OMG!! I had such a great time at the Warped Tour DC festival last weekend, but I definitely admit it is taking a bit longer for me to recover as I get older. LOL I went down with my “bonus daughter” and it was about a 9hr drive with traffic and pee / gas stops but it was a fairly pleasant drive over all. The hotel we booked was less than a 15 min drive to the venue which was the RFK Festival Grounds, and I was actually pleasantly surprised by how nice it was for the cost. I am generally not a “princess” when it comes to places where I don’t intend to spend a lot of time in the room, and will often opt for the least expensive option I can find at the closest distance to where I need to be and this place had a few unadvertised amenities that really helped. I had opted to go down a day early this time mainly because

1. I knew I was going to be doing all the driving myself and wanted to take a day to decompress afterwards and

2. I did not like the idea of doing all the driving on Friday the 13th – not that I am necessarily superstitious but I sometimes think that other people can be extra stupid, clumsy or distracted when they are.

So we had the day free on Friday and I asked my travel buddy if there was anything in DC they’d always wanted to see – and she opted for the Holocaust Museum. Umm ok, I thought, that would not have been my first choice, but sure – we can do that if she wanted to. Of course, I discovered you needed to reserve tickets in advance online and we missed the window for the next day BUT a certain amount of same day passes would become available at 7am online on a first come first serve basis, so guess who did not get to sleep in on Friday morning? 🙂 Anyway, we managed to get the passes and to the museum, which was a bit challenging because there was a certain parade in town that involved 18 miles on non scalable barricades! That definitely made getting around a bit of a challenge. I had wanted to see the White House and the Lincoln Memorial but it was out of the question under the circumstances. But it was still a fascinating day and a little scary when realizing some of the current events feel a bit similar to things I read in the museum. Nuff said. 🙁

Ok and now back to Warped!! So many great bands so little time!! And since each day there was a different set of bands, if you missed em – you missed them! UGHH! But even so, I did not spend as much time running from stage to stage as I usually do at festivals, partially because I wanted my companion to have a more relaxed experience (it was her very first festival ever) but also because being patient and waiting for opportunities to move up when the crowds shift is how I ended up with barricade (the front row view) for my top 3 that I wanted to see! We The Kings, Mod Sun and Games We Play!

Not only did I have the absolute best position to view the bands from during their performance I actually also got to do the meet and greets with Mod Sun and Emmyn Calleiro of “Games We Play” which was just wonderful. 🙂 I had met Emmyn before and he’s an absolute doll – very humble and sweet and super funny. Meeting Mod Sun though totally made my weekend. I love his whole positive – law of attraction vibe. He seems like a very genuine, super nice guy.

Other super notable bands that I saw were – All Time Low, Bowling for Soup, Sublime and Ice Nine Kills (although their performances creep me out a bit). My husband’s daughter was also supper happy to see Simple Plan and Avril Lavigne who were the last two acts of the last night – in the rain but still did a great job!

Oh and in spite of the no moshing and surfing sign – there was a freaking ton of it! It’s not Warped Tour without moshing and crowd surfing. LOL

On day 2 we managed to find a gal (above center) that my godchild and I met at our very first Warped Tour back in 2018 and with whom we have maintained a friendship with since. She is a super sweet gal and calls me “concert mom” which I totally love. We have actually decided to do next year’s Warped DC, same weekend, same venue together, so it will be me, the godchild, her and one of her besties, driving down and sharing a VRBO studio apartment less than a mile from the freaking venue. Like WOW I am so stoked!

But whew – I am still recovering from all that fun and excitement and am actually going to see Avril, Simple Plan and my boys We the Kings this coming Friday out at Bethel Woods. Part of me is wishing it was not quite so freaking far away but you only live once right? I’ll definitely have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead! 🙂