‘Punk’s not dead’: Band arrested for guerilla show outside Warped Tour Long Beach
Venice Beach-based Who Cares played an illegal show on Pine Avenue near the Pike Outlets after the popular music festival ended.
More than 80,000 music lovers flocked to Downtown Long Beach over the weekend for the Vans Warped Tour, a punk-rock festival that’s celebrating its 30th anniversary. But the most punk moment of the weekend came after day two of the event when the band Who Cares were arrested for playing an illegal show on Pine Avenue.
The Venice Beach-based rock trio had played in the same spot — the intersection of Pine Avenue and Bay Street — Saturday night with no incident, according to singer Omar Sandlin, 29. The second night, however, garnered a “significantly bigger” crowd, he said.
“In the final song I said ‘fuck the cops,’” Sandlin said with a laugh. “[Police] were like, ‘Dude, we were going to be cool with you until you did that.’ That’s pretty on brand for a pig to even say that dumb shit to me.”
Long Beach police confirmed that officers were dispatched to the intersection around 10:15 p.m. due to a large crowd. Video from the scene shows more than a dozen police vehicles parked around the hundreds of people who had gathered around the band just outside the Pike Outlets.
A police helicopter also made an appearance, Sandlin noted, comparing the scene to the video game “Grand Theft Auto.”
Police said the “large crowd, which spilled into the southbound lanes of Pine Street,” was obstructing traffic.
The band ignored police commands to stop the performance, the department says. The band, for its part, told the Watchdog that they did not hear any commands over their music and the crowd.
After finishing its 30-minute set, the three band members — Sandlin, bassist Elijah Napuri, 27, and 15-year-old drummer Julian Crawford — were arrested and transported to Long Beach Beach City Jail.
Crawford was cited for obstructing a crosswalk and disturbing the peace, and was released to a parent, the LBPD said. Sandlin and Napuri were booked for one count of disturbing the peace, one count of obstructing a crosswalk with a vehicle, and cited for conducting an unpermitted event, according to police.
Former drummer Abi Cruz, 32, also performed several songs with the band Sunday night but was not arrested.
The band’s van, which was borrowed from a neighbor, and equipment was impounded and will cost the group about $400 to get back, Sandlin said. As for the penalties and fines for their charges, a court date has been set for Oct. 1, according to Sandlin.
Social media exploded with footage of the post-Warped show and subsequent arrests, with hundreds of comments of support.
“Punk’s not dead,” one commenter wrote, while another said Who Cares was “the punkiest band of the Warped Tour (and they weren’t even in the lineup).”
This is not the first time the band has put on a guerilla show outside a music event. Last year, the group drove to Sacramento to play outside of the Aftershock festival.
Local artists setting up outside large music fests is nothing new, Sandlin acknowledged.
“We’re definitely not the first. We can’t be taking credit for stuff people’ve been doing since the fucking ’90s,” Sandlin said. “But it’s cool to keep carrying the torch.”
In Warped Tour’s heyday, it was commonplace for young groups to set up and play for fans ahead of gates — many even followed the tour around the country, selling shirts and CDs to fund their trip. The crosscountry music festival ran from 1995 through 2018, followed by a handful of shows to celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2019.
The festival returned this year for its 30th anniversary with two-day festivals in Washington, D.C. in June, Long Beach and Orlando in November.
Who Cares formed in 2019 and has several singles available to stream on Spotify. Sandlin compared the band’s sound to ’90s grunge but with more of a punk-rock attitude, “like if Soundgarden and Black Flag had some sort of fucked up baby.”
The band is gearing up to record a music video next month for its track “Red vs. Blue” with Creative Director Sam Fine.
It’s more challenging now than ever to break into the music scene, Sandlin said. He lambasting the hype around pop music and the Justin Biebers of the world, saying they are “destroying society.”
“You can be the fucking coolest band anywhere but between the algorithm and people’s attention spans, it just takes so much to actually excite a human nowadays,” Sandlin said.
But the group’s stunt outside of Warped Tour was not meant to be “performative,” Sandlin added, noting that they did not think they would be having a run-in with the law.
“We’re just willing to get arrested for our fucking shit,” he said. “We’re always going to be proud for not fucking backing down.”
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