My Chemical Romance Finch The All-American Rejects

There’s nothing like a glimpse of hell to remind you of mortality. I don’t go to church, but after spending a weekend in Asbury Park, NJ I’m on the verge of repenting all my sins. I don’t want to spend my afterlife in a rundown shithole on the Jersey Shore just because I forgot to tell a priest about that time I lied to my parents about having a party while they were out of town.

Knowing just how disgusting and sketchy Asbury Park actually is means that people need a pretty damn strong reason to visit. The promoters who put together the Bamboozle (formally Skate & Surf) appear to be under the impression that dozens of punk and emo’s top acts performing over the span of three days on a multitude of stages for a “low” price ($28 per day) is worth a trip to the earthly equivalent of Hades. Allow me to enlighten them: It’s not.

Sure, the opportunity for fans to see their favorite bands rock out in close quarters is great in theory, but unfortunately that’s just what the Bamboozle is: great in theory, flawed in execution.

The lineup, which boasted bands like My Chemical Romance, Alkaline Trio, Finch, Thrice, the All-American Rejects, and the Starting Line as headliners, was a pop-punk wet dream. The problem was that all the “big” acts played on the mainstage inside the nearly-collapsing convention center, which was unable to accommodate the number of ticket holders waiting outside. The capacity limits meant that many kids, who had doled out their hard-earned babysitting money to see Straylight Run, were stuck outside the convention center at the free stages or in front of the infamous Stone Pony’s much smaller stage, watching much smaller bands.

That’s not to say that the lineup on the outside stages wasn’t just as impressive as that inside; bands like Acceptance, Paramore, Lovedrug, and Action Action played tremendous sets. The issue with the outdoor stages was not the lineup, it was the weather. Not only was it overcast and freezing, but on the second day it poured. All the cute, pink and black clad, 15-year-old girls looked like drowned kittens. There is a reason Coachella takes place (on the same weekend) in the middle of the desert.

The best stories about the Bamboozle, however, happen after dark, when the bands stop playing. The underage kids either go home or retreat to the rundown hotel in search of illegally-procured beer while the 21-and-over crowd, most of whom are music industry folks, shove their way into the few bars Asbury Park has to offer. At last call (2 a.m. in Jersey), drugs and alcohol begin to circulate the hotels freely, hotel elevators are broken, fights are started, and girls spend the evening trying to fend off boys whose pockets are burning with unused condoms. Groupies, encouraged by the close quarters, openly stalk their favorite bands, banging on hotel room doors in hopes of a rockstar answering one of the knocks.

My complaints with the Bamboozle (and there were many that made their way out of my mouth throughout the weekend) are not with the bands. Every band I saw wholeheartedly gave it their all despite any complications the festival threw at them. On the first day, bands playing the outside stages were skimmed down to 15 minute sets because festival organizers failed to power the stages for the first three hours of the event. The bands took it in stride, however, and rocked harder than ever for the appreciative fans. My Chemical Romance’s headlining set, which closed the weekend, was particularly forceful, rewarding the few hundred people who had it in them to stick it out until the very end.

The Bamboozle is the result of a good idea gone array in execution. My advice for fans of pop-punk and emo who want to spend a lengthy period of time seeing as many bands as possible? Go to the Warped Tour, they’ve got it figured out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some repenting to do…