There are only a few places where an emo kid belongs in the world. Growing up, it was kind of difficult to find people that had the same taste in music as me. Luckily, summer was the perfect time for me to feel exactly where I belonged. There was nothing like spending the summer enjoying beautiful sunny days, overdosing on the smell of sunblock, and turning up music as loud as it would go.
Sadly, it is the end of an era. Summer 2018 would turn out to be the end of Journey’s Vans Warped Tour. As the punk-rock fan that I am, this shattered my heart. Clearly, I owed it to myself to go one last time. Now it was only a matter of deciding which state to go to. My adventure took an unexpected turn, and I ended up in San Diego, California.
Waterparks
The First band that I saw was Waterparks, God’s favorite boy band, and I was super excited to see Mikey Way. He was the original bass player for My Chemical Romance, but this summer he tagged along with Waterparks. After their set they had a meet and greet section.
Unfortunately, Mikey was not there. Still, I got to meet the band members, including the lead singer, Awsten Knight. He was super cool and nice. I complimented him on his twitter account @awsten, because, to me, it’s hilarious. He was pretty stoked because no one had said that to him in the entire tour. Awsten’s energy and personality is something that I strive for in life. He is so honest, sarcastic and funny.
The Maine
Over the years I’ve become a HUGE fan of The Maine. They have great music, but most importantly, amazing lyrics. I adore how real and relatable they are, and they give pretty awesome life advice. I was able to thank John O’Callaghan personally for his new book that was filled with amazing quotes, some of which he posts on his twitter account, @johnmaine. In addition, I got to meet and get a hug from my crush, Pat Kirch.
The Used and Simple Plan
The day could not be over without one last moshpit, singing along (very loudly and off key) and crowd-surfing to songs by The Used. They were the main reason I chose to go to San Diego in the first place. I could not contain the hype as soon as Bert McCracken started singing “Caught fire,” which was a perfect throwback and one of my favorite tracks since forever.
Last but certainly not least, my inner child felt completely alive being able to sing at the top of my lungs “I’m just a kid,” “Perfect,” “Addicted,” and “Welcome to my Life” by Simple Plan. The crowd went crazy singing to those old tunes. I think we all traveled back in time to when we listened to their songs on CD players, and reminisced on how awesome and cool it was to be the emo punk-rocker of your group of friends.
In the end, I had to make my way back to Ohio, but it was completely worth it. My emo-self will miss this tour with all of her heart, but I will always be grateful for this experience. I got to sing all of my favorite songs at the top of my lungs all and meet most of my favorite band members. Most importantly, I got to travel to different places that I’ll hopefully tell my kids about in the future. Vans Warped Tour will always be more than just a tour for us punk rock fans. It will always be remembered as a home just because you could connect with a bunch of people you never thought you’d meet. And through the music, you could feel like you had met your soulmate.
Pictures from my personal account on Instagram: @_AvianBomay