Yesturday I had a chance to get to the 2006 Warped Tour, with 51 punk bands spanning over 8 stages. Below I have attached 5 of my 50 pictures I took over the day, there is a comment for each one. At the bottom there is my review of the bands I got to see, this will also be posted on ap.net.

Pictures:
-Alexisonfire take the stage with Moneen to sing 3 of the from there switcheroo cd together. Both Alexisonfire and Moneen played 30 min apart as well.
-So They Say... The BBQ band of the year, a band asked to come on 10 of the 50 shows and must cook dinner there first night. Them jumping around on stage on the very small smartpunk stage.
-Thursday on the mainstage, lead singer Geoff talking about the state of music and how to support the scene.
-Alexisonfire singing Mailbox Arson off there new CD Crisis on the side stage Vagrant. Over 10,000 people crammed into a space build for 2,000.
-Aiden takes the side Hurley stage almost blowing the amps.

Most years i've attended the warped tour i've stuck to the main stage where many well known bands have played. This year I decided to see many smaller bands I enjoy but also check out bands I might have never seen before. The bands I saw the entire setlists are listed below and are in order of when I saw them:

Instead of posting long reviews for each band which many people who come to this blog will not read, go to ap.net to see the long detailed review, here is a summary of the scores (out of 10).

So They Say
-Music: 8
-Entertainment: 5.5
-Overall: 7
+notes+ First time I ever saw this band perform, I was very impressed with there talent playing guitar and vocals. However they rarely moved and didn’t show a lot of enthusiasm.

Hellogoodbye
-Music: 5
-Entertainment: 8
-Overall: 6
+notes+ This band wasn’t put on the tour for there musical talent that’s for sure. They are very entertaining with many people on stage with masks and goofing around. However most the music used a poor sounding keyboard and computer made midi loops.

Unknown Band (Ernie Ball Stage)
-n/a

The Early November
-Music: 9.5
-Entertainment: 9
-Overall: 9
+notes+ The Early November is huge in the states yet they rarly come to Canada and are very unknown up here. They took the stage with few people watching but by the end of the set there were more people around the stage then at the main stage. These guys are very talented musicians and give a rock star like performance.

Thursday
-Music: 6.5
-Entertainment: 7
-Overall: 7
+notes+ I expected a lot from Thursday considering they are one of the first scremo bands who have been around for eight years. There music wasn’t good, it was to loud and you couldn’t make out the lyrics… but they are Thursday and if you were watching them you knew the lyrics. They gave a very intense performance but it was hard to get over the musical quality.

Cauterize
-Music: 7.5
-Entertainment: 7
-Overall: 7
+notes+ A friend of mine she loves this band, so when I saw them listed for performances the only reason I went was to see what she enjoyed. There entire performance was light rock and acoustic songs, but the guys voice was amazing and lyrics were intense and meaningful. They were a good alternative to many bands attending and it was a shame to see they gathered a very small crowd.


Alexisonfire
-Music: 9
-Entertainment: 10
-Overall: 10
+notes+ It’s Alexisonfire… one of my favourite bands. I was completely biased for this review because I really wanted to see them play. They play every show like it’s the best show of their lives. Very intense and gets people going… however for some reason Dallas’s vocals sounded off, probably due to the demanding touring of warped. But as I said it was Alexisonfire, and they got the largest crowd at a side stage I’ve ever seen (they refused to play the main to stay with friends).

Alexisofire & Moneen
-Music: 7.5
-Entertainment: 10
-Overall: 9
+notes+ This was the only stop on the tour where both Alexisonfire and Moneen had a chance to play together (because it was in Canada). While watching the performance I couldn’t stop thinking that this may be the only chance I will get to see these two amazing bands play there Switcheroo cd together. The set had a lot of problems (to many people on the stage), and because of this there was a lot of crazy things happening. It was an amazing experience and I was so glad I got to see it.

Moneen
-Music: 8.5
-Entertainment: 9
-Overall: 8.5
+notes+ I’ve seen Moneen a lot in my life and they put on an amazing show. The band all took turns jumping off the amps into the crowd and got everyone pumped. The sounded exactly like the cd and played tracks from all three of there LP’s. It was an intense show and after it was over you didn’t realize that you saw an hour show, it went by way to fast.

Silverstein
-Music: 6
-Entertainment: 6
-Overall: 6
+notes+ Silverstein used to be my favourite band back in first year university. Over the years they have become more watered down and commercialized. This was shown a lot in there performance on the main stage. They were very slow and tried to imitate bands like AFI and My Chemical Romance. It was a mediocre performance at best.

Bullet For My Valentine
-Music: 7
-Entertainment: 5
-Overall: 5
+notes+ I wanted to see Armor For Sleep really badly this meant I had to wait around and see two sets of bands which I didn’t know before. First up was Bullet For My Valentine, I’d heard of them before but never really heard the music. They took the stage and first thing they said was to get the mosh pit going. They were very intense and had some amazing songs, however the promotion of moshing and going crazy really hurt them in my eyes. They created a performance which was really good and ruined it by creating an environment which it was impossible to enjoy it in.

Aiden
-Music: 8
-Entertainment: 9
-Overall: 8.5
+notes+ After Bullet For My Valentine another band Aiden took the stage… These guys were all dressed in black and covered in make up so they looked like zombies. I was not looking forward to them playing at all. The lead singer took the microphone and throughout the entire show he gave very positive speeches about not only the scene but the people involved in it and differences. The music was very creative and not metal influenced, all of them were talented musicians and this was shown by the music… the lyrics however were dark and not for me. Overall they turned out to be the best find of the day and I enjoyed the set more then I thought I would.

Armor For Sleep
-Music: 8.5
-Entertainment: 5
-Overall: 6.5
+notes+ I waited 2 hours to see Armor For Sleep play, they have 2 cds which I am a huge fan for. When they took the stage they looked tired and made it seem like they didn’t want to be in Canada. They knew nothing of their Canadian fans and didn’t even know if the cd came out up here. They drew a huge crowd and played all the hits off the cds, they sounded spot on and it was enjoyable. There attitude ruined the mood and I lost a lot of respect for the band, in the future I really hope they don’t take their fans for granted.