Warped

I’m bad at asking for things. So when I emailed Vans' Bob Provost about sneaking some of us into the Warped Tour last Wednesday at it’s ATL stop at the Hi-Fi Buys Arena, I was so stoked at his response. He said something like “it’s so worth the effort for someone that will passionately have a blast.”

My first image of Bob on show day: he’s clinging to the chain link fence. He’s wearing a button-down shirt with the classic "Off the Wall" patch on it. His left hand is stuffed with admission bracelets, and he's got biggest grin on his face.

Bob's been with Vans for infinity years (to us at Surf Expo he IS Vans). Yet he joins the Warped Tour -- this year for 5 weeks -- to work in the merch booth, immersing himself in his consumers' culture as much as to free up people to stay in their offices in CA. This is the kind of guy most people in our industry claim to aspire to be. He lives and breathes his product. He's a killer ambassador. And to him, it's effortless. Skateboarders can be a tough crowd. It's people like Bob who keep Vans a core brand after all its popularity and years at the top, which has, in a lot of cases, proven to push skate lifestyle brands into a far less favorable position. How crazy is it that with all the shoe brands out there, the Vans Slip-On won this year’s SIMA Image Award for Footwear Product of the Year?!

Back to the show. It's about 900 degrees and that good ‘ole southern humidity is pressing down. Sweat is finally pouring off the scrawny emo kids. There's a line-- not for beer, but for the water fountain. How many people are of age here, anyway? There’s a line in the women's bathroom, too-- not to use the stalls, but to stand in front of the massive fan. It's the sole source of relief in the slimy, salty sea of thousands. That and some crazy slip n' slide thing where people are racing each other through the crotch of some blow-up rocker dude into a freezing cold puddle of water.

In walking over to the Harley Davidson BMX area and the ...lost! miniramp, I'm reminded of past Warped Tours at Randall's Island up in NY. They were a true celebration of music and action sports. The music has evolved from the punk/ska/metal to the hardcore/post-hardcore emo stuff, which is what the kids like these days...and that's fine. But friends of mine used to go to the Warped Tour just to skate it, which was a privilege to them. This time it just seems like this stuff was added to the outskirts as a side note. I hope it was just specific to this location the attention to the the demo part of the Warped Tour doesn’t continue to wane.

Aside from chilling with Bob and his crew, and checking the scene, I secretly am looking most forward to catching Circa Survive, my favorite band, probably, ever. Luckily they're given the 2:15 slot on the 13 stage, because I wouldn’t have been able to wait too late into the afternoon without heat stroke. The set is incredible. I won’t try for words. Well, maybe… Vantastic?