#warped 14

Hello all!

Since we’re almost at the end of the year, I figure I’ll sum up my year, musically. This year was pretty eye opening to say the least! I discovered tons of new music and went to several concerts compared to the past few. To start things off, here’s a run down of all the concerts I went to organized from favorite to least favorite.

(DISCLAIMER: All these concerts were amazing, but some just really stood out which is where I got the “order”.)

1. Fest 13 (Day 2)-November 1st You can read about my full experience this day here (insert), so here’s the TL;DR: amazing! I saw Banner Pilot, Masked Intruder, Less Than Jake, and Descendents, met Maura Weaver (again!), and just felt incredibly great walking back to my friends’ dorm where was staying!

2. Say Anything-November 21st This almost made the top, but Fest was just too incredible. Anyways, this show definitely defied expectations! I’ve never been much of a Say Anything fan, but I did enjoy …Is A Real Boy when it came out. Tickets were cheap, and I had a ride, so I figured why not. Reggie and the Full Effect were a pretty great opener, and Saves The Day was decent, but once Say Anything charged on stage with Max Bemis starting the show with the opening line from “Belt”, I knew I was about to see one of the greatest shows of my life! The band never lacked energy and had the crowd singing and moving during every song. I seriously cannot get over how insanely good they were.

3. Warped Tour-July 26th How could I not include Warped? One of the better lineups in my opinion, I saw Less Than Jake, Mixtapes, Four Year Strong, Beartooth, Issues, Echosmith, Anthony Raneri’s acoustic set, and the last few songs of Bayside. I also met Four Year Strong, Less Than Jake, Maura and Paul from Mixtapes, and Anthony after his set. I mean who doesn’t love Warped? Just such a fun experience! Can’t wait for next summer!

4. New Found Glory-October 10th The first concert of college! This was just one awesome night! My friend and I went to Park Ave CDs before the show for an acoustic set and signing with NFG which was incredible! Then, on the way there, we say them driving themselves to House of Blues and started to talk to them at a red light! As for the show itself, Fireworks did good, We Are The In Crowd did great, and NFG just plain kicked ass! Definitely the comeback they needed after all they’ve been through!

5. Beartooth-October 13th I also talked about this concert before, which you can read here (insert). So, again, TL;DR: incredible! Definitely one of the craziest shows I’ve seen to say the least. One guy jumped from the balcony during Vanna’s set, and another got on top of a doorway during Beartooth. The crowd was respectfully rough and very supportive of each other, as were the bands. Each band used the same setup basically which was really humble in my opinion. Overall, great show! Beartooth thrived in the smaller venue.

6. Modern Baseball-December 6th One of the last shows I saw this semester, but definitely not the weakest! Like Say Anything, I wasn’t a huge MoBo fan, but tickets were cheap and the venue (Backbooth) is nice, so I went. Aside from Crying, which takes the cake of weirdest band I’ve seen live, the openers were good (RIP Hostage Calm). Knuckle Puck helped pick up the pace and get the crowd warmed up for Modern Baseball. During their set, Ben Barlow from Neck Deep joined Knuckle Puck for a song. Similar happened with Modern Baseball, but only with some of the members of You Blew It! during “The Weekend”. Definitely worth going!

7. Big Orlando-December 7th I now remember why I’m not a huge fan of big festivals… Sadly, Twin Atlantic cancelled due to the singer catching laryngitis, so my friends and I got there early front 3 bands we didn’t really care about: Big Data, Dirty Heads, and Young, The Giant. Big Data almost beat Crying for weirdest band, but they were more so (how do I put this nicely) “not good” than weird, Dirty Heads did more of their rap songs than reggae so I wasn’t too into them, and Young, The Giant was a bit over hyped for me so they seemed rather boring. Thankfully, Weezer and Fall Out Boy both did amazing to make the trip worthwhile! Weezer did all their usual hits, which was expected, but I’ve never seen them before, so I was freaking out in a good way to watch them play hits like “Buddy Holly”, “Undone”, and “Island In The Sun” live! Fall Out Boy also did their big hits, but they also threw in oldies like “I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy…” and “Saturday” while throwing in new songs like “Light ‘Em Up” and “Centuries” while playing the goodies like “Sugar, We’re Going Down” and “Thnks Fr Th Mmrs”. They also were way, and I mean WAY, better live!

8. Fest 13 (Day 1)-October 31st Unlike Day 2, Day 1… Well sucked. Just plain sucked. I missed my bus, so I had to hunt down a ride to Gainesville, which sadly didn’t leave till 5 which was when Mixtapes, who are probably as of now my favorite band, was playing their last show EVER. So I was in a sour mood on the way up. Also, it was freezing cold (for Florida anyways), and I was not at all prepared! Things did get better though! On the way to the venue, I bumped into Paul and talked to him some about Mixtapes and their last show. Then I saw the other members chilling near their merch table, but I was too nervous/sad to talk to them (as I said before though, the next day I was able to talk to Maura after Masked Intruder about how much Mixtapes meant to me so yay!). During Chixdiggit and Lemuria, I sat away from the crowd cuz I wasn’t super into either, but, luckily, I didn’t miss The Menzingers! During Lemuria’s last song, I snuck my way into the crowd for a good spot. Once The Menzingers started playing, everything bad soon turned amazing! The crowd warmed me up by the constantly movement and singing, and I felt better about being late!

9. Authority Zero-October 24th This show was rather doomed to me because it was the same night as Brand New, and I couldn’t get a ticket to Brand New, so instead I decided to go see Authority Zero with some friends and sulk about missing out on one of my favorite bands. Luckily, I wasn’t sulking for very long! One of the openers for Authority Zero was a band called Wolf-Face from St. Petersburg, FL. They were absolutely hilarious and rather great live! They dressed as werewolves like in the Michael J. Fox movie Teen Wolf and sang about being werewolves. Honestly, I could’ve just seen them and have been happy. Finally, after a terrible reggae band, Authority Zero came on and killed it. Despite the venue (The Social in Orlando) being small and nobody being too into the openers, the band made everyone go crazy. So while I couldn’t Brand New, I at least had a bit of fun at the show instead of crying with listening to Daisy alone in my room.