunch of AP & Warped people on my last night in Cleveland. He's easily the most famous person I took a picture of during tour, so I figured I'd include it.
Since being back, I've slept a lot this weekend, bought groceries, finished Harry Potter (still can't believe that's the last one) and managed to spill water on my computer. The computer seems to be in working order except for the "backspace" key. This loss has brought into excruciating detail just how many mistakes I make while I type. Having to go back and highlight everything to fix it is not cool. Not cool at all. I smell an iBook in my more-near-than-I-expected future.
In the tradition of not basing the "start of a new year" on January 1 (after 18.5 years of school schedules, it's just a habit I'm not ready to start yet), I've decided to consider today, July 17, a renewal of sorts. It was one year ago today that I started working at AP in Cleveland, and I figured one good beginning deserved another.
I've been missing the ol' blog lately, especially because I completely believe that the more writers write, the more naturally it comes, and I've really been slacking off in that department lately. But more importantly, I feel that I've lost touch with some good friends for a myriad of reasons, non intentional, of course. But between geography, work schedules, relationships, family and general summer rhythms, I've been missing some people.
That being said, I thought I'd restart the ol' blog for two reasons: To try to share a bit of what's going on in my life with people I care about in hopes that it will rekindle some sort of sense of involvement in one another's lives, and you know, to have a place to write about daily observations, events, rants and (hopefully) a bit of humor, too. I was also really hating the LJ functions and decided to try out a new blog for the fresh start. Hopefully you will agree that this layout is much more pleasant.
So in a nutshell, my summer has been a whirlwind of work, work and more work. Between AP's hours and weekends at the restaurant, it's been a little difficult to catch a breather. And not to complain, but I think that if it keeps up at this intensity for much longer, I'll be a good burnout candidate.
Luckily, on Friday I leave for Miami for my very first work-sponsored travel. After spending a day with a friend from BU who lives down there (you may know him as J-Lowell) and picking up the seventh Harry Potter book (!!!), I'll be joining up with the 13th incarnation of the Van's Warped Tour. Living on a tour bus for 12 days, I'll travel between Miami and Cleveland, setting up AP's tent every morning, selling subscriptions, setting up band signings in our tent, taking photos and video, blogging on AP's official Warped Tour site, making friends with the bands and getting sunburned beyond recognition. Needless to say, I'm pretty stoked. It'll be a great change of pace, I should get to see some friends in Chicago, and it'll be nice to do some physical labor instead of sitting in my too-cold office.
I'll also be hitting up four cities I've never been to (Charlotte, Virgina Beach, D.C., Scranton) and one of which I've only seen the airport (Cincinnati). I also get a day off somewhere between Minneapolis and Milwaukee. Woo hoo for a free day in the upper Midwest.
Anyway, more info on Warped will come soon, I'm sure. And I'm still building this blog and figuring out the functions, but I wanted get a first post out there in hopes that I'll rededicate myself to this activity for a bit. And to give you another procrastination site for those hours at work between setting your fantasy lineups and checking the Onion.
