Islander Got Kicked Off Warped Tour After Only One Show

Well, this sure sucks for the guys in Islander: after just one performance on this summer’s Warped Tour — the last one ever — the band has been kicked off. They had been scheduled to be with the tour from July 1st through 8th.

The trouble started when frontman Mikey Carvajal let “that punk rock energy” (his words) at the July 1st show in Denver, CO take hold of him, barreling into the drum set during the band’s final song and damaging one of the floor toms. This is rock and roll, it happens, right? Nope: the drum kit was part of a shared backline to be used by several bands, causing problems for the rest of the day.

If you ask me, getting kicked off a tour for damaging one drum seems overly punitive: sure, the incident presented an inconvenience, but it was an honest mistake. A simple “Dude, you fucked up bad, don’t do this again” seems like it would’ve sufficed. Two strikes and you’re out kinda thing. But after 20+ years I suppose the tour’s organizers have no patience for this kind of behavior. Makes me wonder if anything else took place out of public view that could’ve contributed to the booting… but we may never know.

The band issued a short video message announcing they got the boot and apologizing to fans, which you can view below. I’ll say this: kudos to Carvajal for just owning the incident and being a gentleman about it. Of course it could’ve played out very differently behind the scenes leading up to this, but at least publicly they’re being total mensches. It’s not difficult to imagine a scenario in which the band complained about Warped’s punitive measures, trash-talked the festival, etc., but Islander have taken the high road.

Oh well. Life carries on. I have still never been Warped Tour.

[via Lambgoat]