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As I mentioned in the last post, Sunday we hit up Warped Tour in Minnesota and, while it was an amazing show, I was a little disappointed that Say Anything was unable to perform. Max was sick. Max was also sick for the Chicago show, but they got a little something we didn’t. Like Justin from Motion City Soundtrack singing Alive with the Glory of Love. Check out the video below and look around on youtube for other guest appearances from singers from Reliant K, Norma Jean, Every Time I Die & more.

So hear this please
And watch as your heart speeds up endlessly
And look for the stars as the sun goes down
Each breathe that you take has a thunderous sound
Everything, everything’s magic

Late Sunday night/early Monday morning we finally got back from the Shakopee, Minnesota Warped Tour show and I’m not sure it’s completely sunk in.

Warped is an amazing place not just because you have the oppertunity to see so many up and coming bands, as well as more mainstream bands, but because of the awesome people there. Whether it’s just the random people you see walking by in their strange attire or the people trying to get people interested in a cause. I don’t like pushy people, but they don’t come across as that and it’s always nice to see people movitated for something they believe in.

Oddly enough, the guys from Adventures of Brad and Jordan spotted me prior to the Anberlin set. It’s always nice to actually meet the people behind the writing you enjoy - if you’re reading this, sorry I disappeared. I had to get some air. Catch you at another show sometime maybe?

This year’s Minnesota date was somewhat different from the last time I went in that the sun was practically non-existent for the majority of the day. It wasn’t cold though and the breeze made everything just about perfect.

When we first got their we almost immediately headed towards the Van’s merchandise tent so one of us could get some actual shoes (flip flops are the worst thing you can wear to something like this) and while over there someone affiliated with Motion City Soundtrack asked me if we’d like to get some stuff signed. I think my response was pretty much “Uh yeah, are you kidding?”. I grabbed passes for the three of us so we could head back to the merch tent later for the signings. Three hundred total passes were handed out so I think we were pretty lucky.

At somepoint between waiting for bands we ended up walking by the ModLife bus when none other than Tom DeLonge walks out of it and starts hugging kids by the fence. Unfortunately we missed out on hugs/hand shakes as we were just a bit late but Tom was nice enough to give us some nice photo ops from the top of the bus and . . . well, we were just feet away from Tom DeLonge. What else can be said?

I wasn’t sure how Angels and Airwaves would be received at Warped. I guess these days that some of the bands at Warped are considerably softer than they would have been ten years ago, but AvA is in a whole new realm, vastly different from the likes of blink-182. Any hesitations I had about the energy of the crowd vanished as I saw the people filling in the area in front of both mainstages.

AvA put on an awesome thirty-minute set and the crowd was very, very into it. The atmosphere was amazing even without the lightshow from the last Angels concert I went to and the energy was intense.

And the last big set for me? Motion City Soundtrack in their home state. Things had drastically changed since 2005 when they played one of the smaller stages. Nope, that wasn’t happening this year. Mainstage Left in all it’s glory. Again, a ton of people swarmed in front of both stages to get as close as they could. MCS played a nice variety of stuff from all three of their full lengths and had people singing back the lyrics. It was an amazing show and I can’t wait to see them on one of their tours sometime.

Overall it was an excellent show this year and I’m looking forward to next year’s stop. Now I’ve gotta go finish catching up on sleep. G’night.

Blow! But I’m done on the 29TH so that’s okay.

I’ll be hitting up the August 3RD Minnesota stop of the Warped Tour - just ordered tickets. I’ll have more news soon.

• LucasJ.Net has a new look. Not much done with it because it’s really not in use currently. Also - Postblink has a new look which you probably know unless you’re viewing this from my facebook feed. I’ve also cleaned up all the plugins - updated & deleted ones I’m not using. Apparently Akismet’s been working over time. It’s caught 46,245 spam comments. Time to delete that mess.
• Death Cab for Cutie has a new album coming out May 13TH. If you’ve viewed my Last.FM page lately, you’ll see that I’ve been listening to A LOT of Death Cab for the past week or so. I’m really looking forward to this new album - I’m  not even going to download any leaks or buy on itunes for this one. CD quality for the win.
• The new Jack’s Mannequin album has unfortunately been delayed. Bummer. Speaking of which. . . Warped 08 anyone? Some decent bands this year. (Supposedly it’ll be even better in 2009 though, if you’ve read the Kevin Lyman AP Chat are interested in the possiblities mentioned.)
• I’ve finished skate. for the PS3. I liked the game a lot, even as hard as it was to get past the occasional frame rate drops. Supposedly you don’t see them on the 360 version though. (Come on devs! Write for the stronger system and then port…)
• As long as we’re going over games. . . I’ve finished Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune as well. Not quite done with Devil May Cry 4 but getting close. May put up some reviews on those, I haven’t really been disappointed with any of the games I’ve got for the PS3 yet. I also finally sorted out my preorders for Grand Theft Auto 4 and Metal Gear Solid 4. Time to concentrate on school for a while before those get here, obviously.
• And tomorrow it’s time to do some spring cleaning. On that note, I’ve gotta hit the sack.