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Warped Tour concert info
The 15th annual tour brings 66 bands to six stages at Darien Lake.
The 15th annual tour brings 66 bands to six stages at Darien Lake.
Hit The Lights drummer Nate Van Dame's Warped Tour experience has come full circle. In 1996, his dad took him to his very first one, but things didn't go so well.
"The lead singer of Goldfinger started swearing," recalls Van Dame, calling from a Warped Tour stop in Las Vegas. "I remember my dad was like, 'You're never coming to this again.'"
Now that Hit The Lights is performing as a headliner on this year's Darien Lake tour stop, Van Dame is planning to bring his dad up onstage. Van Dame and Hit The Lights guitarist Kevin Mahoney, both Rochester natives, will play backup for hip-hop duo 3OH!3, a band Van Dame's dad is quite familiar with.
"He walks around singing the 3OH!3 song 'Don't Trust Me' all the time," Van Dame says with a laugh. "He says he has a dance for it, so I'm gonna try and get him do it onstage."
Both Van Dame and Mahoney grew up rocking out to acts like H20, Blink-182 and NOFX. Now they're a part of one of the festival's rising acts, which is fresh off a tour in Japan and the release of a digital EP, Coast to Coast.
The EP marks the first time Mahoney has recorded music as a member of Hit The Lights. The Henrietta resident joined the band in early 2008 as it was wrapping up work on its debut album, Skip School, Start Fights. Mahoney was playing guitar in local hardcore band Heavy Hearted when he got the call after HTL singer Colin Ross quit and guitarist Nick Thompson took over frontman duties.
"It feels weird because even though I didn't record on Skip School, it feels like I was a part of it since we've been touring so long on it," Mahoney says. "But it feels good. I played most of the guitar on the EP and some mean tambourine on a few acoustic tracks."
Mahoney also arrived just in time for the band's new commercial venture. In between writing material for a new album that the guys hope to record this winter, they've been asked to cover "The Pina Colada Song" for an upcoming Taco Bell ad. The online commercial will begin airing toward the end of the summer. In the meantime, Hit The Lights must deal with one of this summer's hottest tours, both figuratively and literally.
"Dude, it's hard rocking out in the sun," Mahoney says. "Our singer Nick (Thompson) threw up during our first set, right in between songs."
