So last night I went up to the home of football, the Emirates! And if it wasn't good enough that we smashed Chelsea 3-1, I got the chance to meet some of my footballing heroes.This was an unbelievable experience and I'd like to thank Cesc and Carlota for making it possible. Muchas gracias! 
Hey guys,
So i've been trying to piece this blog together, but it's been quite hard. For about 5 or so days, we had 3 am bus calls...which meant partying everyone of those five nights. I remember the shows being absolutely insane for us and doing lots of long signings. I went to chipotle, bowling once, there was a massive Water Park which the park opened especially for warped tour one evening, i think PA, and on our day off I went to see Inception which blew my mind.
Anyway, below are some pictures my friends and my girlfriend took whilst they stayed out with us during the 14th-19th.
Darien Center, New York
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Camden, New Jersey
Uniondale, New York
Oceanport, New Jersey
day off, New York city
Warped football tournament6th July, Indianapolis
Not much i can say about this except for, well done, well done Parkway Drive for absolutely ruining us. You smashed us apart into smithereens, and we're all still pretty shaken by it. Even if we did then beat you a few hours later, you won the game that mattered.
I watched BMTH beat the Bouncing souls as well and then all the games were done. I met our first ever fans from Brazil, which I assure you was very surreal. I never imagined our music would ever reach places that far away from home. I was really looking forward to hitting up Cleveland as I love that place, and with good reason too...
8th July Cleveland
So i woke up, and the subject of where and to which team Lebron James was going to play for was all the rage across ESPN and all that shit. Lebron James is basically the new Michael Jordan in terms of basketball; the Cleveland Cavaliers franchise was pretty much built around his name so in turn he was adored by the fans of the Cavaliers because he was so much more than just a prolific player for them, he was an icon for the city which is what made his choice such a big deal.
The great thing about the location for the Cleveland show, was that we could walk into the city center from where we were so after we played, a handful of us headed into the town to do a bit of shopping. Dan bought a Cleveland Bball jersey...more on that to come, and then we all for some food and bowling. For no reason whatsoever, we all bowled so badly, it was pretty pathetic to be honest, except for Matt Barnes, who actually scored over 50 for the first time ever...if only he'd done that in the tournament. Headed back for press, did that, watched Parkway Drive smash shit up, sung with BMTH and then made my way back into town for a burrito.
Little did we know, Lebron James had already announced he was leaving Cleveland to play for the Miami Heat. Dan just so happened to be sporting his newly purchased Cleveland jersey, which had James's name on the back. Bad move. It was safe to say people wanted LJ's blood, I mean, they were really pissed off, and seeing a dude wearing a top with LJ's name on the back only pissed them off even more. Dan had people heckling out of their car windows and people swearing as we walked past them in the street. It was getting a little too biblical for our liking, so we peaced out.
9th and 10th of July Toronto and Montreal, Canada.
I do love Canada, but hate passing through the Canadian border, it's just a straight up ball ache.
I was really excited to play Toronto, because the last time we played it on the AP tour, it was one of the best shows of the tour. Toronto didn't disappoint, not one little bit. Our queue for our signing was stupidly long, we were signing at our merch for an hour and a half, it was a lot of fun because AAR were our soundtrack, and that Tyson fella is hilarious with his on stage banter.
Oh Montreal, you French speaking Canadians you! With your over sized site which meant it was a 2 mile walk to and from our stage, thanks for that. The show was cool, but that walk was mental! I watched SYG smash it and then during our set, un-announced, but yet welcomed, Jordan ran on stage and sang the ending to the Consequence. I love that guy.
Later me and some of my friends such as Chris V ( WTK MERCH), Travis and Dannt ( WTK) Max and our buddy Henri went to the biggest casino i've ever seen...in Canada. Everyone was gambling and celebrating/cursing in French, weird experience. I had a good night, but didn't leave any richer...
11th July,
Hartford, CT
East Coast, east coast, east coast! I love playing shows on the EC of America! We seem to get pretty decent crowds, and people are really stoked on the band. This was the case for Harford! Our friend John from Glamour Kills came out to the show and brought us some swag and then took some of the guys to get some drinks! Thanks John. I 'm pretty sure the World Cup final took place on this day, am I right? Well I managed to catch the game when it went to extra time and I wasn't sure who I wanted to win. I am, however, glad that Spain won, congratulations to you Spaniards! This night was also the night that some of my best friends celebrated their birthdays! Tom Sykes and Oliver Mcpherson! Check the picture above to see some of the madness. Way too much alcohol was involved. Late bus calls are a bad idea.
12th July
Day off - Six Flags
Here's a break down for ya
- Free rides
- Water Theme park
- Dominos pizza
- Twilight ( funniest movie i've ever seen)
13th July Boston
Home town of Four Year Strong. Needless to say their set was crazy. According to our sound engineer, Booley, it was so insane that the crowd moved the barrier with sheer force! Our Boston show was probably the best show we've ever played in America, period. I can't really say much else about it, thank you, thank you and thank you.
Welcome to my Warped tour blog number 4.
1st July, San Antonio, Texas
I'm sorry, i really can't remember what happened on this day. I think i was in bed for most of it. I think there was an after show party, but again, i can't remember!
2nd July, Houston, Texas
RAIIIIIINNNNNNNNNN
RAIIIIIINNNNNNNNNN
A SHIT TON OF RAIN!
I woke up, and like something out of 'Day after tomorrow' the heavens opened. There were floods and all kinds of chaos. Anyway, this is a rock n roll tour god dammit, and the show MUST go on. We opened our stage on this day, and we helped to hold the roof of the stage up. Our stage has an inflatable roof you see, therefore, when it rained it got absolute obliterated by the rain! It was torrential rain during our set and we were all absolutely soaked, but it must be said, the crowd were unbelievable. It was probably the best show of the tour thus far. We just rolled with it and embraced mother nature having her way with us. God bless ya mumma, god bless ya.
3rd of July, Dallas, Texas
The hurricane aftermath continued to follow us around Texas. Hot rain, bouncing a metre of the ground. We continued to use the rain to shower. Dallas was a pretty cool show. I feel like everyones attention was on the day to follow.....
4th of July
Independence day. AMERICA, FREEDOM, blah blah. I'm not American, so i don't get it, but i do appreciate them dedicating a day to solely drinking beer, eating bbq food and hanging out with good people. That's exactly what we did. We were at a hotel with the boys from Parkway Drive and BMTH, so throughout the day we played some footy, ate some burgers and drank a ton of beer!
At about 2am we let off some fireworks, which was an amazing idea, and i'm glad we went ahead with it, despite the risk of being kicked out of the hotel and it's car park. I vaguely remember us playing a bunch of beer pong, that being said, if i can't remember, we most probably did!!
5th of July St Louis, Missouri
The site for WT2010 was based a round a massive hill and all the merch tents surrounded it. It was a cool site, and the show itself was pretty awesome. Loads of people were singing along and stuff. I watched Enter Shikari, who put simply, are one of the most exciting and best live bands around, fact. Ohhh and catering was amazing in St Louis, STEAK! I LOVE STEAK! Thank you TADA catering, more of the same please.
IN MY NEXT BLOG I'LL RUN YOU THROUGH US PLAYING IN THE WARPED FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT, AND OUR EXPERIENCE IN CANADA!
26th June
Mountain View California, not much to report from this show was once again above and beyond what we were expecting, so we can't ask for much more than that.
MV played host to the first of many Warped Parties. Some band called Breathe Carolina hosted a party with loads of dub step music, so we just lost our shit. I'm almost certain everyone on the tour woke up the next day with a raging hang over!
27th June
England vs Germany. I got up especially at 7am, i'd had about 4 hours sleep but i still awoke with a whole bunch of optimism. Don't know why i bothered. I'm not going to waste too much of my time typing about how badly we played, or how pissed i am that ze Germans destroyed us but i will say this, if Fat Franks goal had stood, which btw it should've, then it would've been a completely different game.
So i thought, 'ahh England have lost, fingers crossed for a good set time'.
We opened our stage at 11:20 or something. Needless to say i wasn't in the right place for it, but we still had a blast and the people that did get into to see us seemed to have fun! Good times were had. I watched Four Year Strong for the first time on this tour, forgot how good that band are.
Night two of the infamous WT parties/bbq's. As i type this i am trying to piece together the nights events. I remember Flint town and I taming some yanks at Beer Pong, mostly the SYG dudes, and i remember drinking margaritas with Max and few of the boys in Shikari, who by the way, are fucking dudes, nice to have some other Brits along side us and BMTH on this tour. I vaguely remember Matt Nicholls doing something he shouldn't have with a fork lift, but i also remember encouraging it, so nuff' said really!
28th June
Day off in Phoenix.
I seriously sat in our hotel room all day online. I used the gym for like an hour, and then went back to doing nothing. Oh wait, i got In n Out.
We then went to a charity bowling event in the evening. There were about 20 or so bands from the tour doing it, so a bunch of our friends were there. The idea behind the event was for the bands to be auctioned off on ebay and for the fans to be bid to bowl with them. Our guy was a dude called Darwin ( i called him D-money) and he paid $340 to charity to bowl with us, what a legend! Needless to say we were confident that we were going to do well, but we didn't. Dan, Chris and myself bowled immaculately and a few others didn't do so well....ahaha. We got knocked out in the first round but continued to carry on bowling just for shits and giggles anyway.
On the way back to the bus i got IN n OUT. Good decision.
29th June
Show day in Phoenix, Arizona.
When i first saw the routing for WT, i didn't see that we were playing the sun. The heat in Phoenix was so oppressive, it literally sucked the life out of you, it was horrible. We played last on our stage at like 7:50, and i want to say a massive thank you to everyone that stuck around and watched us play, i know it was a long hot day, and we really do appreciate you guys sticking around for us.
All to report was that i played a ton of fifa and watched a whole load of Tru Tv!
30th June
Las Cruces, New Mexico
It was kinda hot in New Mexico, but not as bad as Phoenix. I liked the layout of the site way more as well because everything was a lot closer. Met the guys from Parkway Drive for the first time, nice dudes, if you haven't seen their dvd yet, you should, makes a lot of touring bands these dudes look like the biggest bunch of babies ever, us included. Those guys have flown over from Australia and turned up in countries all over the world, not knowing if they even had shows to play or places to stay. I guess if the Warped Tour is all about punk rock ethics, then Parkway Drive embody that sentiment all year round, not just on this tour.
After our set Joe SYG, Jake Mayday and i went for a run. I only managed like 1.6 miles, but then i noticed there was a massive football match going on, so i ran over and joined in. Our boys were playing, some of the BMTH boys and just a bunch of friends. It was a good time, we literally played until it was too dark to do so! Best day on the tour thus far in regards to hanging out.
June 21st
Fresno. Fresno fresno fresno. When will you learn? Crystal meth is not a joke, or cool. Haha, on a serious note, why was there no food places around the venue? There were a bunch of gang members outside out bus all night too. It was cool seeing and playing with BMTH and Your Demise, but thats about it. Got it, got out. Badda bing badda boom.
June 22nd
We arrived in Bakersfield super early so i thought i'd check out the town. That took about 20 minutes. We played the basement of Jerry's a pizza restaurant.
We hadn't played a basement show in years, so i was stoked. The show itself was actually ok, I started a circle pit myself, pitted, by myself, and left with a injury, by, myself!
I finally met Vigil from The Ghost Inside, been a massive fan of that band ever since our friend Nate showed us them on the AP tour we did. We left early as we wanted to go to Vegas. Jerry's, your pizza is awesome, but it messed with my bowels.
June 23rd
I woke up in Vegas with a smile on my face. We watched the England game on our bus, it's cool that we won, but i didn't feel to optimistic at the prospect of facing ZE GERMANS! Eventually stumbled across some food, it wasn't great.
We played a skate park for the first ever time!! It was a pretty cool idea to be quite honest! The whole idea behind the show was to celebrate Alternative Press's 25th anniversary bash, a British Invasion kinda thing. Bmth, Shikari, us and Demise.
The show its self was pretty sweet, Vigil ( The ghost inside) came on stage and sang THE CONSEQUENCE with us, it was tight.
After we played the main issue was ID. For those of you un-aware, in America, you have to be 21 years of age to buy/sell/drink/have fun.
I wanted to go to the after show at the ' HARDROCK ' so naturally, we figured something out. I used our TM's ID, he's 24 and his glasses....silly Americans. AP very graciously hooked up all the bands with a shit ton of alcohol, and us brits were more than happy to oblige. OHHHHHHH i forgot to mention, they paid for us all to travel from the venue in Limos. Read and see what happened in Kerrang magazine in a few weeks. Anyway, back to Vegas. I don't remember much, there was a lot of 'Dad dancing' going on. I think i must've told the Your Demise boys that they were the shit a billion times. It was a total vibe fest. The party then finished, and Norm (from AP) and i hit some tables. Again, the ID worked...silly Americans.
Didn't win, didn't lose, didn't really care. Vegas, i love you, see you soon!
June 24th
Pre prodcution day for Warped tour. A day for which a person like me, does nothing, and i mean nothing!!! Everyone else was running around like headless chickens and i just played Fifa.
For those of you don't know me that well, i'm all about the fifa!!
Chewbear and Max devised our very own wall of shame, called..dun dun dun.. THE MURK BOARD. Very simple, if you beat someone at Fifa by 5-0 or more, then go on the MB. However, saying i was to be beating Max 8-0, but he scored to make it 8-1, he would then not go on the MB. You can only be present on the MB if you have been well and truly thrashed and not responded with one measly little goal.
I am here to say, for the record, i am NOT on the MB, i have however, put Max, Henri, Joe SYG, Chris v (wtk merch) and Booley on the MB. I beat Joe so badly, he left the bus. 11-0. NO BIG DEAL.
I went for a run in the evening with my boy Jake (mayday parade) and his girlfriend. Ate some fish Tacos and then caught up with all our friends from the tour.
I have the distinct feeling this summer may be one of the best summers of my life. We're surrounded by some of our best friends, good music, good weather and good times. Gonna be a good one!!!
June 25th
Warped tour officially starts in Carson, California.
I can't remember exactly, but i think we played at 2:50 pm. Our stage is awesome, and although people working it are working their arses off and seem like cool dudes. Our set was insane, we must've played in front of about 1500 people, which we were never expecting to do in our wildest dreams, so thank you Carson, it was amazing. I then sang on stage with BMTH on the main stage later on, which was quite an experience, so thank you boys!
First day on warped over. Again, Jake and i went for a run, which was a bad idea for my shins, but fuck it.
ANNNYYYYWWAAYAYYYYYYYY
In the next blog i'll delve more into the Warped tour itself. I'll try and give you a real idea of what this tour is about. I'll also blog about the first infamous warped tour bbq party in Mountain View California, us taking part in a Bowling competition, and my thoughts on England and ze Germans.
hope you're all well!!!
Josh
June 17th
We flew out to America on this day, landed at LAX and the first thing we did was hit IN n OUT Burger, shit, that stuff is good!
Early night because we were all exhausted.
June 18th
Kinda gutted i wasn't at home for this day, as it was my Dad's birthday, but on the flipside, we shooted a video with a man called Frank Borin, who did the REAL SLIM SHADY VIDEO!! NOBIGDEAL!
I think it's going to look epic. We also watched the England/Algeria game, no comment, but we were all thinking the same thing, right?
June 19th
We had a day off in LA, and i loooovveeeee LA! Our friend Lauren drove Max and i around for little while and we hit up Melrose and got some cool swag for warped, but all of this means nothing, because on this fine night, we saw.....dun dun dun....IRON FUCKING MAIDEN!!!
Our manager was like, "ahh lets just get a van", which we were all down with, but then someone brilliantly suggested getting a limo with a free bar. Which option do you think we chose? IT WAS IRON FUCKING MAIDEN, we had to hit it with style!!!
So off we went.
I really can't remember much..there was a free bar remember, but what do i recall is the journey home. I vaguely remember people applauding when we left IN AND OUT BURGER because of all the noise we were making whilst waiting for our food.
Another day, another struggle. Thug life.
June 20th
This day is boring, we pick up our bus, got walmart, buy an xbox, play a shit ton of fifa. The end.
p.s A crackhead in Fresno called Dan a son of a bitch. That was cool.
CHECK OUT MY NEXT BLOG TO READ ALL ABOUT OUR SHOWS WITH HORIZON, VEGAS AND THE FIRST DAY OF WARPED TOUR 2010!! WOOOHOOOO
