WAR PED

I have never enjoyed going to Van's Warped Tour more than I did in 2009. It is always interesting to see the various people of all walks of life.

There are many versions of folks there that are aimlessly walking around. I think that the funniest kids are the ones that do "hardcore dancing". It is hard to not laugh at them as they are doing this style of dance. I don't like it, but I certainly respect it. On many occasions I have been in an area where this is going on, and I get scared for my face. I have witnessed more than 5 people getting stitched up after this, and countless people with bloody eyes, noses and mouths.

I can get down with the "circle pit" but I can't get myself to go into a pit with hardcore dancing. While at Warped Tour I will occasionally go into the circle pit. While I was watching a band with some hardcore dancing going on I had an overwhelming desire to jump into the pit. When one goes into the circle pit the idea is to rough up some peers a bit by pushing or elbowing them a bit. My experience was a bit different. I was just pushing people around, minding my own business, when a kid behind me for some reason or another developed a pique towards me. For some reason he was specifically targeting only me, and pushed me about 5 times, until he successfully knocked me off my feet. There is an interesting relationship with your peers in a pit. You try to hurt them, and rough them up a bit, but once you actually do it is a different story. Back to when I got pushed down..... I was pushed into the wall of people, and was tripped up somehow. It was a bit of a domino effect, and the person behind me ran into me and pushed me to the point beyond recovery, and I was forced face down onto the asphalt. The person that was directly behind me stomped on my ankle and twisted my shoe off. Before I could comprehend the events that happened to me just moments before, I was already being lifted up by every person that could reach. The friends that were out of reach were pushing people out of my way so that I could recover my shoe that had vanished so quickly from it's matching foot. I took the pushing down and the loss of my shoe as a warning from the pit ogre that was pushing me and bailed on it.

Being in a pit was somewhat reminiscent of fake punching towards a friend's face. Buddy, you will remember this, and will be able to more clearly understand this. The story as I remember it was I was punching close to Buddy's face, and got one a bit too close, and actually landed a punch right on his beak. I was not trying to hurt him, but once I did I felt bad and instantly tried to give him some comfort. This is exactly what happened to me at Warped Tour. EXACTLY.


I also got some cool merch from my trip.