Back in 2009, I hadn’t been to the Warped Tour in a few years. Hadn’t cared about the lineup in awhile. But when a friend invited me, a group of headliners I loved (Bouncing Souls, Bad Religion, Less Than Jake, Streetlight Manifesto) and a few acts I was curious about (Therefore I Am, Innerpartysystem, Shooter Jennings, Meg and Dia) made it worth the money for me. And I saw what drove most people older than twenty away from the tour – a bizarre, hyper-bright, neon-colored aesthetic covering everything; a lot of shitty pop-rap and screechy metalcore bands, and a much more random group of kiddos, particularly aggressive bro-dudes, that didn’t seem to represent any particular community. But I found enough cool acts to fill up most of the day. Half because of the music and half curiosity over whatever the hell the culture of Warped Tour was becoming led me to return in 2010 (Alkaline Trio and Bouncing Souls helped.) My girlfriend came with, and we spent any time we couldn’t find an interesting band playing trying to make sense of what Warped was now. In the process, a tradition was born.

Sorry if that shit seems completely rambley and self-indulgent. But that’s to explain why a 33 year old dude with at least somewhat overlapping music taste to yourself would go to the Warped Tour in 2015. Hell, previously there had been at least a few bands each year that older Warped fans could dig (Less Than Jake, Teenage Bottlerocket in 2014, Reel Big Fish, Goldfinger in 2013, etc.) This year might be the first in Warped history without at least a nod to 90’s ska or punk, unless you count the two dates H20 played in the northwest. But for what it’s worth, the tour seemed to make up for it with more solid punk and emo bands than usual – Pup, Rotting Out, ’68, Have Mercy, Lee Corey Oswald, Candy Hearts, etc., as well as bringing back some of their usual better received pop-punk acts, albeit ones with polarizing reputations on PunkNews (The Wonder Years, Man Overboard, Neck Deep, Handguns.) There’s still plenty of screamy metal-core (August Burns Red, Miss May I, We Came as Romans) on the main stage, as well middling wannabe pop and hip-hop stars spread over the course of the day.

At the tour’s Indianapolis stop, the changes seemed to pay off. Sure, there’s still a lot of straight-up shit, and you’d be depressed as hell to see how long the line to get Riff Raff’s signature can be (maybe they all just thought it was actually James Franco.) But if you’re willing to put up with the heat and a few dumbasses, there was plenty of quality acts to make the day worthwhile. Mine started on the smaller Kevin Says side stage with Trophy Eyes, a Fear Year Strong-esque easy-core band (or pop-core, or whatever the hell that style is called), that didn’t have quite strong enough hooks to stand out, but they played loud and gritty enough to at least hold up with bands like Story So Far and State Champs. From there it was over to the amphitheater stage, which was split up as usual to support two secondary stages. Night Riots was playing, and if you dig shameless 80’s nostalgia (in both sound and aesthetics), they put on an energetic synthy-rock show worth checking out. Back on the Kevin Says stage, Major League put on a solid, more infectious pop-punk/emo set than Trophy Eyes, and then I caught the blues-hardcore fusion of ’68 (led by Josh Scogin, formerly of Norma Jean and The Chariot fame) on one of the main stages. The little I saw of them sounded great; unfortunately, they were followed directly by Atilla, the Brokencyde/Falling In Reverse/Blood on the Dance Floor of the current Warped scene – stupid, ICP-level raps over “sick breakdowns.” And they may have drawn the biggest crowd of the day.

And then noon rolled around.

I won’t run through the entire day in painstaking detail, but if you’re of the mind-set that Warped is nothing but borderline unlistenable bullshit, there were plenty of bands to back up your argument. The day was stacked enough that I avoided most of it, but what I saw of Miss May I and Our Last Night proved to be the bland metal-core most associated with the tour these days; Handguns’ generic pop-punk all blended together in a 25-minute blur, and Man Overboard’s Zac Eisenstein still sounds like a parody of bad karaoke live; and As It Is fell on the wrong side of the line between “really poppy pop-punk”/”no, this is just 5 Second of Summer.” And then there was the disturbingly large crowds for Metro Station and Set It Off. Even some of the stronger acts, like Moose Blood and Neck Deep, failed to overcome the exhausting day and the amphitheater acoustics to put on memorable sets.

But as seemingly happens each year, a group of what would probably be considered the more “legit” acts had banded together to form a community, putting on excellent shows all day and pointing audience members to each others’ sets. TAT’s Tatiana DeMaria and The Wonder Year’s Soupy Campbell both performed intense, pitch perfect solo acoustic sets (even if Soupy’s took place in a cramped, sweltering, vomit-inducing tent.) Have Mercy, Knuckle Puck, and Alvarez Kings all managed to make the tiny, awfully situated Kevin Says stage work for their respective voice-shredding emo, pit-stimulating skate punk, and atmospheric indie tunes. It was sad to see Lee Corey Oswald generating one of the smallest crowds of the day - just a single row of people at the main amphitheater stage. But they were all solid players live, even if their emo-ish sound was cranked up so loud it was a bit nauseating. And their tiny crowd emphasized the decent group of people lining for PUP on the second half of the stage – around 40 or so to start, but close to 100 by the time their half-hour set ended.

PUP definitely brought the most intensity of any band of the day, tearing through “Lionheart,” “Guilt Trip,” “Mabu,” and “Dark Days,” before slowing it down for an epic rendition of “Yukon.” They wrapped up with “Reservoir” and a massive cover of “Sabotage” that surpassed everything else you might see that day. And just a bit later, frontman Steve Sladkowski would be a goddamn sweetheart when I picked up a shirt from them. Based on the bands gathered around them, the response they got, and the fact it was their last day on the tour, they definitely felt like the MVPs – even if it was to a select crowd.

Closing up my day were rock and roll act The Dirty Nil and The Wonder Years. The Dirty Nil were stuck on the Ernie Ball stage, the worst place to play on the tour, but they brought a lot of fire and swagger to that shitty little stage. There weren’t much of an audience there, but what little there was included members of PUP, Lee Corey Oswald, and The Wonder Years. Definitely felt like their enthusiastic style was resonating with at least someone important. And while The Wonder Years might generate very conflicted responses around here, they put on the tight, intricate show they always do, all three guitar parts interlocking to create a hell of a sound, and Soupy leading some of the biggest sing-along moments of the day (sadly, his Bernie Sanders shirt would be the most political statement of the day. Though considering some of the other bands on the tour, maybe that was for the best.)

Three and a half stars might seems like an insanely high score for a tour that would be regarded as the Evil Empire around here if the whole enterprise hadn’t become so pathetic (I guess Riot Fest would be the actual Evil Empire.) But whether or not it keeps up, this year was an excellent one for great sets by up-and-coming punk and indie rock bands, and probably the best overall lineup since 2011 (Against Me, Less Than Jake, Lucero, Street Dogs, Big D and the Kids Table, The Aggrolites, Larry and His Flask, Sharks, The Bots, even The Menzingers for a little while.) Granted, overlapping all the good bands could have turned either of those years into a waste; but at least at my stops, someone seemed to know better than that. So if you just hate the very idea of Warped Tour and the bands it now supports, I wouldn’t tell you this changes anything. But for someone who still continues to be intrigued by the tour for whatever reason, this year gave me more faith in its potential future than any in a long time.

(A few acts I wanted to catch but couldn’t because of scheduling: Koji, Citizen, Candy Hearts, MC Lars.)