An excerpt from an article in The Star today.

Bad Religion began laying the sonic template for many of the bands on the bill nearly 25 years ago, so it was fitting that the venerable Los Angeles agit-hardcore outfit landed the closing slot on the main stage.

Dispensing a disciplined, no-nonsense blast of Bush-stoked vitriol from this year's The Empire Strikes First cut with fan favourites like "Stranger Than Fiction" and "American Jesus," the band was an admirable model of maturity and consistency at the end of a day heavy on homogeneous younger acts for whom punk is something much less serious.

Coming after the well-executed melodramatics of Thursday (who are apparently turning into the Cure), the tuneless angst of Taking Back Sunday, the rote pop-punk of New Found Glory and the studied posing of Good Charlotte, the verbose, politically minded Bad Religion actually felt like a bit of an anomaly on the main stage ? a fact that evidently wasn't lost on the band itself.

"All the cute bands are gone," quipped 40-ish vocalist Greg Graffin, who must have felt positively grandfatherly moving through the fashionably spiked, pierced and painted teenagers who made up most of Warped's crowd.

Read the full article here