Here are some blink-182 road reports of the Vans Warped Tour 1997. All of them written by Mark Hoppus
July 17, 1997 Minneapolis
It's so strange. Each day starts off fresh and new and perfect, like a new toy. The end of every day is like Christmas afternoon, or the coming of the apocalypse. Trash everywhere. I really feel sorry for whoever has to clean up after the shows. They must find some pretty strange shit when all is said and done. Today was out of control hot again. We played on the outfield fence of this baseball field in the middle of the day, and I thought for a while that I was actually going to start melting. When I walked off stage, it was like I had just come out of a pool. I forgot to eat again today. Oh well, maybe tomorrow. One cool thing about this tour is that I'm never in any stinky clubs. Clubs are rad to play at, but so many of them just smell fucking terrible, like rotting bear, piss, and vomit. This tour just smells like dust and sweaty dudes, which isn't such a good smell either, but at least it's something different. I'm bummed that the Vandals are leaving the tour today, but also stoked that Less Than Jake has joined. Tomorrow Lagwagon joins, and I can't wait to see them again.
July 9, 1997 Vancouver
I didn't feel like doing much today, so I didn't. I got up early and helped Kevin (our merch guy) set up the merchandise. Then, I took a shower and got some breakfast. The catering in Vancouver was great. We played early again... got our stuff ready and played. I don't think that the people here got our jokes. Or else they did and we just weren't funny at all. Afterwards, I sold t-shirts for a while and met some people. We did interviews for some snowboarding magazines and I took a nap on the bus. When I got up, Millencolin was about to play, and they were having some problems. The bass player's amp wasn't working ,so, I ran over and got mine and let him use it for their set. Then, a few songs into their show, the guitar player's set-up started falling over, so I sat there and held it together for their whole set. I was an honorary Millencolin roadie for a day. I walked around for a long time in kind of a daze and somehow ended up on the Vandals' bus, where a party was in full swing. When I got on, Warren was completely naked with music blaring and he was pulling his penis as hard as he could , and singing into it like it was a microphone. And the bus was packed with people. I hung out there for a while and came back on our bus and am now going to sleep.
You can find all of them right here.
