By way of some miracle, this year’s Vans Warped Tour took place on UNLV’s grassy intramural fields rather than the blacktop we’ve become accustomed to, and with temperatures only a bit over 90 degrees, I’d dare to say the day was actually comfortable. Unfortunately, a hold up in traffic caused by swarms of cars espousing “EDC OR BUST” meant I missed locals Tonight We Fight, so my first set of the day was California punk/hardcore band Heart to Heart, who were playing the Hard Rock/Kevin Says stage.

Even though there were only about 15 people present for their pre-noon set time, they still exploded with menacing energy. Frontman Nick Zoppo is a born performer, leaping, flailing and gesticulating wildly across the stage, all in the name of putting on a good show. The band was down one guitarist but the other guys compensated nicely and the band sounded just as good as a four piece. They mixed older tracks with songs from their recently-released full-length Dulce and the smattering of fans seemed to know every word – so much so that Zoppo brought up Cameron Beck of local pop punk band Characters to sing a few bars with the band.

Towards the end of Heart to Heart’s set I booked it across the field to the Ernie Ball stage just in time to catch my sole local band of the day – Guts. Like Heart to Heart, the turn-out was small due to the early set time, but again, the few people up front were ready to sing along to tracks like “I Left My Cape at Home” and “Hesitation.” If you like your pop punk in the vein of MxPx or Drive-Thru Records than you owe it to yourself to check out GUTS.

After trying – and failing – to find the stage WAX was playing on (the alt rock band led by Side One Dummy founder Joe Sib that elicited an actual positive review from Beavis and Butthead in the 90s), I made my way to the Journey’s stage and caught a little of State Champ’s deliciously poppy set. The band is on Pure Noise Records and with releases from the likes of Forever Came Calling, Handguns and My Iron Lung, the label has grown to be one that I expect quality from – and State Champs delivered. I thought it was cool that a band so clearly influenced by Saves the Day’s Through Being Cool – complete with fast tempos and angst-ridden lyrics – would be playing directly between the elder statesmen’s merch booth and the stage they’d play on later that day (note: it makes me feel really old to think of STD as “elder statesmen”).

I ducked into the Acoustic Basement to catch some much needed shade and sets from Nick Santino and Anthony Raneri. Santino is the former frontman for pop rockers A Rocket to the Moon and while I’ve never really listened to his main band while they were together I thought his acoustic stuff sounded solid – with an earnest quality and poppy chords, like late-period Dashboard Confessional.

As Bayside frontman Anthony Raneri took the stage, much of the crowd ran off to watch other bands, probably secure in the thought that they’d see him perform with the full band later. So I got to relish in an even more intimate performance, which included cuts from his solo album, Bayside favorites like “Don’t Call Me Peanut” and “Blame it On Bad Luck,” (both of those songs resulting in sing alongs that were only slightly drowned out by the low rumble of metalcore happening across the field) and even a cover of Death Cab’s “I Will Follow You into the Dark.” Raneri has one of the best voices in punk rock and his music translates damn near perfectly to the acoustic environment. When Raneri’s set wrapped up I bid adieu to the shaded enclosure of the acoustic tent and braved the sun once more to catch some bands on the big stages.

Just as I heard Cute is What We Aim For frontman Shaant Hacikyan laud the diversity of the crowd, I was reminded of the diversity of the talent with the arrival of Bad Rabbits, a self-proclaimed “Post-R&B” act from Boston. R&B is probably the last genre next to polka I’d associate with Warped (polka note: Kevin Lyman, I’ll love you forever if you book Weird Al for Warped next year), but I was recently turned on to these guys through my friend Austin and was eager to get a chance to see them in any setting. I’m glad I did, because vocalist Dua Boakye has the smoothest falsetto this side of Justin Timberlake and the band as a whole just oozed charisma.

Despite a smaller turnout, they still gave it 110%, with bassist Graham Masser constantly prompting the crowd to clap, cheer and wave our hands in the air (amost, but not quite, like we just don’t care). One of my favorite moments came when Boakye split the crowd down the middle, danced straight through us, and then, as if he was reading Tina Belcher’s fanfiction, coerced the left and right side to come back together and touch butts. The band announced that they’d be back in Vegas in the fall at The Bunkhouse so I implore all of you reading to consider checking out that gig (I’ll definitely be there front and center, possibly dancing).

After Bad Rabbits wrapped up I held my spot at the front of the barrier, eagerly awaiting the stage’s next act Saves the Day. This put me in a good spot to check out a band I’d heard a lot about – Beebs and Her Money Makers. This was my first time hearing the band and the combination of colorful outfits and playful stage banter, along with a healthy horn section, reminded me a lot of Reel Big Fish. Their set was gleeful and irreverent, dedicating a cover of Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” to John Stamos, and taking it like pros when their confetti cannon blew directly into their own faces.

Scott Hiesel of Alternative Press recently said that Saves the Day is “literally the only band doing Warped Tour right this summer” by playing no song twice on this tour. The day before, they played almost the entirety of Can’t Slow Down and the promise of hearing some deep cuts is what ended up pushing me to attend the festival this year. As Saves the Day frontman Chris Conley took the stage for a solo electric performance of Can’t Slow Down’s “Three Miles Down,” I realized that this was probably the first time I heard the song live in the dozens of times I’ve seen the band – so the set was already off to a great start. I was not-so-secretly hoping they’d play all of Through Being Cool, but we ended up with a more traditional setlist, meaning a little bit for everyone. The band Conley has assembled is really on point, especially guitarist Arun Bali, and songs “This is Not an Exit,” “In the In Between” and “Banned from the Back Porch” sounded so good with everyone cathartically singing along that I didn’t even notice my rapidly reddening sunburn.

Next I popped by Terror’s set to find kids hardcore dancing like it was the late 80s at The Rathskeller, proving that no one, not even security, was paying attention to the “no moshing/crowd surfing” signs whose appearence at this year’s festival has caused such a fuss online. Frontman Scott Vogel dedicated his band’s intense set to the passionate fans who were willing to shell out $40 to see Terror in the hot sun and to the kids who still love their brand of hardcore, even though it’s not popular among the masses (“just the way he likes it,” Vogel exclaimed).

I arrived for Bayside just in time to see fans circle pitting and singing along to favorites “Montauk” and “Sick Sick Sick.” The band, particularly bassist Nick Ghanbarian, exhibited just as much on stage energy as the crowd, thrashing across the stage, amps and drum risers while belting out the hits (and much respect goes out to Ghanbarian for the sweet Tony Sly sticker lovingly slapped across his bass).

The Story So Far on the other hand, were pretty subdued on stage while their fans went ballistic in the crowd, erupting with more fiery passion than for any other band I saw that day. Wave after wave of crowd surfers tried their best to get close enough to sing “Quicksand” (which they played first – a gutsy move since it’s arguably their most popular song) and “Roam” with Parker Cannon and crew. At one point guitarist William Levy spotted a grade school fan on the shoulders of his parent and invited the two to come up on stage, and the band dedicated “Empty Space” to all of us who were at their already legendary performance at Eagle Hall last year. I love that a no frills pop punk band like this can have such a big draw in 2014 and it’s been great watching these guys go from playing a place like The Box Office to the big stage of Warped and still making things feel intimate.

I made the difficult choice to leave The Story So Far before they wrapped up to ensure the best possible spot to watch the Ohio-based pop punk group Mixtapes at the Ernie Ball stage. I’ve been a huge fan of their perfect blend of Lookout! style pop punk with indie rock sensibilities and almost Hold Steady-esq narrative lyrics for years and with only four of us pressed against the miniscule barrier, the band decided to start their set early and treat us to a few of their best songs – “Taking a Year Off,” “The New Ride the Lightning,” “Moonglow” and “Elevator Days” – before anyone else arrived. All four of us were singing every word with the pop punk quartet, our excitement infecting passerbys and getting them bunched up and bobbing heads. The band decided to go the route of taking requests to tailor the extra-long set to the fans, so we all got to join in on “Swirling,” the full band version of “Orange Yellow” and my request “Hope is for People” (thanks, guys!).

Co-frontperson Maura Weaver, wearing a totally radical Teenage Bottlerocket shirt, invited one fan up to take a selfie, while co-frontperson Ryan Rockwell again attempted to sing with the mic stand upside down, his now signature move, and drummer Boone Haley and bassist Paul Kupper were just so full of pep and smiles that it would be impossible to not have fun watching them. Before ending with “Cassettes,” Rockwell announced that he wanted to give us the “true Warped experience” and launched into a faux metal style intro, screaming “what the fuck is up, Las Vegas” in his best rock star voice (fellow Warped band/arch enemy to Mixtapes Ronnie Radke better watch out for this competition). Mixtapes, or more specifically Ryan Rockwell, ended up in some pretty hot water the following day, making comments that I disagree with – but on June 19th at least, Mixtapes won the Vegas Warped Tour.

The sun was almost all the way set, the stages were all coming down, and I was ready to watch my last band of the day – Teenage Bottlerocket. Someone told me in passing that they thought Teenage Bottlerocket was the only “true punk” band on this bill this year, and while I disagree with the idea that anything is “true punk” or “not true punk” (the idea is so juvenile that I have to dismiss it outright) I will say that they were the band who best represented the early days of Warped when the focus was more on the”Epifat” style of pop and skate punk. The crowd was small, the median age was high and after us barrier holdouts complimented each other on our choice of shirts (Bouncing Souls, Lillingtons and Lawrence Arms, to be exact) TBR’s skeleton-faced hypeman came out to get us ready to rock.

Despite the fact that the entire festival was being torn down around them, the Rise Records pop punkers – disciples of The Ramones and The Queers – had just as much energy as any band could, with brothers Ray and Brandon Carlisle tossing drum sticks back and forth, bassist Miguel Chen practically doing the splits while pounding out bass lines and co-frontperson Kody Templeman belting out a set of favorites like “I Don’t Wanna Go,” “Bigger Than Kiss” and “Skate or Die” with Ray. It was bizarre seeing one of the main reasons I came out to Warped Tour playing to such a small audience – but if it was a knock to their morale, they didn’t show it, rocking just as hard as when I saw them at the Beauty Bar last year. Despite my body rapidly wearing out and in dire need of a non-fried meal, I held out for one heck of a set ender – “On My Own” complete with an extended bridge that incorporated a cover of Van Halen’s “Panama” and Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop,” the latter of which had all of us pumping our fists with “Hey Ho, Let’s Go” hook. It was the perfect way to end a day spent seeing favorites old and new and forced me to walk the few blocks back to the Hard Rock parking lot with the most ridiculous grin on my face.

-Emily Matviews

Photos by Tylor Thuirer | https://www.flickr.com/photos/thuirermedia/

and Hunter Wallace | https://www.flickr.com/photos/hunter_wallace/

Random Thoughts and Observations