Attack of the 80's

Shutter sunglasses, pink and black tiger-striped skin-tight pants, lime green nylon hats and mustaches galore. Welcome to my 80's nightmare...it's happening right now...and I am wide awake.

This Saturday was the 15th Warped Tour at The Gorge. I am used to seeing punky-colored-hair, spikes, leather and ripped black fishnets. This year was completely different. You couldn't drunkenly stumble 2 feet in any direction without running into Cyndi Lauper and the Beastie Boys circa 1985. Last year we were fine, where did this entire generation of color-blind fashion victims come from?! Surely they remember watching their older brothers and sisters getting dressed up like that...the crimping...the hairspray...the horror. Why are we doing this again?

Ranting aside, it was a great show. We saw Bad Religion, NOFX, Senses Fail, Saosin, In this Moment, YB, Meg and Dia, 3OH!3 and a bunch of others. Maybe it was just me, but it didn't seem like the pits were as intense as they have been in the past. It was cool to finally see NOFX, it sucked that most of the people watching their set were just there waiting for 3OH!3 to come up next. Hopefully they appreciated the better band and will see the error of their ways (^_^)

It didn't rain, I didn't see any flaming port-a-poties and no one slept under a car (at least not anyone from our group). So I say, "Success!"

I didn't see as much of the emo kids as in years past. There were still skin-tight pants but they were more of an 80's style (neon colors or higher cut in the waist) than the usual 70's punk rock influenced style. Hair is going bleach blond with black roots, I didn't see a single person with the "chunked" hair color.

I noticed a lot of t-shirts with giant Helvetica text like, "THIS IS A 3OH3! SHIRT" in black ink on white shirts. No graphics, just text. There were quite a few different takes on that design. Some were in multi-neon inks, but most were just black or white ink.

The best thing to do now is to embrace this resurgence of ridiculousness. I missed out on the bad 80's fashion the first time around because I was too young to successfully dress myself (perhaps I still am). This is a golden opportunity to shine like a glittering neon beacon of awesomeness without even the slightest hint of irony.

Babysitters Club anyone? Where is my half-shirt?! It's time to party.