Hey what’s up everyone. This past summer I had the chance of a lifetime! I was chosen by MuchMusic to be their correspondent at the Montreal Warped tour stop. I interviewed some bands and reviewed the bands I saw.

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My Warped Tour journey started in Toronto catching some of the bands that would play montreal on Saturday. I would leave my house at 10pm on Friday Night to gain some ground until I got tired. I stopped in Cornwall around 4am and grabbed a pillow from the trunk and put my seat back to sleep for a few hours. Once I had stopped I had a hard time falling asleep. It was like it was my first warped tour all over again.

I had covered and interviewed bands at warped tour, but nothing on a scale of this importance! Having already interviewed Set Your Goals [they won the 2009 album of the year on my radioshow Rock The Walls and we had a hour special on them!], Bring Me The Horizon, and Every Time I Die I was feeling pretty comfortable. I was also so stoked to interview the guys in Parkway Drive. In my mind, they just released what will be one of the Metalcore albums of 2010. Go pick it up, it’s called Deep Blue! The entire day lived up to and exceeded expectations for this guy.

After waking up in Cornwall and eating some breakfast, it was off to Montre-al! We got into Montreal and i must say, you freakin’ frenchman have confusing signs. Just sayin’. Guess I should have taken more french classes in high school. Oh well.

Getting a extra ticket/pass into Warped Tour, it was another unique experience for me. Making the trip with me was my Dad. While it is generally considered “pretty lame!” to bring your parents alot with you, I thought this was something that would be rad for a father-son experience I would never forget. As my number one support in everything I do and it’s no different when it comes to my radioshow and interviewing bands. It wasn’t like he was going into it TOO blindly…he decided to check out one of the stops on Gig Life 2009 Tour that featured Four Year Strong and Set Your Goals last year. Needless to say, he had a idea of what to expect musically from each of the bands. I could have invited anyone of my friends but instead brought him. Don’t know if there are any dads out there that would be up to do that with their 20 year son. You are the best Dad!

Arriving in MTL at around 10 am, and having never been to Parc Jean Drapeau before, I had no idea it was in the middle of where the Formula 1 track was. Pretty cool to see!

One thing that I always dread/am excited for at Warped Tour is getting Inside and seeing the schedule. With so many great bands playing this year, I was expecting at least 3-4 conflicts between bands I wanted to catch. Thankfully, only two really came up. Every Time I Die started 20minutes before their buddies in Four Year Strong [check those guys out if you have not. They are on the cusp of exploding. New record is called Enemy Of The World! and Post-Hardcore band Enter Shikari with Motion City Soundtrack.

Upon figuring out my schedule, I decided to walk around with my dad to figure out where all the stages were. Cristopher Drew a.k.a NevershoutNever! Was playing on the Alternative Press Stage. As you would expect, all the 13-15year old girls were there in full force and losing their minds! Having heard a few songs off his record released in January, the expectations for his live performance were pretty low. Someone once said “He's the poor man's Justin Bieber”. Can't say I disagree. I decided to watch for a song or two and I will be honest. The music came across alot better live in my opinion.

11:40 AM - The Snips

Straight from the Rose City of Welland, Ontario locals to my college town were on for the Toronto and Montreal Warped Tour dates. They played mostly songs off their Blackouts E.P including my personal favourite and the title track; Blackouts. If these dudes are in your neck of the woods, go catch them! Lead Singer Ricky Pridmore has a rad 'stache too. Ricky, don't shave that off dude.

11:55 PM - The Dillinger Escape Plan

Having been into D.E.P since the 10th grade of high school, I was excited to catch some of their set. On the back of the Warped Tour Stage Monitors it says “$100 dollar fine for any bands that jump off or climb on Monitors”. If they actually applied this to the dudes in Dillinger, those guys probably don't have any money left for beer at this point in the tour. Vocalist Greg Puciato was the craziest of the bunch, climbing 25-30feet above ground on to the top of the amps at the left side of the stage near the end of their set. As it ended, they completely trashed their set up rockstar style. Badass!

12:50 PM - Every Time I Die

These dudes ARE the Southern Rock/Hardcore/Metal genre and rightfully so. New Junk Aesthetic is another incredible record for the band. The band got the crowd rowdy opening with “No Son Of Mine” before playing new songs “The Marvelous Slut” and “After One Quarter Of A Revolution” to classics “The New Black” and “We'rewolf” the Every Time I Die set was fast and furious.

1:10 PM - Four Year Strong

This crowd was the biggest of the day at the Altec Lansing stage and rightfully so. The cream of the crop in Pop Punk/Hardcore, Four Year Strong puts on a tight and polished live performance. For those that have never seen Four Year live before, Vocalists/Guitarists Dan O'Connor and Alan Day traded vocals the entire set while playing a set that consisted of half Rise or Die Trying Songs and the other half being songs off their new record Enemy Of The World. The band ripped into Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die when it was time to leave to do my interview with Set Your Goals!

Set Your Goals Interview

When you do a interview with someone you have Interviewed before and they recognize you, it is always a awesome feeling considering the amount of interviews bands do through a year. Below is the interview I did with Set Your Goals bassist Joe Saucedo.

After finishing my interview with Joe, it was time to head across the bridge to see Bring Me The Horizon. Mothers, lock your daughters up. Oli Sykes is in town!

1:45 PM - Bring Me The Horizon

As BMTH came on stage the 14 year old girls were in full force! It was too crowded on the backstage to pull out my camera, so I took a crowd shot near the end of their set. In terms of live sound, the band has come quite a long way from 2008. In the nearly two years since I first saw them, not only has their fanbase grown about 1000 times over , but the sloppy live performance is now a much more clean. Taking a page out of Dillinger Escape Plan and Every Time I Die's book, the band was jumping off the Amps the entire set, making their way through Suicide Seasons most popular tracks “Chelsea Smile” “The Comedown”, and “Diamonds Aren't Forever” to name a few, they then closed with “Football Season Is Over” where everyone in the band aside from drummer Matt Niccols[who was standing on his Throne] were on a amp/monitor while the crowd screamed “party til you pass out, drink til you’re dead! Dance all night til you can’t feel your legs!” Before jumping off to cap the set. BMTH had one of the biggest crowds the entire day, put that together with Walls of Death, and circles pits around the Sound Tent, that’s a recipe for a good time at warped tour.

Dudes will be back in November with August Burns Red, This Is Hell, Polar Bear Club, and Emarosa

2:50 PM – Set Your Goals


As one of my favourite Pop Punk bands, I was super stoked to see the guys in Set Your Goals. After talking a bit with Joe about what other bands I was going to see, It was time for SYG to take the stage. The Bay Area Boys opened with a Song for the past year I said the band should open with to set the tone of the live set, their heaviest song Gaia Bleeds.

Montreal went NUTS and opened the place up with a circle pit couple with some hardcore dancers in the middle. Got the crowd prepared for the rest of a fun and rowdy set. 30 Minutes isn’t alot of time for a band like Set Your Goals who have so many infectious songs that are fan favourites, but they managed to get in classics “Goonies Never Say Die”, “Mutiny” to new songs The Fallen and Summer Jam.

3:40 PM - Parkway Drive

After discussing a bit more about some of the other bands playing warped with Set Your Goals and Parkway Drive, It was time for Parkway to take the stage.

I can honestly say hearing Parkway come on to their Intro and opening track to their new album Deep Blue, Samsara in 100degree weather sent chills through my body. I’ve been to tons of shows and just seeing the excitement of crowd coupled with the intensity in each of Parkway Drive member’s eyes made it one of those unforgettable concert moments for me. It was absolutely incredible.

Quickly ripping into “Unrest” the ‘pit opened up real wide as kids started to mosh before the breakdown of the song when Winston McCall screamed “What The F*** Have I Become?!!!” when the arms and legs started to flail and the crowd showed their colours in true force. This was just the first song! Incredible. Montreal, your crowds were just so into it all day long. You put Toronto to shame [sorry dudes!] No beef, just kids having fun. Something I love to see and what a show should be about.

Parkway ripped through fan favourites “Romance Is Dead”, “Idols and Anchors”, “Dead Man’s Chest”, “Carrion”, new track “Sleepwalker” and as the set was about to end, the intensity and passion of McCall came out once again as he belted out “LET’S GET THIS MOVING THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE! THIS SONG IS CALLED BONEYARDS!” As the crowd erupted. Such a passion filled performance. Coming over here in 2005 from Austrailia with absolutely NOTHING, Parkway Drive is easily one of the topdogs of Metalcore.

After catching another of my favourite Pop Punk bands in The Swellers [check out their sophomore album Ups and Downsizing. It's sick!] I made my way over to the press area to Interview Parkway Drive frontman Winston McCall.

One of the most nicest and humble people you will ever meet. Such a chill dude. Here is the interview HERE.

After finishing the interview with Winston, it was time to go see Alkaline Trio!

5:25 PM - Alkaline Trio

Lead Singer/Guitarist Matt Skiba seemed pretty in the bag, coming onstage and saying “I just got up a half hour ago. If you know these songs, please sing with me!” In true rock form. Haha. The band opened with one of my favourite songs “Cringe”! Was way too stoked. They played songs from their last album This Addiction like “Dine, Dine My Darling” and of course “This Addiction”. I missed ALK3 when they played with Cursive and The Dear and the Departed in March so this was awesome to see them.After watching a good chunk of their set, it was time to go and see Sum 41!

Watch my interview with Alkaline Trio Drummer Derek Grant HERE.

5:45 PM – Sum 41

First off, I’m not really sure HOW ARE Sum 41 NOT A MAINSTAGE BAND. Really? These guys played on the glamour kills stage, one of the side stages. They had BY FAR the biggest crowd the entire day with the 4,000+ screaming along to every word as they started with “Hell Song” and “We’re All To Blame” before ripping into other classics that makes us Canadians proud of the band such as “In Too Deep” before closing with Fat Lip. You may look at my mainstage argument say, “Well that’s because it’s Canada.” The band has had even bigger crowds in Buffalo, Boston, and various other stops on Warped. Consistently everyday they bring out the biggest or one of the biggest crowds.

Also, For those who don’t know Tom Thacker is now their permanent second guitarist. You may recognize Tom but not might be able to pinpoint where you know him from. He was the frontman to another classic Canadian Punk band GOB. For the big GOB fans out there such as myself, I was familar with the band doing a awesome job of covering the Rolling Stones “Paint It Black”. To my big surprise the band pulled it out and Tom sang the entire thing! So badass! Let this Set assure you. Sum 41 isn’t going anywhere. Taking a year off, the band hasn’t missed a beat. Expect their new record “screaming bloody murder” out this fall and a Canadian Tour into 2011.

After watching Sum 41 it was time to head over to press to do my Interview with Every Time I Die! I interviewed Jordan Buckley, who was a super straight up and legit dude. He tells it like he’s sees it and I really admire that.

ETID Interview (awkward picture of me and Jordan, interview)

Watch my interview with ETID – HERE.

6:20 PM - Andrew W.K.

After Interviewing Every Time I Die [as heard in the background of the interview] I walked over to go see Andrew W.K for the first time ever. Andrew is such a energetic and charismatic frontman. Switching from playing piano to belting out the lyrics to tracks like We Want Fun and Party Hard Andrew interacts with the crowd on a friend to friend level. He isn’t talking down to the fans, he’s talking with the fans as if they are best buddies. From his Wife helping him on the vocals while punch dancing along to his funny looking yet awesome band Andrew W.K is what the warped tour is all about. Having a good time. Really hope he does some headlining shows in the future, think alot of people would enjoying seeing a hour long set from him.

After Andrew finished up and I went over to bid farewell to the Warped Tour Press people and thanked them for the help for the day. Bethany Watson, the Warped Tour Press Co-Ordinator organizes a crazy amount of bands for interviews every single day. It’s alot harder then it sounds!

After dropping off my recorder in my car it was time to go see Punkers The Casualties before Englishmen Enter Shikari took to the stage.

7:15 PM - The Casualties

Punk as Warped Tour gets. Leather-Studded Jackets with Liberty Spikes and Mohawks were in full force as The Casualties ripped through a set of short quick punk songs. The band even covered The Ramones “Blitzkreig Bop” UPPIN’ THE PUNX.

7:45 PM - Enter Shikari

Supporting this band for two years or so, I was excited to see what Montreal’s crowd would be like for Electronic/Post-Hardcore act Enter Shikari. Their first show in the city since Toursick with A Day To Remember, the Enter Shikari crowd was big. Awesome to see that kids are starting to take a liking to the band. Walking onto the stage which was small for a band that is used to headlining giant festivals in Europe is interesting. There was no intro to walk out to, the band just walked onstage, waved and started the opening track [if you don't count the prom/pre-logue that is the album titled track Common Dreads] Solidairity.. A infectious synthline/beat for the first 15seconds before going into a bit of a breakdown to open the set before getting to fan favourites “Mothership” and “Sorry You’re Not a Winner”.

The live show is HANDS DOWN one of the best you will see daily on the Vans Warped Tour. These guys like to pull crazy stunts [stagediving on their second song into the crowd? Jumping off Amps? Hell yeah!] while the raw energy captured on record translates very well live. They are doing a Fall Headliner in US/CANADA that will be capped at 400-500person venues. Get ready to get sweaty this fall Montreal.

[Picture of rou playing the keys/synth]

GO CHECK THESE GUYS OUT! Synth lines that don’t come across as cheesy the way bands like Asking Alexandria do,and lyrics that talk about climate change, corruption in the government/world, to globization? This band is looking to make a huge splash in the North America Post-Hardcore Scene. Going from playing infront of 50,000 [see their videos from pukkelpop 2007 on Youtube] in the UK,to infront of 2,000 on Warped, the band doesn’t miss a beat in the drastic change in crowdsize. Be on the lookout for this band. They are going to explode!

After seeing the Enter Shikari set I headed over to the mainstage to see last band of the day and how fitting? Closing out the day was the band that got me into this music “scene”!

Motion City Soundtrack

From seeing them August 7th, 2007 alot has changed since then! In 2008 I went out to see them in New Jersey, South Dakota and Minnesota and then a week-long trip to California to rent a cube van with friends and travel cross-state to see them on the last 5dates of Warped Tour across the state of California. Wow, I probably sound like a pretty big groupie right now. Haha. Nonetheless, I love this band and owe them alot! They gave me my start interviewing bands! Tonight would be my 14th time seeing them.

With it being a hot day and Motion City being the last band, it was sort of understandable to see that Motion City Soundtrack had one of the smaller mainstage crowds. Covering Co-Founding Member and Guitarist Joshua Cain’s duties for the majority of MCS’ warped tour dates was tour manager, guitar tech and friend Brian Southall. Brian most notably was apart of Canadian band Boys Night Out and The Recieving End Of Sirens. It was weird not seeing Josh on stage but Brian did a perfect job! The Band has always been known for their great live performance and tonight was no different.

[Picture of Tony Playing Drums and Jesse Jumping on his Moog]

Motion City played a good mix of tracks from their four records, “My Favourite Accident” and “The Future Freaks Me Out” from I Am The Movie, “Attractive Today”, “L.G F.U.A.D”, and “Everything Is Alright” from Commit This To Memory, “This Is For Real” and “Broken Heart” from Even If It Kills Me and “A Life Less Ordinary” “Disappear” and “Her Words Destroyed My Planet” from their latest record My Dinosaur Life.

After the set I talked bands and music with the guys for a bit backstage, including the Metric show I had told them about the night before. They thanked me and marvelled at how incredible Passion Pit and Metric were at the Molson Ampitheatre Friday. Motion City are GIGANTIC Metric Fans. After talking a bit about their upcoming plans [a co-headlining tour with Say Anything and Saves The Day!] I wished them the best of luck on their last week of warped. Having done interviews for a while now, I usually never ask for band pictures. Felt this one was appropriate and when they say pictures have 1,000 words, this one has 1,000,000.

Thank you once again to MuchMusic! This was a rad experience and totally surreal. To be able to report and do some interviews for the website has been a huge honour. If you like what you hear from the interviews and wanna hear more, you can listen to my radioshow Tuesday Nights from 7-10pm EST on http://trainrekradio.com and join the facebook page by typing.

Thanks to Epitaph for hooking me up with free swag from Bring Me The Horizon, Alkaline Trio, Every Time I Die, Set Your Goals, and Parkway Drive! Keeping signing awesome bands!!!!

This is a pretty big and detailed blog update, but I really hope you enjoyed it.

Peace out Room Noise. Take your vitamins and brush your teeth!

- Patrick Walford