Review: Vans Warped Tour 2018
Photos and Review by Jessica Franco
June 23, 2018
The last Vans Warped Tour is officially underway and Omnisound got to experience the greatness firsthand at the Mountain View stop. With a temperature of 90 plus degrees and a sold out crowd of over 20,000 people, Mountain View’s last Warped Tour was a success. There were some bumps along the way, but overall the tour lived up to the legacy it built over the last 24 years. The sold out audience proved to be a logistical challenge as parking took over an hour and the first round of bands stopped mid-set to take a 15 minute break to allow for more people to enter the venue before continuing. For the rest of the day all sets across all six stages started 20 minutes later than listed.
The last Vans Warped Tour is officially underway and Omnisound got to experience the greatness firsthand at the Mountain View stop. With a temperature of 90 plus degrees and a sold out crowd of over 20,000 people, Mountain View’s last Warped Tour was a success. There were some bumps along the way, but overall the tour lived up to the legacy it built over the last 24 years. The sold out audience proved to be a logistical challenge as parking took over an hour and the first round of bands stopped mid-set to take a 15 minute break to allow for more people to enter the venue before continuing. For the rest of the day all sets across all six stages started 20 minutes later than listed.
Bands like Ice Nine Kills and Issues played earlier in the day and immediately brought energy to their sets. Ice Nine Kills frontman Spencer Charnas even crowd surfed, making the audience go wild. Though the sets were shorter for the festival than they would be in a normal concert, bands like Mayday Parade were still able to get variety into their sets. The band played a cover of Blink-182’s “Rock Show” as everyone sang along to the hit tune. Reel Big Fish also added a cover to their set, opening with a-ha’s “Take On Me,” but with a ska twist. Bringing back their early 2000s hits, 3OH!3 proved to be quite the crowd pleaser. The audience jumped and sang along as the duo performed classics like “My First Kiss” and “Don’t Trust Me.” Tonight Alive vocalist Jenna McDougall sang and danced across the stage, taking time between songs to talk about self-empowerment. Black Veil Brides came on stage to the sound of the audience’s chants. Looking the part, they played their rock tunes dressed in black clothing and heavy makeup. Older bands like Simple Plan played their throwback hits that brought us back to our teen angst phase. From newer bands to older bands to ska to pop to rock, there was quite the variety of amazing artists at the final Vans Warped Tour. Despite the hot temperature and massive crowd, the last Vans Warped Tour proved to be exciting, entertaining and quite exhausting.