Warped Tour: Year 1

There is a concert series that tours across North America in the summer called Warped Tour; Warped Tour is essentially a large music festival for the Alternative Music genre where well-known band along with up-and-coming bands can come together and perform and promote their music.

I went to Warped Tour few years ago, (2006, I believe), with my sister, two of my friends and one of my friends' mother. We had to travel all the way down to Fitchberg, Massachusetts which took the better part of a day.
The next day we went to the airport strip where the stages were set up. I will admit that being around so many people at once was a bit overwhelming for my small-town heart, but I adjusted quickly at the promise of seeing my then-favorite band, Aiden. But since they were playing later in the afternoon we had time to kill and so we went to the smaller stages to see the bands play. It was during that time that I was introduced to such bands as the Pink Spiders, the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Mayday Parade, and many more than I can list.

I do recall that it was abnormally hot that particular day in August (I believe the local weathermen said that it was a record-breaking 118 degrees Fahrenheit). I only really remember this because my fried who had hosted the trip nearly collapsed from heat stroke which was really terrifying.

Finally we were in the second row of the crowd to see Aiden. There were more people than I had expected but I was determined to enjoy the show and be as close to the stage as possible. My sister and I were alone together in the second row as my friends were getting overly-priced water and trying to recover from the near-heat stroke.
All seemed calm until music started playing as the band entered the stage. There was a mad rush to the front as people stood far closer than I previously thought possible. However, my determination for a good time let me ignore a few atrocities of human rights for the time being.
Even though everything seemed to go by terribly fast, and after a few kicks to the head from crowd-surfing audience members made my memory a little fuzzy, I do remember it being an exceptionally good show even now.

After the last song, I was again very determined to go get signatures from the members of Aiden, so off I went with my sister to sit in the disgustingly long line at the booth. It was here that I was approached by a so-called Buddhist monk (this will probably make sense later, maybe even in another post), who offered me a book. I couldn't hear what he was saying because we were situated close to another stage where someone was playing and I assumed that the book cost about $5 like all the cds I had bought. This seemed like a fair deal in my severely dehydrated, slightly concussed mind so I gave the man a $20 bill expecting change back except he walked away merrily... Trust me when I say that I was flabbergasted and that this story is continued almost exactly a year from that day.