From Mike Abiuso:
Oh how my perspective on Warped Tour has changed drastically from when I was a teen going to see bands to now. Warped Tour 2011, when my band The Venetia Fair just lived and breathed Warped Tour on a 24-hour clock, working our minds and bodies way beyond their capacities. Some adjectives that come to mind when thinking of Warped Tour ‘11 would include following: (keep in mind some may be contradictory, but it was definitely a love/hate relationship) Hot, dirty, sweaty, wet, disgusting, productive, exhausting, fun, flattering, rewarding, motivational, scary, but overall very pleasing and worth every minute!
I would like to now describe to you the procedures to get a better understanding of what goes on at Warped from the bands perspective and let me be slightly further descriptive by saying a ‘smaller band’s perspective’, and even more descriptive The Venetia Fair’s perspective, because we’re not talking tour bus, drivers, catering and roadies.
Being that we worked on a 24-hour clock I could literally start anywhere and have it come full circle, so I will start with the time that the average working class would start their day.
7am everyone slowly pulls themselves out of the air conditioned van into the humid 90 degree air to trying to forget the fact that a nights sleep was in actuality a frequently interrupted nap. We will have to walk around like zombies for 10 minutes scrounging around for our dirty clothes from the previous day that are still damp from yesterday’s sweat and have an even harder time getting them on due to these circumstances. We will eat some canned fruit or if we’re lucky one of the over night drivers will have stopped at Wal-Mart to grab ice and yogurt in which would be a 5 star meal for The Venetia Fair. At this point Chris Constantino (drummer) AKA ‘Tent Spot Chris’ will be walking around with our tent looking for a prime location to setup in an area of high traffic, distanced from a stage so we can actually hear our friends and fans and engage in conversations with them. The rest of us will be finishing up getting dressed and eating and will then proceed to load our merchandise out of the trailer and onto a cart similar to a Wal-Mart shopping cart, in fact that is exactly what it is. We will strap everything in and have a few people push the cart through most often then not a rocky RVA/dirt parking lot into the field of Warped Tour.
