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Waking Up
i woke up at 2 a.m. haha. my sleeping schedule's been all out of wack from staying out/up all night this whole summer. i chilled around 'til 4 to get myself ready, which takes two hours ha. my best friend alyssa and my girlfriend amy picked me up at 8ish. us three talked, listened to music, and took pictures/videos 'til we got there. i had to be at the VIP meeting spot at 9:10, and i got there 3 minutes late, but it was still good.

St. Johns County Fairgrounds!
as we drove in, the place was definitely a lot different from the Green Cove Springs. there was some huge structural stuff around the area, while GCS was pretty much all grass and dirt. we paid ten bucks to get a really close parking spot to the venue, which made me glad that we left early. there was maybe 200 people at the time we arrived, men and women cruising 'round the lines yelling their pitchlines waving their homemade signs in the air, and tents were set up next to the line. one band was playing next to the line, and they rocked pretty nice. i didn't get to find out the name of their band. :c haaaa, i definitely got excited when they played killswitch engage's "my curse", 'cause that song is BEAST. least i think so. so basically, the line set-up was entertaining. :]

Lisa, the Surveys, and the Bands
we got our spot in the line, and i immediately went to the front to meet lisa. i didn't see her at first, so i texted her where she was. she texted back that she was at the VERY front of the line, wearing a dress and holding a red folder, which was helpful information. i found her right after that, and she hit me up with the whole survey deal. you guys have probably read this before in the other journals-- get yourself to do a survey on this palm pilot thing, or whatever it's called, and get six others to do it. not just any six people though! three chicks and dudes, with ages around teens to adults. ha, and the prize for the people who did do the survey was a Warped Tour 2008 guitar pick haha, which wasn't that special, but still a nice little addition. right there, i was a little uncomfortable with approaching random people to do the survey. i'm not afraid to talk to random people, but to get them to do a boring survey (it WAS boring haha, my friends were getting tired when they had to do it, and so did i) was going to take some skill. i headed back to my friends' spot, and got my friends to do it first. that narrowed it down to just three guys and one more chick. surprisingly, i didn't even have to move from my spot in line! haa. :] we got people around us to do it, and none of them declined.

alright, so the clock hit 10:50ish, and i headed back to lisa and the other reporters. we headed inside, and i immediately felt excited and all VIP-like. there was still people setting stuff up, and there was hardly anyone there. lisa led us to the Vans merch spot, and she said that was going to be the place we would meet before the bands.

and then, she said we would separate into groups of three and decide AMONG outselves who we would choose to see backstage, and only one band before four. i got a tiny bit bummed here, because i guess i misread the e-mail she sent me; i got to thinking we would get to see any band before 4, and that there could only be three people maximum for each band. three people there immediately chose cobra starship, so that was out of the picture. i talked to the other two there, and just said out, "jack's mannequin" and they agreed. they sounded kind of hesitative, though. there wasn't much to see before 4, but jack's mannequin wasn't that bad, so i dealt with it. i still felt good about being backstage for ANYTHING, so. :]

we got into out groups of cobra starship and JM. lisa told the CS group when they had to meet, and she told us we had to meet at 12:30ish. then she set us off.

the first thought that hit my brain was "band schedules!" for anyone who texted warped tour to get the band schedules early, that number didn't text me back at all. nut anyway, the red blow-up schedule was feet away, so i hit that first. i grabbed the band list paper, and wrote down the bands i wanted to see. it was awesome! all of my top bands weren't overriding each other at all! i anticipated the fact that that could happen, but it didn't.

Back to my Crew
after getting that done, i called my friends to ask where they were, and they were already at the front of the line. i trekked back and waited for them a bit, and then i led them to the schedule so they could get their list done too.

DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN!!
so, the very first band playing on the Route 66 main stage left was DEP. :]]]]] i was VERY excited about that. i love these guys a TON. all the other bands at that time my friends and i didn't care much for, so it was an easy choice to pick them to see first. the stage was right behind us too, so whooo. :] there wasn't much people there yet, so i got front row spot.

so, we waited 'til 11:15 there and just chilled. then the band got on stage. i was so psyched to get my thrash on and everything. i was hoping that they'd play black bubblegum, and they DID! that's my favorite song by them. first though, they playedfix your face, 43% burnt, and a couple other songs i forgot. after black bubblegum, the lead singer, greg puciato(sp?) RAN TO THE FRONT. aha!! he was all sweaty and RIGHT next to me. s**t, i didn't know what to do about that, but i touched the guy haha. he's was musculaaaar ha! the man's a bull.

these guys are definitely really good live. they don't sound any worse live than they do in the records. the guitarists go everywhere, and greg climbed up the stage walls during a break down. i screamed and sung along every word i knew. it was a very KILLER moment i'll never forget, and i'm definitely going to see these guys again the next time they hit Jacksonville, Florida. :]

Merch Hour!
so after these guys were done, i thought it was time to see jack's mannequin, so i told my friends that they were playing. i went to the meeting spot and they went to the stage.

i looked at the time and found out i twas ELEVEN thirty, not 12:30, ha! so i tried to call them back up, but they didn't pick up their phone. this happened a lot throughout the day haha, even if your phone is on vibrate. a lot of the times bass will be vibrating your a**, so you really can't feel the phone and everything a lot. after two calls i thought i'd just walk around until i find them.

Old Guy & Desiree
so, i got to a couple tents. a lot of the apparel and accessories looked pretty ace. my eye definitely caught the sunglasses. warped tour had the best set of shades i've ever seen ha! as i trekked some more, this guy came up to me and offered me a book. i was used to people just giving me free stuff, so i took it and walked. he called me back and started talking to me, so i was all "so this isn't free?" kind of thing. then i realized he was some kind of christian preacher or something, though i didn't really know what he was talking about. this is mostly due to the fact that my ears were still RINGING and NUMB from the DEP metaly-grindy set ha! me and the guy kind of laughed because of the fact that i couldn't hear him. he kind of... kept talking though, and i started losing interest. i was waiting to leave, when suddenly my friend jumps me from behind!! haha, my chick friend desiree was all "heeeeey" and i was excited to see her. i was surprised she was there. so then the guy talked to her too. we left after about a minute after that.

Back to the Crew #2, and The Sunsteak
as we walked around, we started chatting and things. she asked me who i was with, and i asked her who she was with and all that. we talked about the bands and just chilled. ha, it wasn't long until we found amy & alyssa again. desiree was great friends with amy, and alyssa sort of knew desiree, so we just formed a little group from there.

here, we all agreed that there wasn't much of bands playing, so we wanted to just check out the whole set-up and the tents.

i'll tell you something. at warped tour, there will be a LOT of guys jumping you to come to their tent. i mean really pulling you to their tent. haha, and the funny thing is, you can't really resist them. they're either too nice to say no to, or just good-looking. this happened a lot. one guy seriously pulled us in like cattle, and we thought it was funny, so we went along with it.

here's where the sunstreak comes in. they're this poppy-rocky band that they call themselves to be "rock n roll". not bad of a band. we passed by their tent, and this guy says "get the ******** over here." ha! so we started talking to him. he was such a chill guy and had good pitches. i don't even remember his name ha, but he was definitely entertaining. we hung around his tent and he wanted to sell his music or merch. he had a badass attitude, but was nice about it. he cussed a lot and everything. after hesitating about whether or not i wanted to buy his stuff, i told him that i'd come back later. and i seriously wanted to come back later, but plans obstructed, which i'll get to later. but anyway, i definitely like the sunstreak a lot more now, even though their music isn't my style. :]

More Merch Hour, and Free Drinks
we started walking around again. during this time, we listened to greeley estates waay back from a tent, and they were reeeally ace. desiree ran into her two friends which i both recognized. as we walked around, i recognized more people haha. it was chill to see a lot of familiar faces, whether i talk to them or not. i saw a lot of kids from years ago that turned all scene'd up and things haha. i bought sunglasses from the place i mentioned earlier. we got free monsters at the monster tent, which i encourage EVERYONE to do. you can't take cans out, so i filled up one of my BIG gatorade bottles with like, 4 cans of monsters, and these weren't the teeny $2 dollar kind. they came in three flavors, and i picked the green one. in this tent i saw spencer, so he came to us four a bit. desiree's boyfriend ricky joined us around this time too. a little after that, we went to see oreskaband, which i've never heard of before, but amy & lissa wanted to see them, so i went along with it. besides, it was still my hanging out/merch time, so i didn't mind seeing them. we lost track of desiree and her boy somehow on the way haha.

Hot Asian Chicks On Stage With Horns!
i'll admit, oreskaband weren't that bad live! too poppy for my taste, but i still enjoyed them. they were so wacky and couldn't even say "jacksonville" right, but it was so entertaining anyway. they were by far the nicest and friendliest bunch of every band i saw at warped tour. lissa went in the pit and i went in with her. we did that about three times and was worn out by the end of the band, ha! it was a good time. :]]]

Water Slides, Dorian, & All Left Out
so, i really don't remember what happened after this. we walked around aimlessly and it was really hot. we checked out more tents and talked to more bands. then we went to what i call the cooling station, which was a fair sized tent with four fans that had water spraying off the blades. we hung out here for a while until our legs felt less worn out, and the heat died down. next to this there was a water slide, which really interested me and lissa. so of course, we went on it. it was fun fershure, despite the dirt that got caught up my a**.

after this, we were rrrreally cooled off. lissa wanted to see all left out, so we hit their stage, the kevin says stage. the crowd was very sparse; it was probably a 20-person audience. i was interested in the band, so i let amy and lissa hang around there while i checked out more tents, particularly the TWLOHA tent (which, if anyone doesn't know about this organization, they surely should look it up). on the way there, dorian, a good friend of mine whom i hadn't seen since school ended jumps me from behind. haha! was definitely chill to see her. we talked a bit, and i gave her free candy, then went our separate ways.

i went back to all left out. i didn't like the singer's vocals very much, and it just sounded like nothing special. amy and lissa liked them, though.

Family Force Five!
after this, we went straight to FF5's stage. the crowd was already huge, unsuprisingly. this is with strong contrast to last year, where the audience was as big as 30 or 40 people. i saw dorian up ahead, so i joined her. FF5 started playing at 4:45. they were definitely nice and fun. the performance was so wild and so energetic. got my crunk on with dorian ha! they played the wall song (i'm bad with names, but if you know FF5, youll know this song), luv addict, drama queen, erfquake, and a couple more that i forget (like i said, im bad with names). i was dancing, screaming along, singing, and jumping. they sound so great live, too. the only thing different is that the lead singer is a little more screamy when he performs.

Katy Perry & 3Oh!3
alright, there really wasn't any katy perry or 3Oh!3 for me. we had to leave early, because alyssa's dad was being a jackass, and was taking us home early. this bummed me so bad, because 3Oh!3 was going to be a highlight of the day. i saw a little of their set, but barely anything, katy perry was right next to them, and we was one song that i couldn't recognize, and she played her hit last. regardless, i saw them both live. (:

The Aftermath
so i don't think i mentioned this earlier, but warped tour is a big a** set. at this moment, we had spent more than nine hours walking around on hard ground. to add to this, i had moshed and jumped and danced. my body was unbelievable sore, and so were my friends'. when we got into the AC'd car, i felt complete physical relief, and i mean RELIEF. amy and lissa spent the night that night. we uploaded all the CDs we got, and sort through the free stuff. among all of the free stuff we got, there were guitar picks, CDs, stickers, and posters. other people at warped tour got free t shirts too. i bought amy a katy perry shirt, and lissa bought herself a vans hat.

warped tour 2008 may have ended early for me, but it was amazing nevertheless. it's such a wonderful experience for people who are into that kind of music. seeing so many bands live on stage, and meeting them off stage feels surreal. i am so definitely coming next year again.