Vans Warped Tour 2004

(Side One Dummy)
by Lauren Bussard

Since I didn’t make it to the Warped Tour this year, I was totally pumped when I got this two-disc gem to review, and I immediately popped in the first disc to hear what I had missed. So you can imagine my surprise when I realized that these CDs aren’t in fact going to tell me anything about what I missed, because they’re not live recordings from the tour. Instead, they’re just a compilation of the studio-recorded songs from the various bands that were featured on the tour. I’m assuming that said bands did at some point play these songs live on the Warped stage, but who really knows??

So thanks, Side One Dummy, for making people pay for two CDs that they could’ve burned themselves using all the CDs they already own because they liked all the Warped Tour bands to begin with, and that’s why they’re buying this compilation, because they thought they would hear something new.

That said, of course I like most of the 50 songs on the two CDs. The highlights include songs from Warped Tour veterans NOFX, Flogging Molly, Anti-Flag, Bouncing Souls and Alkaline Trio, plus great tracks from Warped newbies Yellowcard, Motion City Soundtrack, Matchbook Romance, Death by Stereo, and Taking Back Sunday. Also featured on the discs are songs by New Found Glory, Thursday, Descendents, Pennywise, Atmosphere, Sugarcult, Maxeen, Go Betty Go, 1208, The Matches, The Lawrence Arms, Avoid One Thing, Stutterfly, Near Miss, Letter Kills, Lightweight Holiday, Denver Harbor, Jersey, Melee, The Casualties, Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, Coheed and Cambria, Piebald, From Autumn to Ashes, The Unseen, Pulley, The F Ups, The Real McKenzies, Left Alone, Down To Earth Approach, Throwrag, From First To Last, Chronic Future, Hazen Street, and Pepper.
(www.sideonedummy.com)