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Old Warped Tour preview story with Fiasco! and Kevin Lyman comments

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Note: photo above is of Rancho Cucamonga band Fiasco!

Warped Tour comes home to Pomona


You might think that Warped Tour founder and promoter Kevin Lyman is getting tired after 15 years.

Think again.

“It still is exciting, 15 years later,” he said in a recent interview.


15th annual 2009 Vans Warped Tour

Where: Fairplex, 1101 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona

When: 11 a.m. today

Cost: $33

Information: www.ticketmaster.com


This year’s festival, which starts at 11 a.m. today at the Fairplex in
Pomona, pays homage to old school punk rock, which helped start the
Warped Tour. “It’s kind of paying homage to history,” Lyman said. “You
can see it with the lineup. The music is all kind of related.”

This eatures punk rock
heavyweights like Bad Religion, NOFX, The Adicts, TSOL, The Exploited
and Guttermouth, ska bands like Less Than Jake, plus other acts
including Fishbone, P.O.S., Shooter Jennings, 30H!3 and Senses Fail.

For the full lineup, go to www.warpedtour.com.

“Kids
now live in an iPod-on-shuffle world. Last year, they watched (pop
artist) Katy Perry and then watched (metalcore and death metal band)
Bring Me The Horizon. It’s what I was hoping to have,” Lyman said.

The tour “develops a lot of bands as live touring bands,” he said.

Today,
Rancho Cucamonga’s unsigned pop punk group Fiasco! will perform at the
Warped Festival for the first time on the Kia Kevin Says stage. Daniel
Durston, 22, who is a bassist, pianist and vocalist for the band, said
he had been “tour shopping” to prepare for the gig.

“Every day we forget things, and I’ll be at Wal-Mart at 1
a.m. Today I have to go back to get two or three things,” Durston said.

Among the items he purchased for the tour was a wireless
Internet connector to use as a guide, to post videos or blogs and to
keep in contact with their fans.

“Our Internet is our map,” Durston said with a laugh. (The group’s site is www.myspace.com/fiascomusic.)

The
Warped Tour spans the nation, but founder Lyman looks at the Pomona
show as a hometown engagement since he grew up in Claremont and proudly
points out that his dad still “lives on Arrow Highway.”

Lyman graduated from Cal Poly Pomona in 1984 with a degree in recreation administration.

The accomplishment took him five years, he said. “One year at the pool and four years in class,” Lyman said.

It
was at Cal Poly that he met Paul Tollett, founder of the annual
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio. Lyman and Tollett
both worked for promoter Gary Tovar and his Goldenvoice company during
the 1980s, then went on to produce shows of their own.

“Looking back at what we did, somehow, something was
triggered, and he puts on amazing festivals,” Lyman said of Tollett.
“Sometimes I do, too.”

wes.woods@inlandnewspapers.com

(909) 483-8549