You can’t have Bamboozle without booze…

I dragged my girlfriend to Bamboozle last weekend under the pretense that I would pay for her ticket and tailgate hard before we went in. Reluctantly, she came along for what I think was the best Bamboozle yet. We got nice and toasty out in the parking lot, drinkin like your mom’s outta town for the weekend and the liquor cabinet’s stocked. Saturday’s highlights included: an awesome Streetlight Manifesto set (awesome cuz i had a nice buzz goin on and they fuckin rule), Jack’s Mannequin (surprisingly entertaining but not really my scene), Saves The Day playin classics that I haven’t heard in years, and Haley’s sexy little ass dancin around with Paramore. If that woman would give me the time of day I would ditch my girl in a second and never look back. Why don’t awesome/cute/talented/badass chicks like that exist in the real world?! and if they do exist why aren’t they waiting for me in my bedroom? After the first day (the less exciting of the two) me and my girl bounced to a seedy motel to sleep for a few hours before doin it all again.

Pre-gaming on Sunday was a little rough with our hangovers/exhaustion from the day before but we managed to consume a healthy amount before strolling in to see the Bouncing Souls rippin it like they always do. I made a point to see Senses Fail, Thrice, and White Tie Affair all of whom were everything I was hoping for. During Motion City Soundtrack (who sounded better at Bamboozle two years ago) some little punk threw up on my girl’s sneakers. I laughed while she screamed and cried. During the Mighty Mighty Bosstones set she took em off and launched em into the crowd in anger. We left after Gym Class Heroes cuz I had no desire to hear the new Panic! at the Disco and could barely stand any more. Even though she was still livid about her shoes (lowtop Converse that she did some funky design on) she left with a new love for Thrice and White Tie Affair, who I’ve been trying to get her into for months. I guess seeing them live rockin out is more appealing to her than me cranking up my stereo and forcing it down her throat. On the way out of the show some dude in the parking lot approached us yellin about Thrice and Senses Fail merch. Since she was mad about her kicks and madder about how little I cared she made me buy her an iPod skin from this dude with the Thrice “Alchemy Index” logo on it. When we got in the car i put it on her iPod and was seriously impressed with how cool it looked so I went back to the dude to buy myself a White Tie Affair skin for my iPhone. These ’skins’ are fuckin sweet, man. I expected them to be a ripoff judging by the dude tryin to pitch em to me but they’ve got awesome graphics and fit perfect on the iPod without leavin any sticky shit behind when you remove or replace em. I checked out the website (www.music-skins.com) when i got home to see their other designs and found out that they make em for EVERY iPod (classic, video, nano, mini, iTouch) as well as iPhones, Razr’s, and big ones for Mac and PC laptop covers. While every other merch booth was shellin out overpriced low-quality t-shirts we’ve got cool, original merch to rock our band’s designs. The weekend was an overall success even though she made me give her a piggyback ride into her house to avoid cuttin up her toes cuz we saw a ton of great bands and got some fancy new accessories for our iPods. Check it out for yourself at www.music-skins.com, they have a ton of bands from Bamboozle (Thrice, Saves the Day, Senses Fail, White Tie Affair), other cool bands (Alkaline Trio, Dashboard Confessional, Autumn to Ashes), and skins for rappers, street artists, and babes. Hopefully next year Bamboozle will have some more punk headliners but this year was rad as hell.

Peace, Love, and Rock & Roll.