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In the vast bleakness that is a Canadian winter, any reminder of summer is a welcome distraction from the blowing snow and brown slush. So every year when the first bands start to sign up for Kevin Lymans annual cross country summer camp known as The Vans Warped Tour, the reminders of bright summer days, and cramming twelve hours of music into one day are enough to sprout wood.

This year was no different. The original list of bands was a veritable who’s who of my ipod’s top played list. So needless to say as I scrolled through the list the wood in my pants quickly turned to a wet spot. Too gross?

Thrice, Underoath, The Ataris, Chiodos, Senses Fail and P.O.S., were just a few of the bands I was totally stoked about seeing. The issue became, that, as usual, the Toronto line-up ends up looking nothing like the list of bands announced, as no Ataris and no Thrice made it north of the border.

Add to that the fact that the glory days of Warped Tour in Toronto ended the day that Molson Park was sold for condo land and the tour stop became a parking lot out by the airport. Gone was the ability to relax in the grass under a tree when you had a few minutes with no bands playing. Gone were the dirt warriors. The often shirtless pit monkeys, their faces wrapped in bandana’s and caked in the dirt that made up the ground that became the pit in front of each of the six stages.

I guess I’m saying that charm of warped tour has faded, and been replaced by a gaggle of neon clad suburban crunk bands, sing-rapping over shitty electro beats and the occasional riff.

I’ll admit right out, that due to work, I didn’t make it this year, and to tell you the truth I wasn’t that sad about it. It didn’t make me look bad fondly on a few things like the ghost of Warped Tour past.

The real benefit of Warped Tour is finding new music. It’s true that most years you could fill your days with established bands, but venturing outside of that could throw open the doors on a band you otherwise would never have known you loved. For me the best example of that is The Matches. With time to kill between Protest the Hero and Thrice, I wondered over to the Hurley stage and saw a young band, the lead singer’s hair going in all different directs, in a pair of short pants, and angle wings, stomping around the stage in giant boots. Two songs in and I’ve been a fan ever since.

There was the year that, Ill Scarlet pulled their infamous stunt and played the line up outside of the venue, until Kevin Lyman eventually let them inside.

There were innumerable sets by Funeral For A Friend, Thrice, Killswitch Engage, Protest the Hero, Atreyu and others that were heard but not seen due to the giant cloud of dirt blocking the stage, as the pit went off.

There were the giant circle pits, and patriotic moments where Billy Talent seemingly out drew every other band on the tour, despite the fact they suck.

Looking back now, it’s hard to tell whether it’s because I’ve changed or because Warped Tour changed, but it’s obvious that we’ve grown apart, and we will never have what we once did. I guess I should just give it up, admit that I’m old and shell out a couple hundred bucks the next time Coldplay runs through town………fuck that. I’ll never be old enough to like the whiney, British, piano driven sap that Chris Martin and his butt buddies churn out. But all the same, I’ve outgrown Warped Tour, and it’s a sad, sad thing to realize.

The Matches – Papercut Skin
Protest The Hero – Turn Soonest To The Sea
Thrice – Deadbolt

A man in a gas mask, face fully obscured, flickers in black and white and classic film style on the back wall. His hand rises and the words, I Am The Messenger write themselves across his hand. The crowd is going nuts as Aaron Gillespie walks out onto stage first, and stands on the stool behind his drum kit, arms outstretched, in a Christ like pose, reminiscent of Scott Stapp, but far less arrogant. The rest of Underoath, vocalist Spencer Chamberlin, guitarists Tim McTague and James Smith, bassist Grant Brandell and sample/keyboard player Christopher Dudley, join Gillespie on stage and he leads them into Breathing in a New Mentality with an incredible display of drumming that has to make anyone who would deride the founding member of Underoath and lead singer of The Almost, myself included, take notice of his considerable talent on the drums.

It doesn’t stay a one man show for long, as Spencer Chamberlin, scrawny with more hair than flesh on his body, emits his trademark scream and growling vocals, and McTague and Smith pound out the incredible lines that have made Underoath a tour de force in almost any scene that ends in the word core.

The sounds of an old school projector clicking clue the already insane crowd that Underoath are about to reach back to 2006’s Define the Great Line for In Regards to Myself, giving Gillespie the chance to stretch his vocal chords, singing the hook, “You’re sleeping a bed of shame,” to which Chamerlin growls back “Let the light breathe some new life into this room, It’s what keeps you coming back.”

Neither Underoath or the crowd is letting up as Chamberlin screams the opening words of It’s A Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door from 2006’s genre defining They’re Only Chasing Safety. The crowd croons along with the softer more melodic moments of the song, and chant along in one voice, “I’m drowning in my sleep.” As Chamberlin screams over the chant.

The crowd’s heat and passion are fueling the band as they continue to pound through a set that included. Emergency Broadcast : The End Is Near, I Don’t Feel Very Receptive Today, You’re Ever So Inviting and The Only Survivor Was Miraculously Unharmed.

By the time Gillespie asks, “Can you feel your heart beat racing? Can you taste the fear in her sweat?” The crowd is so hyped that it seems that the roof is going to come off, and when A Boy Brushed Red, Living In Black and White’s break down hits and Chamberlin again unleashes his surprising power, the pit erupts.

The set continues with Desolate Earth: The End Is Hear and Returning Empty Handed, before Chamberlin tells the crowd that they’ve been the best of the tour (cheap pop), and then with his religion planted firmly on his sleeve he does his best to spread the word of Christ without trying to sound like a pretentious ass. The crowd clearly feels it as Jesus gets the biggest pop of the night.

He then announces that this is the last song and they break into Desperate Times, Desperate Measures of their latest release, 2008’s Lost In The Sound of Separation.

Darkness follows but the crowd wants more and Underoath obliges returning for their encore and playing Too Bright To See, Too Loud To Hear and Define’s Writing on The Walls, before retiring for good, and leaving behind a drained and wholly satisfied crowd.

Underoath live is an amazing example of what can happen when talent meets unbridled energy. Gillespie, for all his awkward ginger faults, ie. The Almost, is perhaps, one of the best drummers working today and seeing Underoath live proves one thing, it is definitely Gillespie’s band, but it’s Spencer Chamberlin’s show.

Underoath – A Boy Brushed Red Living In Black And White
Underoath – In Regards To Myself
Underoath – Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

The Town of Pilot Mountain, North Carolina is about an hour north east of Greensboro, and is best known as the real town which served as the inspiration for the fictional town of Mayberry from The Andy Griffith Show. It is from this picturesque setting that Christian Hardcore act A Kiss For Jersey found their passion for music and honed their sound.

A Kiss For Jersey, combine charging riffs with an at odds combination of both soaring and screaming vocals to create a well polished sound, that recalls early Underoath, with better vocals, as lead singer Zach Dawson’s voice is more akin to the soaring wails of The Mars Volta’s Cedric Bixler-Zaval than the high pitched nasal shrills of Aaron Gillespie that dot Underoath’s earlier albums.

On Victims, AKFJ’s follow up to 2006’s Keep Your Head Above Water, which was re-issued in 2008, Dawson, along with guitarists Matt Bean, and Cory Wood, bassist Tyler Lucas and drummer Joey Allan, put their musicianship on display, as they continuously lull the listener into, for lack of a better crack at their religious side, a stat of grace, before hitting their bitch switch and pounding you into the ground with a curdling scream and wailing guitars.

As for their religious side, which they proudly wear on their shoulders the way most bands wear a tattered heart, AKFJ, make no bones about what they believe. The band themselves state that, “One of the main focuses for A Kiss For Jersey is to be able to share their faith in Jesus Christ and his love and forgiveness.”

Their faith is evident in their music as well. The sixth track on Victims, A Tree and It’s Fruit, is just a straight up scripture reading, with some atmospheric guitars and drums, provoking the image of a barren wasteland with but one tree stretching out of the ground towards a bloody sky.

Dawson and Co spare no chance to lay on the Christ in their lyrics. Oh, Infamous City, breaks down into a bombastic Psalm with a call and answer you won’t likely find in an actual church.

Taken away from all we are
Now the walls we shake my God
Faith work your way down every heart
The more we face my God

While Salus Suas Extanderealas Concedit, finds a man both pleading with and accepting God in the face of the death of a loved one, while The Flood, evokes Old Testament Style images of the total destruction.

There is no doubting their faith or their talent, as AKFJ have crafted a solid album, complete with time changes, awesome riffs, soaring vocals, wailing screams and modern genuflecting that will keep you on your knees, whether you’re an alter boy, or someone who wouldn’t be caught dead alone with a priest.

All Jesus aside, A Kiss For Jersey cram a truck load of musical talent into Victims, and it won’t be long till they get noticed and replace Opie and Aunt Bee as the most popular thing to come out of Pilot Mountain.

A Kiss For Jersey – Oh, Infamous City
A Kiss For Jersey – Salus Suas Extanderealas Concedit