The Hot Concerts of My Past Seem to Be Making a Comeback in 2010!

As summer looms near, and our bodies start feeling that insatiable itch - you know, that itch that makes you want to get hot and sweaty with thousands of other people. Of course I am talking about the summer concert season. My heart always beats just a little bit faster this time of year, and to help ease my body into this o-so-joyous of seasons, I decided to share four of my favorite past concert experiences with you. As an added bonus for this special offer only, each one of these memories are of bands that are touring this summer. So turn up the speakers, start drinking lots of water, and get ready for Green Day, The Offspring, Vans Warped Tour, and Ozzfest!

Green Day hit it mainstream when I was fifteen years old, with their timeless teen self-searching album Dookie. From that point on, Green Day has been my all-time favorite band. Now, I have seen them live many times, but my favorite show they played was my very first concert when I was sixteen years old. I do believe it was at The Mecca (which is now the Wisconsin Center), in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Needless to say, my very first concert and I am seeing my favorite band, this was already the single greatest moment of my life up to this point. Green Day took the stage and just tore it up. Three punk kids from Berkley just playing and having fun. Billy Joe was already honing his amazing talent for outrageous stage antics by mooning the crowd and pretending to 'make love' to a water bottle. Now as silly as these seem, both at the time and now, the fine city of Milwaukee did not find them so silly by fining Billy Joe for obscene conduct. Best memory of the whole experience actually goes to my great grandma Mildred Wright when she asked my mom who would go see a group like that after she heard about it. Oh grandma... Check the Green Day Tour Page for dates on their current world tour.

Next up is The Offspring. It is actually a little funny that we are discussing both The Offspring and Green Day here since the media created a huge buzz between them both during the mid-90's. Finding mainstream success the same time as Green Day, The Offspring helped bring about the punk revival of the nineties that led the way for many of the artists today. I put The Offspring on this list, not because either of the two concerts I saw them at was especially spectacular, but because it was my first lesson in the difference between an artist playing a festival and playing their own show. I had the chance to see The Offspring play a show in Illinois at the UIC Pavillion when I was seventeen. They put on a much different show than Green Day at that point. Instead of jumping around acting like punks, they were a little more about the stage show. One month later I saw The Offspring play during a Q101 radio festival in Chicago and the difference was odd to me at the time. Not only was their set much shorter, but the whole atmosphere of their show was more in your face and punk than it had been. The Offspring are touring with 311 on the Unity Tour this summer. For tour dates, check out The Offspring Tour Dates Page.

Up to this point, we have been discussing single bands - Green Day and The Offspring, but now I would like to take a different approach and look at a couple of my favorite summer festivals. The first one is the Vans' Warped Tour. Any punk, ska, indie, underground, or music lover knows about the Vans' Warped Tour, as it has been running for almost two decades. As far as I can remember, I have attended five of these shows, all of them in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and every single one of them amazing. The most prominent in my mind is the year I was first introduced to Flogging Molly. As a traditional Irish band with a punk influence, Flogging Molly brought a sound that was almost reverse of Dropkick Murphys that goes on and sounds original even today. The 2010 Vans' Warped Tour is kicking off soon, so find your dates and time at their Tour Page now.

And finally, we come to the great Ozzy and his wandering Ozzfest. The year was 2001. The temperature was 100 and sweltering. My mother, my sister, and myself are at Alpine Valley in Racine County, Wisconsin, sweating and dehydrating, but could not be happier. Today's line-up includes Union Underground, Disturbed (on the second stage, not even big enough for the main stage yet), Slipknot, Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson, and Ozzy! We walked away with memories, friends, autographs, and my little sister getting hit on by bands while waiting for autographs. Now that was a summer. Ozzy is bringing his once top grossing festival around again this year, and for all the news, visit the Ozzfest Community Page.