Kevin Lyman, overlord of the Warped Tour recently spoke about the 2010 edition of the long-running festival. He addresses the most common criticism in the first few moments:
Usually the fans will let me know, but it’s diverse. I think people will say, “Hey, there are no punk bands.” And I’ll go, “Wait a second, what about bands like Alkaline Trio and Face To Face.” There are a lot of bands that are coming back to the tour that haven’t been there in a long time. There are new young bands; you’ve got Andrew W.K, who hasn’t been there in a long time, but he’s as popular as ever. I know that on the pop side sometimes people complain about that, but you’ve got bands like Mike Posner and things like that that seem to be appealing to that crowd. I think it’s a pretty mixed lineup. I don’t see like any grand superstars on there right at the moment, but I think there’s a little bit out there for everyone.
He also mentions the controversial additions of Brokencycde and Millionaires:
To me, Millionaires probably shouldn’t have been on Warped Tour. They weren’t ready for it. Trust me, they weren’t ready as a live bannd. You’re gonna put yourself out there you have to be able to pull it out there. But during that time period a lot of the people were talking about the band. And you know, I want to see the curiosity too; if that’s the way music’s going even if it’s not maybe the stuff I listen to. I felt bad for them in a way; they just weren’t ready to be out on that tour. And I don’t think we’ve heard much from them recently, have we?
He comments again about the “punk” issue:
There are just as many punk bands as there used to be. I worked really hard, and on the West Coast I do those old school stages. I wish I could bring those bands on the whole tour, but man, they’re old too. They aren’t gonna do too well in St. Louis at 96 degree heat and 97% humidity. And if you really look at punk, punk was regionally coastal. It was always an underground. The Warped Tour is not for everyone. The die hard, die-hard kid that is only into punk rock…there’s a lot of basement shows. That’s for him. This is more for the music fan. If you look at ’95, how punk was the Warped Tour? Was No Doubt a punk band? Like, in the true sense of the word. Quicksand, I don’t know if they could be called a true punk band. But we definitely grew with Bad Religion and NoFX. I wish there were more big punk bands. It’s hard to find new punk bands, if you really think about it. We need some new bands. Bad Religion, NoFX, Rancid are 15, 20 years old. Name me a punk band that’s really broken out in the last 5 years.
Check out the interview here.
Continue reading Kevin Lyman talks about Warped 2010 →
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