Vans Warped Tour Presented by Journeys Shoes returns for it’s 23rd year, this time with bands for their older audience taking Warped back to it’s roots by bringing the Punk Rock back to the “Punk Rock Summer Camp” this year with bands like Hatebreed, Anti-Flag, GWAR, and many of others while also blending in Warped’s favorites like Andy Black, ATTILA, Beartooth, Silverstein, and many more. The traveling summer festival known as Vans Warped Tour rolled through the Camden, NJ area on July 7th, at BB&T Pavilion right across the Delaware river near Philadelphia, PA.
This year we had the opportunity to check out some bands rapidly on-the-rise like, I Prevail who has had the biggest year of their entire career topping the charts of Billboard with smash hit singles, selling more records than Avenged Sevenfold so far this year with their debut album Lifelines, Selling out their entire first massive headline tours, and now headlining the Vans Warped Tour on one of the main stages. Sammy Adams who put on an incredible performance with a one man band, being just himself on stage handling vocal and track duties, using every inch of the stage to put on an incredibly energetic performance that was one for fans to remember. His set grasped the eyes of many new fans that just happened to be walking past his 30 minute set. Next band that has had a massive 2016/2017 is Epitaph Records’ own, Too Close To Touch who has the sound of Sleeping With Sirens and brings huge crowds to each warped tour date thus far as you can see on their social media but not only are they bringing in huge crowds each day, the fans know each and every word to their new and older music, the band is currently out in support of their debut full length album, Nerve Endings and performing their latest single “What I Wish I Could Forget” off their newly announced Sophomore album coming out on September 23rd, Haven’t Been Myself. Another band with a notable appearance at this years Warped Tour would be CKY, who got announced to the stage by none other than April, Phil, and Bam Margera as this was a hometown show for Bam’s brother Jesse Margera which happens to be the drummer of West Chester, PA’s CKY.
This year’s Warped Tour also includes some of Warped’s staple bands such as Warped Tour veterans with 7 years and counting on Warped is Silverstein. Silverstein never fails to produce one of the greatest live shows, with nearly flawless music sounding even better live than their actual records which is a great achievement for a band with any sort of screaming vocals at all, not needing tracks to produce the screams. GWAR even made a special appearance during Silverstein’s set to kill their bassist Billy Hamilton and taking his place finishing out the set. We would have to say that Silverstein, Beartooth, Andy Black, and Attila definitley stole the show on this year’s Warped being the best live performing bands. Beartooth’s set was absolute chaos with a massive crowd nearly filling the entire BB&T Pavilion Amphitheater, crowd surfing and moshing to every single song and screaming the lyrics back to frontman Caleb Shomo. Shomo’s stage presence has improved so much since the start of the band, interacting with fans, flawlessly perfect vocals, and an extraordinary live show from the entire band. Performing some of their biggest hits from their latest and most successful record, AGGRESSIVE. Going into the next performance that blew our minds was Andy Black as his fans came in strong and very loud, packing out the amphitheater nearly beyond the capacity singing nothing but his solo material and with a backing band that is not Black Veil Brides. Black has perfected his sound and his fans love every minute of it, performing all his songs from his debut solo album, The Shadow Side but also including a new single in the set which appears on the Warped Tour Compilation this year, “Beyond My Reach.” As the storm brewed and lighting strikes with torrential downpours of rain drenching fans waiting to rage with ATTILA, the band takes the stage in what was nearly flooding rain. The fans were not at all affected by the storm and raged full force with ATTILA throughout their entire 30-minute set which I feel the rain added a special effect to their already crazy set making it much crazier. Ending the day was GWAR covering the already drenched in rain crowd with the blood of President Donald Trump and many of others.
Vans Warped Tour will hit a total of 41 cities across the United States throughout the summer of 2017, and this was just one. Make sure you get out to one of the Warped Tour dates in your area! Tickets & Tour Dates: www.VansWarpedTour.com
Check out our exclusive photo gallery from our photographer, Andrew Wendowski.
Check out our exclusive interviews with: Anti-Flag, Silverstein, GWAR, and Stick To Your Guns with out interviewer Kristyn Clarke below.
