CUViper

I know, I know, I still need to post pictures from Mexico. I’m getting to it, I promise. But in the mean time, take a look at what I found on my car this afternoon:

Seriously, who does shit like that? What did I do to piss you off? It looks like one of those silver markers was used to write this dumbass message on my car. I managed to get some of it off with a rag, but not all. I may have to try buffing it out with wax or something. I don’t think there will be any permanent damage, but it still makes me want to hit someone…

My car, my precious car!

The Warped Tour was today, but I’m not very excited about having gone. It was a lot of chaos and commercialism, with booths everywhere. It was hard to figure out where each band was playing, and even when we found the schedule there was no good way to see all the bands I was interested in. Plus, probably 90% of the attendees were still in high school. I’m too young to feel that old, dammit! My dad will probably laugh to hear me say this, but I don’t think most of those kids or even the bands really know what punk rock really is.

Hot Topic is not punk rock!

It wasn’t totally a waste I guess. NOFX was ok — they made a really funny comment about there being way too many tattoos and too much makeup in the audience. People latch on to the minor things that they think represent the genre, and completely miss the point. And then what really saved the experience for me: Zebrahead was awesome. They weren’t on one of the main stages, but that meant we could get a lot closer, and they still drew a large crowd. I hope all of those kids saw Zebrahead and thought, “Wow, is this punk rock?” Yes, yes it is…

On a completely unrelated note — we finally booked our vacation! Puerto Vallarta, here we come! It’s nice to have that all squared away, so now we can just look forward to the trip. We’ll be there for four nights at the Dreams resort, and we’ve also scheduled a canopy tour and an eco-discovery package. Plus the gorgeous beach that’s already calling our names…

I meant to post a decent review after BFD, but I forgot, so here’s a quick rundown of the bands we actually got to see:

• Anti-Flag — rocked the stage. We only saw them for a couple of songs though, so I look forward to seeing them again at the Warped Tour.
• Wolfmother — as much as I like their CD, they were kind of boring on stage.
• Panic! At The Disco — awesome. I definitely need to get their album. I give them third best of the whole show.
• Yellowcard — ok, but not as cool as I’d hoped. They kept doing the thing where they try to get people to mash and go crazy, but they’re really not that hard-core…
• DJ Mike Relm — annoying. He was filling in between sets on the main stage, but I think I would have preferred the generic mix-tape-filler that most events use.
• Echo & The Bunnymen — wtf?!? Totally lame. I got the impression that they didn’t really want to be there, and no-one really got into their songs.
• HIM — pretty cool, but a lot of it sounded exactly the same, and it got repetitive, and almost a bit redundant.
• Franz Ferdinand — awesome. Great crowd interaction, great performance — this is one of those bands that really should be seen live. My second pick for the whole show.
• The Strokes — good, but I think I was expecting more.
• AFI — a great headliner! They sort-of have a pop-rock feel, which I feel guilty for liking, but it’s a formula that really works. Tons of fun, and I’ll even give them best-of-show.

That list I made before for the Warped Tour was apparently a waste of time, because now the official site has a different list up. It’s hard to tell if all of those bands are going to be at the SF show, or just on the tour at some point. Anyway, of that list, I’m most looking forward to Anti-Flag, Bouncing Souls, Less Than Jake, NOFX, and Zebrahead. That show is next weekend, so I’ll try to post my impressions soon after.