Music Photography Blog

by Adam Elmakias

Warped Tour stories – part 5 (days 41-47)

August 4th, 2010 (day 41)
Hotel
Regina, Saskatchewan

Our boarder crossing went well. No problems, everyone got through to Canada. We stopped at a gas station soon after to refuel. I went inside to get a granola bar. The prices were in a different currency and everyone spoke a different language. It’s crazy how so much can change as soon as you cross a line. The fact that I didn’t know what currency they used or what language they spoke made me feel so ignorant. Oh well, I didn’t need to be bilingual to purchase a granola bar.

We pulled up to our hotel in Regina, Saskatchewan a little before noon and checked into our hotel. It had a water slide! I went inside to check it out. Holy shit, it was huge, four stories tall to be exact, and indoor. It doesn’t get much better than this. We all found our room and got some internet stuff done for a little while. I couldn’t wait to go to the water park so I went in alone at first. In addition to the slide there was a hot tub and a pool as well. While I was down there the slide was getting cleaned, so I swam in a pool with a bunch of six year old children. It took me a few minutes to get bored so I went back upstairs to try and convince everyone to come hang. Eventually everyone was ready. Six of us went down there and started going down the slide. One after another, it was awesome, and very fast. We started going down in chains, launching off the start ramp, and slinging ourselves down the chute as quick as we could. After a few runs we all gathered at the pool it shot you out in and talked about what to do next, what to do next, and how awesome this was. The lifeguard guy came over and stood by the pool and towered over us. At first we paid no attention to him and just kept talking about the slide. He got our attention by screaming a long drawn out “heyyyyy”- like a pissed off school teacher trying to quiet down a room. We all thought he was kidding at first, but he was dead serious. We quieted down and gave him our attention. All five of us grown dudes were in the pool, looking up to him like he was our dad. He then said in a much nicer tone “Please don’t go down in chains, or I will kick you out”. Casey asked “Can we go down really fast one after another?”. He responded with “Yes, just no chains”. I wasn’t expecting him to okay that, awesome. We continued to abuse the slide over and over. The only tiring part was running up and down the four flights of stairs to get to the slide- but man it was worth it.

After we were done we went back to the bus to get some changes of clothes, but the bus was locked. We were all locked out. The only people that had keys on them were not at the hotel. After thirty minutes of trying to come up with ways to get in, and trying to reach Mai or Vic. We figured it out. We would have to enter through the trash chute. Trash works like this, there is an opening inside the bus and it leads to a big trashcan that is stored in the bay, underneath the bus. So I crawled in the bay, and tried to get in through the opening. So much gross stuff got on me from the walls, but we had no other choice. After about one minute of struggling to get in, I was stuck, and couldn’t get out. I was stuck in a way that my head was sticking out of the top, but I couldn’t get my shoulder through. My feet weren’t quite touching the ground so all the weight was being put in places that didn’t feel very good. I screamed for the guys to help me. The next thing I know Jaime is standing in the bus above me, laughing, and taking a picture of me with his phone. Reeeeal cool guys. I guess they found a way to open it through the front door. They lent me a hand so I could wiggle my way back out the way I entered. I went on the bus and change.

I went to the bar on the first floor with Mike and Casey. They had some slot machines in there so I gave them a shot. I lost five bucks, won eight, and then lost it. Well, sounds about right. Casey took his try at the machines and Casey having the good luck he has- won $60 bucks. He was feeling generous and bought me a drink. I got a rather dark beer and drank it all quickly. That was enough to send my world into some spins, I get tipsy incredibly fast.

Mike said I could borrow his bike to get to the mall. I wanted to meet up with Chris, Vic, and Johnny to hang out. I rode down the street a mile or so and began locking my bike up at the mall, when all three of them walked out the door. They were headed back to the hotel and going to go see Get Him To The Greek at a close by movie theater. Sounded fun, I told them I would come along. I biked ahead of them and stopped at Tim Hortons to get some food. The place wouldn’t take my card, so I had to pay with cash- but I was a dollar short. The lady didn’t care and let me have my food anyway. What? This kind of thing would never happen in the US. I got a bagel, some soup, and a donut and then biked back to the bus. I missed the guys, they had already left to the theater. I didn’t know exactly where it was, so I biked in the direction and overshot it by a few blocks on my bike. I backtracked and eventually found it. When I was getting off the bike I missed something on the way down and ending up losing balance and doing everything that happens when you fall over except for actually hitting the ground. That was a close one. A group of girls in front of me had a good laugh. I had seen the movie so I didn’t care that I was a little late. I went in and found the guys in the dark. Food tastes so much better when you eat it in a movie theater.

After I finished watching the movie I headed back to the hotel and hung around with everyone outside the bus before going back inside to hit the waterside for round two.


The pool was a lot busier this time around but we still abused the hell out of that slide.

I forget exactly what time we headed out at, but it sometime that night, maybe 8:00ish. We still had quite a few hours to drive.

August 5th, 2010 (day 42)
Northlands Grounds
Edmonton, Alberta

I woke up a little late and walked over to breakfast. It was a long walk, maybe fifteen minutes. I missed most of breakfast, but got there in time to have some oatmeal. Grainy mush goodness.

Everyone gets beer, ice, and water every day. They must have forgotten their water…
Semi trucks that carry all the stages, drivers sleep during the day.
Melanie, or Monkey Bird- serves coffee and various coffee drinks from a cart all morning.

Amazing
Light stand shot
Another light stand shot
Sean Lyman, the man

This is 5x




The Parkway Drive guys said something along the lines of “Oh he wants to capture the moment before we go on stage” as they proceed act goofy.


The sun didn’t set tell about 9:00 or 10:00 that night. We were so far up north that days were longer.


Towards the end of the night I was walking around grabbing images of random people. Someone I didn’t know walked up to me and said “Smoke this we gotta cross the border”. I love free things.

August 6th, 2010 (day 43)
Hotel
Great Falls, Montana

I woke up very early in the morning to a border crossing. We were going back to the US again, which meant US border patrol, goody. We pulled up to a giant warehouse where there was a long line of buses- all from the tour. Every single person had to get off each bus while they searched through all of our bunks and bays with dogs. It’s always funny seeing what people wear to bed, or put on when they get out of bed. I can’t recall any of the people we were with while they checked our bus, but there were about twenty or so. The crossing took over an hour in total. I got back in the bus and road up front with Curtis. Montana was very flat, but I thought it was beautiful.

We had an off day. It consisted of hotel hangouts and going out to eat twice- one of which Mai referred to as our “family dinner”. We were also stalked/ harassed by local bros in a pickup truck who kept driving circles around where we were parked. We ended our day by watching Law Abiding Citizen on the bus, intense movie. I sort of learned how to skateboard that day. It was a little bit of a walk to the restaurant so I decided to take my go. It was the best I had ever done, I stayed on the board for an extended period of time.



Pierce The Veil blog # 12


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August 7th, 2010 (day 44)
Utah State Fairpark
Salt Lake City, Utah

I woke earlier enough to grab breakfast twice. I was hungry! I got a text from Jesse asking if I wanted to come chill with him for a bit before the day started. Yes! He was working for Music Skins on this tour, but he always switches his jobs around.


The Breathe Carolina guys were working on getting their smoke machines ready for their home show the next day.


I went to Bring Me The Horizons bus that day to have a meeting with Oli- we had to finalize edit’s for the press images we shot and send them in. Vegan was sitting on the bus playing FIFA, of course. They are all obsessed with that game.


Before Pierce The Veil played that day it was looking like it was going to rain. I changed into rain gear (meaning I took everything off) and covered my bag up. On our way to the stage it started pouring. I sprinted to the stage so that I didn’t get too cold and hid under a tent. One of their friends was there that day. I forget his name, but this is him.


I went over to nevershoutnever‘s bus to meet up with Jeremy and see if I could ride with them for the night. I wanted to take some photographs and hang out- he said sure. The Our Last Night dudes were on the tour for a few days and were hanging out with Jeremy while I was. I took a seat and caught up with them. I hadn’t seen them since Bamboozle of last year, and even that was just a brief hello.

Jeremy let me use one of his band’s laminates for food, I was so stoked- free dinner. I had a quick shoot with The Word Alive that afternoon. I found a location over a fence, about a one minute walk from bus world. I set up all my gear and in the process dropped my 50mm and broke it. Luckily it was just the 1.8 so it didn’t matter too much. Once the guys got there we shot for about twenty minutes and wrapped. Quick and dirty!

I hung out for the night and by the end of the night I ended up on nevershoutnever‘s bus. After we left the venue I stayed up until about 2:00am with Jeremy and photographed him practicing his DJ gig in the back lounge for a bit. We stopped at a gas station and I purchased a bunch of random food items, man was I hungry. A corn dog, potato logs, and a Simply Lemonade.


August 8th, 2010 (day 45)
Invesco Field at Mile High
Denver, Colorado

I woke up with a stuffy nose. It was dry in the back lounge. That is the worst way to wake up, feeling all crusty and such. I hopped off of the bus while we were waiting in line to park and ran over to Pierce The Veil‘s bus.

Anti-Flag did this deal where they performed a song in the crowd. The main stage bands always had the biggest crowds, and this meant they were the hardest to squeeze through. I started making my way through the crowd a few songs early and got stuck in a circle pit on the way. I covered my camera with my body and stuck to the center of the circle, the part didn’t move. I did not feel like breaking my camera again. By the time they got in the crowd I was close enough to grab a few images.


A skate ramp was set up every day on Warped Tour.
Pierce The Veil before getting on stage

Pierce The Veil on stage

Oli was having a very interesting day. Oli hugging Jordan of Every Time I Die.
“Where is the blood coming from?”

Sheep’s reactions to his Oli’s stage antics. He probably jumped and fell over ten times that day.


He was being so rough to his body on the stage, it made me cringe.

I got a lizard tattoo that day from Shauncey in Set Your Goals back lounge.


That night one of Vic’s friends, Kurt, rode with us. He was an awesome dude. Bus Party!


Pierce The Veil blog #13


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August 9th, 2010 (day 46)
wherever everyone else was at
Las Vegas, Nevada

I woke up as were pulling into a Vegas gas station to park . It was going to be a fun day. I got some Triscuit’s and cheddar cheese. Nick went in and got a Cali burrito- Cali burrito? How did I miss this? I went in to the Roberto’s that was connected to the gas station and got one to go. We checked into our room at the Tropicana and showered up. Then it was time to head out. I looked like crap, my cut off jeans were frayed to point where they were shorter then I desired. I rolled them up a little bit so that they didn’t have strings sticking out from everywhere- and now they were really short. Oh well, ill rock it. My tank top was dirty and my skin was so dark from the sun that I looked like a different person. At least we were in Vegas, where everyone fit’s in.

I headed out to Little New York with Nick, Tony, and Jaime.


We couldn’t find anyone to hang out with, they were all at the Hard Rock. So we flagged down a cab and he took us on over. We ran into Megan Thompson at first, and she showed us around to where everyone was hanging out. Casey and Mike were in the casino of course. I asked the security guard if I was allowed to take pictures in the casino. He said of course, that’s what they are all about! Weird, for some reason I thought I wasn’t supposed to take pictures in a casino- but I was wrong.


Johnny had gotten us into a the pool area, and we had a cabana. They have a dress code which means you have to be wearing something suitable to swim in. My get up wasn’t going to cut. But someone knew someone who knew someone, and they made an exception. Not gonna argue with that. Lots of people, club photographers. It was like Tiësto all over again on a smaller scare.


Breathe Carolina invited everyone to their room to party.

David and his girlfriend


Team work!

At some point throughout the night I won $40 at the slot machines.

August 10th, 2010 (day 47)
Cricket Amphitheater
San Diego, California

Just another day on Warped Tour


The following images show just exactly how much goes into setting up Warped Tour.

The ATM guys must have forgot this machine in the bathroom.

I had to document The Cab‘s life that day for Alternative Press magazine


Mike and Casey working hard to promote the hometown show
Pierce The Veil’s hometown crowd

My Hero, Chris of Closure In Moscow
Mr. Fuentes

Walking with The Cab

I was scheduled to do one last shoot with Bring Me The Horizon before I left. While I was waiting for them to come Duncan and his friend came over and asked for some images.


I did a shoot for Bring Me The Horizon in their newly purchased suit’s. I don’t think the images ever got used because they shot an Alternative Press magazine cover wearing them the next day. After we were done shooting Jona went and got his brother so I could take pictures for them to give to their parents.


There was a dance contest that night at the BBQ. The judges were Keith Buckley of Every Time I Die, Rev. Peyton of Rev Peyton’s Big Damn Band, and Mim Cameron of iwrestledabearonce.


Chris is a little crazy, all the time.

There was a band playing back in bus world, they ruled


Pierce The Veil blog #14


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I post all of my tour dates on the right side of my blog. If I am ever in your area and you want to meet up, just shoot me an e-mail and we will make it happen. If you have any questions , just leave a comment below and I will do my best to answer it for you.

Hope you enjoyed my images and such!

best
adam