Vans Warped Tour mutates every few years. Designed for teens and ‘tweens 14 years ago, focusing on punk with manic ska plus skateboarding and other extreme sports, it became known as “punk rock summer camp” — a place of grassroots promotion for bands and small indie labels too. 

Of course, much of that has changed, with MySpace and other social networking sites, and the continuing growth of the Internet for marketing and promotion to expand and band’s fan base.  And the tour has never shied away from corporate partners — it is Vans Warped Tour, with longtime associated companies such as Ernie Ball, Hurley, and so on, with AT&T among the corporate giants linked in this year.   Still, the heart of Warped stays true, recent years also encompassing various alt-rock styles from nu metal to emo and screamo.  Plus, that all varies from town to town – look for rant boys Hawthorne Heights and pop wunderkinds Motion City Soundtrack at later dates. 

For this year’s tour kick-off last Friday (June 20th) in California at Pomona’s L.A. County Fairplex, there was still plenty of punk variations and that wail-and-growl like a wounded beast screamo, but pop glory ruled. Maybe it was the heat – hovering around 106-107 degrees – that made bands with hummable tunes more appealing.  Hard to mosh with full mayhem under that kind of oppressive sun, ain’t it?

While some bands at Warped are certainly bigger than others, that doesn’t mean they “close” out the day (the last sets are always around 7:00 pm or so), because for years, performance times have changed for the line-up from city to city.

Mid-afternoon stand-outs at Pomona included the getting-better-each-time out The Academy Is… – their spirited alt-pop hard to resist. The same can be said for NYC’s beatific Cobra Starship which dared its sizeable crowd to dance and punk out too, and it did both.  Launching from punk but with a greater classic rock ‘n’ roll sense of vision was Against Me!

Some the newbies were among the best as well, especially the ska-rooted Beat Union out of the UK and London garage-rock trio Tat. With the potential to make the jump to bigger things, as Paramore did after last year’s Warped, The Action Design – featuring former Tsunami Bomb members Emily Whitehurst and Matthew Mckenzie – let loose with a run of appealing tunes, also benefiting from shade enveloping part of their small stage to draw a nice-size audience.  For those who long from Cramps-style hoodoo voodoo psychobilly, there was Horrorpops, the best Danish musical export since…well, Raveonettes.

Out of place but a big draw, thanks to her #1 iTunes and Billboard Top 5 hit “I Kissed A Girl,” was Katy Perry.  In a red-and-white polka dot number, the Santa Barbara rising star was backed by a band of boys in preppy-white polo shorts and shirts with pink ties. Her snotty-fun dance-pop sound is more MTV than, say, Fuse, and seemed more so the kind of thing you’d find at Coachella instead.

And as breezes (yes!) rolled in a little for the early evening, you couldn’t go wrong with the nutty Reel Big Fish (loved their snippet of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”)  and those punk vets Pennywise, ever the juggernaut; get on their train or get run over by it. 

There was plenty more, of course – some forgettable or even annoying, which includes smarmy big names Gym Class Heroes and the bloated Angels & Airwaves.  Still, those bands were all part of the variety pack that makes Warped a good time for not just those teens and ‘tweens, but older “kids” in their 20s and ’30s, plus some of us older folks too.  Overhearing some youngish looking girls complaining about the heat, I then saw some men around my age, taking everything in.  I said, “Let’s hear it for the old guys!” as we toasted with water bottles ($3 a pop, by the way — a robber baron price set by the venue).  Warped is made for the kids, but it’s not just for kids.

The line-ups vary throughout the remaining dates — check The Warped Tour Website for updates, etc.