Just days before the Vans Warped Tour steamrolls into the Great Park, Irvine City Council members are jumping up to say “not in my backyard!”
Following Tuesday's council meeting, it was reported that council members representing the safest city in America are having some serious objections to the festival, held on June 21. Councilman Jeffrey Lalloway apparently used his ace Googling skills to look up festival headliners like Anti-Flag, and found the band's songs like “Fuck Police Brutality” to be offensive.
“That's crossing the line,” Lalloway says. “We need to have a family friendly venue out there.”
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We're guessing he also looked at artists like New Found Glory, Young London and rapper G-Eazy and was equally terrified.
Aside from the 15,000 tickets being sold for the event, council members are also worried that flocks of dirty punk rockers and emo kids descending on their city will cause traffic, sanitary problems and “goodness knows what other kinds of problems for city residents,” Lalloway says.
They sure picked a hell of a time to figure this out–the ink is already dry on the deal between festival promoter Goldenvoice and AMCI (the company who rents out the Great Park), so the show will likely still happen. However, Lalloway and company lived up to their stuffy reputation yet again by drafting a policy outline to prevent future events with what they see as vulgar themes. What kind of effect this will have on any future partnerships between Goldenvoice and the city is yet to be determined, though the idea of a possible megafest sponsored by the Coachella promoter seems a little less likely now, doesn't it?
Probably the most laughable comment from the council came from Larry Agran, who says he's afraid that the high number of arrests at the show could threaten the park's reputation of being the safest public space in the safest city in America. So he called for a strict no-smoking policy targeting “legal or illegal” substances during the show and a boost in police presence. Really? A venue full of pissed off adolescents surrounded by cops without so much as a cig to calm the tension? You might as well have the riot gear ready to go because this is going to get ugly.
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