WARPED TOUR 2007 HITS NYC, HONORS LOCAL HEROES

Warped Tour hit the New York City area with two shows, and Bayside, Hawthorne Heights, and Bleed The Dream talk about the fest.

New York and New Jersey have become hot spots for indie rock, so it makes sense that the two area Warped Tour festivals, on Long Island in New York, and Englishtown, New Jersey were jam-packed. With Taking Back Sunday and My Chemical Romance, both previous Warped favorites on Projekt Revolution this summer, hometown heroes were found in Bayside.

On Long Island, several bands paid homage and gave shout-outs to hometown heroes Bayside, who suffered a catastrophic van accident and lost drummer John “Beatz” Holohan. Guitarist Jack O’Shea talked about how the band is recovering from the accident.

“We actually… We never, even for a second, after the accident ever felt like giving up. We knew immediately that it would be a setback, but that it wasn’t going to be the end of our band at all, so I’m just really lucky to be in a band with three likeminded people who are all as driven to do this as I am. The mindset has always been, since I’ve been in this band, that quitting isn’t an option, and we just have to keep plodding through no matter what.”

Hawthorne Heights who have been touring without label support, talk about the benefits of playing Warped.

“You get to play in front of thousands and thousands of people everyday that you wouldn’t normally play for if you go out on your own. You get to hang out with a lot of other bands that you might not normally tour with, and it’s a lot of fun.”

Despite Bad Religion, Coheed & Cambria, and New Found Glory, there really isn’t a blockbuster artist on the Warped tour bill but Bleed The Dream said that was a good thing.

“I couldn’t agree more, and I think that’s probably the best thing for a lot of these bands. They’re getting that…the Coheed & Cambria and Circa Survive, they’re getting the blockbuster headlining treatment without necessarily being there, and they walk away being those bands that everybody talks about. It’s a great platform for a lot of the bands that were on the cusp of rising and deserve to get to the next level so I totally agree. It’s good for us too. It’s good for the smaller bands because then they get to be looked at as more like a midlevel band. When the tour started, like you were saying, ‘There’s no AFIs or whatever this year,’ and we were like, ‘That’s kind of cool because now the mid-level bands are going to be in the spotlight and then we can take their spots,’ so we were kind of stoked. It’s kind of cool.”

Warped Tour wraps up August 25 in Carson, California.