Vans Warped Tour (Las Vegas)
This is the only venue on the entire tour that puts some of the stages inside and away from the heat - this year the main stages and the Full Sail stage were put indoors.
The first band we saw was Hands Like Houses, which was one of the bands I personally wanted to see the most. For being one of the first bands to play (their set was at 11:40 in the morning), they had a lot of energy and put on a great live show. They had the crowd clapping and jumping on songs like Introduced Species, I Am, and New Romantics.
The next band, who played on the Journey's Left Foot Stage, was Tonight We Fight, one of the winners of the Ernie Ball Battle Of The Bands competition. I listened to their music when I found out they had won and would be playing the Vegas date, and immediately knew I would want to see them live. They played a short set but still had a lot of energy the entire time.
We overheard Trophy Eyes, who got bumped up to the Skullcandy stage, playing a couple songs and I liked what I heard. They blend pop punk and melodic hardcore really well and I definitely need to check out their music and hopefully will see them live next time they tour the US.
At 1:35 we saw The White Noise, who were also playing on the Skullcandy stage. They changed their setlist a bit and added more songs, mainly songs from their new album that came out that day. This band definitely had the heaviest set I saw all day and kept the crowd moving and singing the words, even in the 110° heat.
After this, we went in the pool for a while and heard a band (who I can't remember the name of) playing on the Hard Rock Stage. The band only had a couple of people by the stage but drew a bigger crowd very quickly and had a pretty large crowd as the set continued. This band knows how to get a crowd going and the vocalist's vocals (especially the clean vocals) are even more amazing live.
The next band we saw was Our Last Night, playing on the Journey's Right Foot Stage at 3:30 P.M. This band had a pretty big crowd. They had a lot of energy from the beginning when they played Broken Lives, and they closed it out with the emotional ballad Sunrise, which is one of my favorite songs by them.
Jule Vera played right afterwards on the Journey's Left Foot Stage at4:00. Their performance was pretty good, and the highlights for me were hearing Scarlet Letter and Something Good live.
American Authors played next on the Journey's Right Foot Stage at 4:30 and they had a pretty big crowd as well. The band had so many people dancing and singing along to their upbeat performance and it was overall a fun set to watch.
After this, we caught the tail end of The Gospel Youth's set on the Full Sail University stage, and getting to hear (and loudly sing the words to) Moods Like English Weather was a great experience.
Movements was up next at 5:25 on the same stage and they drew a pretty big crowd very quickly, which is pretty impressive for a smaller band. I can tell they're definitely going to get bigger in the future. The band put in a lot of emotion and passion in the performance, especially when they played hard hitting instrumentals and poignant spoken word sections.
The next band we saw was Neck Deep on the Journey's Right Foot Stage at 7:30 PM, who had the biggest crowd of the night by far (out of the bands we saw). Kali Ma and Can't Kick Up The Roots had everyone off their feet and people were shouting every single word to songs like Where Do We Go When We Go, December, and Gold Steps. Their set was easily one of my favorites of the entire day.
The final band we saw was Creeper, who played on the Full Sail University Stage at 8:05 PM. I heard a lot of good things about this band but didn't really get into their music up until I saw them live, and let me tell you, their performance completely won me over. The band had so much energy (although it was late at night) and had a hard hitting set from the beginning. Misery is my favorite song of theirs and I'm so glad they played it live, and it was definitely a good way to close out their set. Their live performance of it shows all the emotion in the song, and we even heard keyboardist Hannah Greenwood sing along with lead vocalist Will Gould.
I had an amazing time at this year's Warped Tour and I can't wait for what next year has to offer.