It’s Not Dead – A Punk Rock Music Festival

First off… did you see that lineup?! Ka-​blamo! Mind blown. Only setbacks, Schedule was not released until the day of making it difficult to plan out the day, breathing in dust produced by the multiple mosh pits that were all going at once and occasional sound issues which is not terribly surprising considering the circumstances. Other than those minor nuisances this was the ish! It was like a festival dedicated of the soundtrack of my life! I have seen most of these bands previously but never all at once. Unlike most shows, the time between bands was 5 – 15 minutes (accept for when pennywise went on, not sure what happened there) The stage actually rotated so the next bands equipment was all ready to go as soon as a band finished. Brilliant idea, wish this was the standard and other concerts and events. Plenty of water available, plenty of merchant space, and plenty of restrooms to handle the large crowd. Really hoping this becomes a yearly event. I would definitely go again.

Flashback to 2000 and a Vans Warped Tour type of festival that you’d never think would happen again and this was it! Unbelievable right?
This event was beyond amazing from the line up to the classic Warped Tour feel to the insanely hot day of being outside breathing in all the wonderful dust kicked up by the circle pits!
Overall we couldn’t have asked for a more amazing day sure minus the dust and all that but if ya can’t help it just endure it and have a few more drinks and you won’t even notice a thing!
A festival of this many amazing artists it’s really hard for me to say who I liked the most as a lot of these bands are some of my favorites that I listen to on a daily basis diving to wherever I gotta go!
After wondering from stage to stage to catch whoever next was on our list to see we met up with many many friends and fellow band mates who all were on the grounds enjoying this awesome event as much as we all were as it felt like a big party where we kinda knew everyone!
Some of the highlights of the day in no particular order had to be seeing Pulley play with Matt Riddle as that is just super awesome old school right there! Seeing the always awesome TSOL play code blue to all the happy people in the circle pit!
So after a few long heated hours it really set the mood for the night as each band that would be playing last was determined by the spinning of a wheel because there is no headliners in Punk Rock as we feel everyone is equal to contributing to the community.
Descendants were the first of the headliners to rock the stage and one of the only bands here I haven’t seen before and wow they killed it playing all the wonderful classics and some of the newer stuff as well!
Lagwagon also fell into play at some point keeping the punk spirit alive and moshing to the favorites of May 16^th and Cog In The Wheel!
NOFX played pretty much as the sun fell down and the crowd got incased in a sea of darkness and mosh pits that really set for the punk rock party to be kicked into hi gear as we found ourselves moshing and skanking away to all those awesome NOFX songs!
Bad Religion came out with a bang as everything erupted into Total Chaos «who also played» by playing their classics like American Jesus, and some of the newer songs that fit just as well with their awesome punk rock style!
To close out the show after a few difficulties of the stage turntable being broken Pennywise came out to set everyone off for a good time of those classic punk songs that we all love to chat and be a part of especially the ending song Bro Hymn that is always an essential part of any Pennywise show that’s sure to give you a big smile as well as make your ear drums happy!
This was without a doubt one of the best festivals I have been to in many years as the lineup was completely insane to where there was always good bands playing throughout the day I really hope that this becomes a regular festival as it was an epic time that made me feel like I relived the awesomeness that once was The Vans Warped tour!
A huge thank you goes out to Kevin Lyman the founder of The Warped Tour for bringing us the awesomeness that was It’s Not Dead I know I’m not the only one who’s going to say this but I really hope to see an awesome festival of this magnitude again very soon as the only words that can describe how truly awesome this day was you had to be here to experience it!
See you in the Circle Pit!