Warped Tour Day 3!

(as written on Thursday)
Day 3 of Warped, in Scranton, was our longest drive of the weekend. My roommate's fiance was kind enough to loan us his car for the 3-ish hour drive. Naomi and I left bright and early, along with our new friend and Inklings associate Shannon, at 8am and after getting sent in the wrong direction several times by the venue staff, finally found parking and were able to start looking for the press area.

Once we set up (also, this was my least favorite Warped venue so far-- it took almost 45 minutes to get from one end to the other because the walkways were so narrow and we had so much crap to carry) we pretty much didn't stop to eat, drink, breathe or take a bathroom break for the next 5 hours or so. We had back to back interviews with 21 bands. I would probably forget someone if I tried to list them all, so I'll talk about a few. There were only 3 on our crew Sunday, so the only picture I took all day was of Shannon and Naomi doing calisthenics in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot at 10am when we stopped for coffee.

The day started off with Alex from Cobra Starship, then John from Relient K, followed by a few others. We had a long chat with Forever the Sickest Kids, who were apparently very amused by the foam covers on our microphones. It started raining towards the end of the interview so we retreated into the tent.

We did a few interviews on the couch in there while the rain started to let up (or so we thought.) Around the time Jeremy from Mayday Parade showed up to talk to us, a monsoon started. We helped batten down the hatches in the press tent and made sure that nothing important was getting wet. Rivers of rain started pouring through the tent and soaked everyone's feet, but Jeremy was an incredibly good sport even though it was thundering and lightening through the entire interview.

Once the rain let up for good we went back outside and talked to Keith from Every Time I Die (a western new yorker, like me). The sun continued to dry the rain when Greg from The Bouncing Souls and his wife Shanti stopped by. Shanti joined the tour a week or two ago, and Greg has been playing drums for her set. She has some of the most creative promotional materials I've ever seen-- including a postcard with a great picture of her as a little girl with her mom. Greg cleared up the conflicting answers I was getting for one of my Warped Tour trivia questions that I'd been asking everyone (they also later fed trivia answers to Mike from Street Dogs...they were very sneaky!)

Among the last interviews we did that day were Settings, Alex from All Time Low, Juliet from Automatic Loveletter, and Adam from The Academy Is. I chatted with most of the guys in Settings about being from Buffalo, and Shannon and Naomi chatted with Donny about being from Georgia. I've been listening to the stuff on their myspace a lot lately, so I was glad we got the chance to cover them. Alex and Juliet showed up at the same time, so we interviewed them together. Adam from The Academy Is... talked about their upcoming new album and bringing his cat to Warped Tour. He was incredibly well-spoken and sincere.

After our last interview in the press area, we took a few minutes to breathe and finally grab some food, then headed out into the venue to find our pals in The Scenic. Once they took off to head to their video shoot, the three of us ran over to Mayday Parade's set. They're a great band live, and so much fun to shoot photos and video of. They played last, so once they were done we headed back to the car for the long drive back to NYC.

More to come, and lots of pictures from Warped Day 4...
-Carrie

Warped Tour Day 2!

(as written on Tuesday...)
Saturday's Warped Tour in Uniondale was a little closer to home. Naomi's brother was in town, so he drove us to Nassau Coliseum. We weren't able to shoot video because of venue rules, so we spent the day watching bands and shooting photos. Tom Falcone (who shot this picture of All Time Low that I'm sure you've all seen, among many others) joined up with us, so keep an eye out on the site for some of his photos, too.

Mayday Parade played super early in the day, so we ran over to the Hurley stage as soon as we saw the schedule and managed to catch almost all of their set. We headed over to one of the mainstages next for Story of the Year. I think I've only seen them one other time before, and it was probably 3 or 4 years ago, but those guys put on a SOLID show.

The Academy Is played right after SOTY, on the other mainstage. I'd caught a bit of their set the day before, but other than that I hadn't seen them play in a while. I really like the first new song they played. I didn't hear the other new song they played, because we ran over to the myspace tent to hear Forever the Sickest Kids do an acoustic set. That band is just so damn catchy, it was pretty much a rule that we had to listen to their cd atleast once per drive, each way, all weekend.

We found our friends in The Scenic working the crowd and hustling CDs. We unsuccessfully attempted to help them sell, but we were terrible at it. We managed to sell one, but it was to Naomi, so I don't know that that counts.

I went to the Kevin Says stage after that to watch A Cursive Memory. The only song of theirs that I really knew was Everything (if you haven't seen the video for that yet, youtube it-- it's so genius), but their set was a lot of fun. You, Me and Everyone We Know played the same stage right afterwards. I'd missed their set the day before, so I was really glad to catch them on Saturday. Naomi had only ever seen them play acoustic before, so it was her first time seeing them play a regular set. They were great, as usual.

We ran over to catch the second half of Family Force 5's set as soon as they were done. Those guys are INSANE and put on the most entertaining show I've ever seen. If you watch them play, you can't help but smile and dance. Later we caught Set Your Goals (A Cursive Memory came out at the end and played a Blink182 song at the end of their set, there was much toilet paper thrown around and silly string sprayed everywhere) and then listened to Mayday Parade play acoustic at the Myspace tent.

After all that, we headed to the Ernie Ball stage for Forever the Sickest Kids. That stage is WAY too small for those guys. It was crazy! There wasn't even enough room in front of the barricade for all the photographers. I bowed out gracefully (I'm not a real photographer, I just like taking pictures) and watched from next to the stage. I left before they finished their last song to run over and shoot the first few songs of All Time Low's set. I missed their set on the AP tour, so this was my first time seeing them.

Four Year Strong was one of the last bands I saw on Saturday. Their shows are always SO much fun, and so insane. We saw a girl who got knocked into by a crowd surfer and hit her face on the barricade, possibly breaking her nose. People were coming over the barricade faster than the security guards could catch them. This was the only set of the day that I got kicked while I was taking pictures. Also the only set of the day that I was singing along while taking pictures. Say Anything was last. The crowd was HUGE and went crazy. Definitely one of the best sets I saw all weekend.

After that, we met up with a couple friends and headed home to go to sleep. Day 3 coming soon....

-Carrie

SO SUNBURNED

Naomi suggested that I should not blog, because it wastes precious time when I could be sleeping this weekend. She is probably right.

SPEED UPDATE!

Yesterday- watched lots of bands, took lots of pictures. No amount of SPF50 could keep me from FRYING in the sun.

Today- we shot 21 bands. I don't know if you know this, but that is a feat. Look forward to seeing all that footage soon.

Tomorrow- our last day covering Warped :(

Time for bed.

-Carrie

Warped Tour Day 1!

Quick blog! I gotta go to bed because I'm getting up in 6 hours to do this all over again :)

Today was day 1 of 4 for me on Warped Tour (ok it doesn't really count as being on warped tour because I am driving back to brooklyn to sleep in my own bed every night, but whatever.)

First we met up with Mike from the AKAs. He had a lot to say about their time on Warped so far. We had a chance to catch some of their set later and it was a lot of fun. Hopefully I'll get to catch more of them in the next few days.

We split up for a little while and Sarah and Andrew (our awesome shooters for the day) went to film some bands' sets. After that we met back up and talked with You, Me and Everyone We Know. They're the first band that we've interviewed for Inklings more than once, and I've now interviewed them 3 times in 3 months.

We finally had a break to grab some food around 4, so we enjoyed some $8 slices of pizza (sadly, I'm not kidding. But I'd been up since 5:30 and hadn't eaten all day, so it actually tasted like it was worth it) We sat down and recharged our batteries (our metaphorical batteries, not real batteries) before splitting up again.

Andrew and Adaria (my right-hand woman for the day) went to shoot bands' sets, while Sarah and I caught up with some of the guys from A Loss For Words. They weren't playing today, but hanging out and selling a bunch of CDs. Great guys, great band, so if you see them around at Warped the next week or so, please go buy a CD from them.

Later we caught up with Billy and Ross from Confide, as well as Aaron and Ryland of Reel Big Fish. There's some A+ stuff with Reel Big Fish...but you'll just have to wait and see. I WILL say that Ryland is hilarious.

We dashed over to the press area after that to catch A Cursive Memory, who were a combination of ridiculous and hilarious. Tomorrow's their last day on the tour, so hopefully I'll be able to catch their set.

Time to hit the hay. More updates tomorrow! Huge thanks to Sarah, Andrew & Adaria!

-Carrie

Powerspace & other stuff

Here is something I learned about my phone the night we shot our interview with Powerspace. When on autotext, my phone still does not know the word "inklings." I have a friend named Carmelina, and after 2 years my phone still tries to type "Barnelima." However, when I type the letters P-O-W- in my phone, the rest of the word "powerspace" automatically pops up. I also learned that if I try to abbreviate the word "equipment" to "equip", my phone doesn't understand and tries to type something else. I learned that the hard way when I almost sent someone a text that said "I'm standing in the back with all the drugs."

The night of the interview was also the first time I'd actually seen Powerspace play. I've been to 3 or 4 shows that they've been playing at, but somehow we're always shooting an interview (or just late) and miss their set. On a mostly unrelated note, Cute Is What We Aim For also played that night, and it's always very bizarre for me to see them play big venues in new York. They're from my town, and some of those guys used to play in a band that opened for my brother's band when I used to go see them play at Backstage Pub or Showplace when I was in high school. Also they were chilling outside the Icon at pretty much every show I went to senior year of college.

In any case, we've got a lot coming up this week/month. We're talking to The Cab and Lannen Fall this week, and we shot an interview and some acoustic songs with Rosematter last week that will be posted soon. Right now you can check out our interview with Powerspace in the video player and on our front page.

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. I went home for my friend's wedding, it was a raucous/nostalgic/awesome time.

-Carrie