If kids think of "punk" as radio pop with guitars, that's what the Vans Warped Tour will book.
by Miles Raymer
Punk rock is in a difficult spot right now: the precocious disaffected youth who have kept it running for nearly three decades are increasingly finding their creative outlets via samplers and cracked copies of Fruity Loops, not guitars, and all sorts of kids are starting to look at rock 'n' roll as their parents' (or even grandparents') music. The Vans Warped Tour, which has been the spiritual home of mall punk for almost two decades, has always presented itself as a gathering place for outsiders (especially people who can consider themselves outsiders even while they're being directly marketed to by a large corporation), but it's never been as far outside of mainstream pop culture as it is now.…[ Read more ]