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[The Nightlife Issue]

Warped Tour road stories from Black Boots’ Pedi Amiri

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As told to Mike Prevatt

It was very hot. I saw an unusual amount of people pass out. Performing so high-energy at 3 p.m. was definitely one of the challenges of the tour. At one point my tour manager passed out from heat exhaustion. We [Amiri and bandmate Mikey Francis] caught him on the way down.

We would start moshpits during our [DJ] set. With Warped Tour, it’s less sitting behind the decks and pumping our hands. It’s where the kids are used to seeing bands with frontmen. We became vocal with fans and jumped up on speakers and ran into the audience. It created this atmosphere of rock ’n’ roll chaos.

A lot of people came up to us, which was really cool—lots of people wearing, like, an Underoath shirt. They’d watch the show, come up to us and say, ‘Dude, I’m not really into the music, but that was incredible.’ We’d convert these kids into electronic music fans right there.

There were a couple of fans who drove two to three hours just to see us play, like from Kentucky up to St. Louis. Then they drove another 350 miles to see us again. Warped was such a beautiful experience, because we got to know a lot of people. You don’t get that in the nightclub environment. Warped is old-fashioned. We’re at the merch booth after for fans, taking pictures, signing autographs. We had a few boobs to sign. Some things never change!

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