Chris Barker of Anti-Flag at Warped Festival - more photos... photo by jeff barringer - staff photographer

by Harrison Davis - club kingsnake staff

The San Antonio stop on the 2009 Warped Tour was, above all, excruciatingly hot. The 100+ degree temperatures and cloud free skies were not helped at all by the fact that the whole thing was being held in a huge parking lot which effectively became a giant reflector oven. Just dragging all the gear from the car and wandering around looking for our passes was an ordeal. After getting badged up and finding an area to use as shelter in between bands, I headed out to see the first band on the main stage, The Ataris.

I had heard of the band, but wasn’t sure if I had ever actually heard them. They turned out to be one of my favorite bands of the day. They had a great energy on stage, which could not have been easy given the ridiculous heat. The most important thing is that their songs were usually pretty catchy, especially their unexpected but strangely fitting cover of Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer”.

It took only one half hour set for me to start feeling the heat, so for much of the day I watched the main stage bands and then hid from the sun during set changes. The next band up was Anti-Flag, one of the few bands I was familiar with. I’ve never thought of them as anything more than a generic punk band but they were surprisingly good. They showed a great amount of energy and were actually pretty good musically, which is not something you see often with punk bands. Bassist Chris Barker tried desperately to get the crowd to ignore the heat and actually managed to for a lot of the set, getting several large circle pits happening.

Roger Manganelli of Less Than Jake at Warped Festival - more photos... photo by jeff barringer - staff photographer

The next band on was Less Than Jake, a ska band who I had been a casual fan of for a while. They showed up and just played their show, they tried to put energy in the set but the day had clearly taken its toll. The music wasn’t bad it didn’t feel like the band wanted to be there, which is unfortunate because they much more talented than many of the bands that did.

In between some bands I took time to walk around the grounds and look at the different booths and things. Every band on the tour has a booth to sell merch at on the grounds and many bands hang out at their booth. The unfortunate thing about it is that bands have their booths put up even if they weren’t in town for that stop of the tour. It hurt me to walk by the Flogging Molly booth knowing they weren’t playing. There were other booths around for sponsors and vendors too, none of which I checked out. Walking around unfortunately meant seeing some of the side sage bands that I had no interest in. Every band sounded the same. Heavy guitars, double bass, and a combination of whining and screaming vocals. It was all terrible.

Frank Carter of Gallows at Warped Festival - more photos... photo by jeff barringer - staff photographer

The one band that wasn’t on the main stage that I did really enjoy was Gallows. I had been blown away by them at SXSW and was really looking forward to seeing them again. Just as he had done before led singer Frank Carter wasted no time in getting out into the crowd and getting things going. I never saw the circle pit slow down at any point. The best thing I heard all day wasn’t any music, but a piece of banter from Carter, who was greeted with a mixed reaction when he said that most of the Warped Tour bands were “terrible”. I was certainly one of the applauding ones. The action was nonstop the entire set and it was running at full speed. The band left the stage and realized that they still had time left to play another song or two, which they made full use of. They were hands down the best band of the day.

After taking an extended break from the music, I figured I should get back outside even if there was nothing interesting happening. I decided that the lesser of all evils would be Thrice, who happened to be fantastic. I had them pinned as just another scream band cashing in on the current fads, but they turned out to be the most musically talented group on the tour. Lead guitarist Teppei Teranishi was fantastic. His playing was the only thing I ever got around to listening to really. His guitars had a very unique sound. He created an almost shoegaze sound, which sounded great against the heavy rhythm guitar. I have completely changed my mind about Thrice and look forward to getting into their studio output.

The last band of the day was punk legends Bad Religion. They were who they have always been, a good straightforward punk band. They played through much of their older work which everyone appreciated. They showed some energy, but in the end were just another band who was tired of the tour, albeit with a much better back catalogue than all the others. I tried to get interested since I enjoy a couple of their records but in the end both me and the band were too hot and tired to make it work. It wasn’t a bad show; it’s just that playing at the end of a festival where the real headliners have already played, it’s hard to keep the crowd interested.

Bad Religion at Warped Festival - more photos... photo by jeff barringer - staff photographer