Going to the Vans Warped Tour show is like attending a one-day modern rock boot camp. Invariably, it’s hot. Really hot. Just as invariably, you tread around the whole Darien Lake grounds in a vain attempt to catch as many of the bands performing across seven stages as possible, becoming massively dehydrated in the process. And always, you leave at the end of the all-day marathon thinking it was worth it if you caught just one band with something fresh and new and exciting to offer.
Tuesday’s well-attended show proved to be no exception to these general rules. About 70 bands performed beneath a blistering sun, and of course, seeing all of them proved to be a physical impossibility. So what was the one band that made it all worthwhile? Interestingly, it turned out to be an outfit from Boston, Mass., known as Bad Rabbits. If there is any justice in the modern rock world, we will all be hearing a lot more from this group.
Part of what made Bad Rabbits stand out as such a cool breeze during a brutally hot onslaught of heavy music was the contrast they offered to so many of the other bands. Warped has always been, ostensibly at least, about punk and alternative rock. In the tour’s early years, this meant an awful lot of Southern California-born punk-pop, but over the years, Warped has morphed into a mostly hard-core and “screamo”-based event. Because of this evolution in the tour’s approach, groups that step outside of the post-metal, emo-tinged, anti-melody stance of the majority of the bands truly stand out.
So it was with Bad Rabbits.
The band performed directly following one of the most buzzed-about sets of the day — from the underground but rapidly rising D. R. U. G. S., whose midday set spawned a massive mosh pit and a flurry of crowd surfing. D. R. U. G. S. threw bits of melody into an otherwise straight-ahead scream-fest — propulsive metal-based rhythms, anger-fueled lyrics, and drum figures that rattle the cranium conjoin to create more of an aural assault than a performance. Which is exactly what the band’s fans seemed to be hoping for. They went nuts, flocking to the merchandise area following the set to meet the band, express eternal love and get some stuff signed.
Meanwhile, a few stages to the south of the D. R. U. G. S. scene, Bad Rabbits was launching into a killer set of songs from its recent “Stick Up Kids” collection. Right off the bat, the group sounded gorgeously different than its Warped peers. A stirring blend of R&B vocals, spacey alt-rock and straight funk guitar arrangements, sampled and real-time percussion, and seriously deep bass grooves combined to create a sound that suggested what it might sound like if Cee-Lo Green sat in with MGMT, or Prince guested on a Flaming Lips gig. The group worked the crowd hard, too, and seemed to have a blast doing so. By the end of a set that felt too short, Bad Rabbits surely had a few new fans, this writer among them.
Other highlights included a nice, assured set from reggae-dub-ska-punk collective Passafires, more Jamaican-influenced punk fusion from Dance Gavin Dance and a set from I Set My Friends On Fire that was notable not because it was particularly excellent but because it was so disjointed, cacophonous and just plain bad. Volume and Cookie Monster vocals cannot cover up a lack of actual songwriting, alas.
Of course, even though Warped has no headliners—it’s much more the sampler platter than it is the four-course meal — the Devil Wears Prada was a clear favorite, based on the merchandise sported by the predominantly young crowd. During its set, a fierce mosh pit erupted as some misguided souls began tossing everything from full pop bottles to shoes and books—who says the kids don’t read anymore? — into the air above the crowd. These things had to land somewhere.
The Devil Wears Prada is an odd band. It’s difficult to call the din it produces music. It’s more like aural stimulation, a collection of sinisterly heavy riffs backed by nonstop, double-time, twin-bass-drum business and topped by unintelligible screaming. The Cookie Monster thing again, mostly.
The band was as tight as tight can be, working with an automaton’s semblance of grace through a set that simply pummeled the audience into what appeared to be a willing submission. This wasn’t simply thrash. This was incessant heaviness that made Slayer and Metallica sound like pop music by comparison.
But that’s the beauty of Warped. Don’t dig what you’re hearing? Walk away and catch something else on another stage. Even after all these years, Warped is the festival that gives the most bang for buck.
Concert Review
Vans Warped Tour
All-day event Tuesday in the Darien Lake Performing Arts Center.
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