![]() As I neared my car, a white limo brushed me aside, its rear license plate ringed in neon green, the color of money. A hardcore band played fast and loud to a handful of diehards over the headliners’ still-audible blare as I walked through the gate, the last words I could make out were a chorus’s final “FUCK YOU!” Walking through the parking lot, I passed another early exiter, wearing a shirt that said FUCK YOU, a band’s name underneath in smaller type. ![]() Members of NOFX, the Swingin’ Utters, No Use for a Name, and Lagwagon blenderized show tunes and pop chestnuts into punk karaoke: John Denver, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Novelty, the last refuge of scoundrels.Īt 8:40, as the Gimme Gimmes tore through “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” I snuck away, squeezing through the crazed crowd and then through a side gate, past a tiny stage I hadn’t noticed before. Tiny record labels working three-for-$5 CD sampler deals and tiny bands pursuing their 15 minutes in their allotted 30 a few thousand kids in patchwork plaid and Day-Glo mohawks, sure, but also blue jeans and logo Ts, cargo shorts and undershirts, miniskirts and bippy tops, sweating together under the summer sun, dancing together to the should-be hits.Īt 8:30 PM, the sun finally set and the last band of the night took the main stage: Me First & the Gimme Gimmes, the closest thing major-league pop punk has to an all-star team. But still: anarchy, chaos, community, despite the subclauses. It was a day of anarchy within the lines, and of standing in endless lines chaos, at half-hour intervals on eight stages community, for sale or free with a sponsor’s name attached. Lots of semimemorable variations on a few timeworn themes, a simulacrum of diversity to be sure, but a fascinating one. Pop punk, skate punk, ska punk, ska-core, hardcore, New York hardcore, emotional hardcore, horrorcore, pop-hop, rap metal, punk metal, and so on. Or was every song cut from an archetype they all knew by heart? The Vans Warped Tour ’01 seemed entirely of a piece, or rather five or ten pieces–a single idea, “punk,” jigsawed into a puzzle.
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