For the first time in years, Warped Tour is coming to New Orleans. If you aren't into the punk scene (whether you lean more pop, rock, or anything in between is besides the point), this may not mean a lot to you. But if you ever listened to My Chemical Romance, Sum 41, All Time Low, or any band in between, your heart probably skipped a beat when you saw New Orleans on the tour dates. And your heart was right, because this is a very big deal.
When I was 17, I went to Warped Tour in Atlanta, and somehow was able to meet Kevin Lyman, the founder of Warped, backstage by the director buses. All of us back there were able to ask him a question, and mine was incredibly easy to think of: why doesn't Warped Tour ever come to New Orleans? It broke my heart when Kevin told me that he had tried to bring his tour to the Crescent City, but the tour actually lost money. Not enough people went, not enough tickets were sold, so it cost the tour more to get to New Orleans than they brought in. If you love music, live for these bands, and respect the artists, then you would understand, just as I did back then. You don't want the bands to go unpaid just so you can see them.
But finally, New Orleans is getting her second chance. And if we fail Warped, we may never get this opportunity again. Who cares if you are in your 20s, maybe your 30s now. There was probably a time in your life that you would have done anything to go to Warped Tour. Be a kid again, and let that dream live. And let that dream be a reality for today's young punk scene.
When we buy tickets to Warped Tour, we aren't buying them for just ourselves. We're buying them for all of the 14-year-olds that are just discovering Blink-182 because they put out a new album. We're buying them for the junior high students who are finding acceptance in they lyrics of "Jasey Rae" by All Time Low that so many of us found all those years ago. We're buying them for anyone and everyone that may ever find a home in this concert culture, so that they can find the family that we were never able to: the family at Warped Tour.
I was fortunate to have friends and family that would take me to concerts in Atlanta and Houston when the tours passed over New Orleans, but most people aren't that lucky. Now that so many of us are able to make these decisions for ourselves and are able to buy our tickets and get ourselves to these shows, we need to show Warped Tour and all of the other tours that New Orleans is here and has an audience for them. That we want -- and we need -- for them to make New Orleans another stop on their tour, and not just a day off.
You need to go to Warped Tour to tell everyone in the [pop/rock] punk scene, "New Orleans is here, and we want you to be, too."
