Yet, as time passes, Warped has become more than just the hasty pop likes of Cobra Starship or saucy rompers like Bouncing Souls.

It's divinely pretty pop girls (Katy Perry), socialist new wavers (Against Me!), and soulful rap-rock hit-makers Gym Class Heroes whose "Clothes Off!!" may've put them at the top-of-the-pop food chain. But that doesn't mean they're up to Warped speed.

"No matter who we tour with, our band sticks out like a sore thumb," says Gym Class Hero Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo. "We win people over by showing them that you don't have to be like everyone, or anyone else to gain respect."

It's not that GCH is afraid to play into the Warped mentality. "Ending your set over your allotted time is severely frowned upon," notes GCH's Matt McGinley. "But it's run like a summer camp so we uphold the Warped ideology by fishing, biking, rocking, and making macaroni necklaces."

Where rocking is concerned, both Heroes agree that their upcoming CD, The Quilt, is filled with hip-hop, Pet Sounds-type rock, and reggae-inspired grooves - songs Kasongo says "have their own patch and identity to form one big, warm, fuzzy musical blanket."

A truer anomaly for Warped is that a Latin act has joined its ranks - odder still, an electronic duo, The Pinker Tones, from Barcelona, Spain. Mister Furia and Professor Manso have toiled under the Pinker Tones name since 2003, playing a brand of fluty Daft Punk-like electronica, when the Nacional label picked them up and started releasing records like The Million Colour Revolution and their new rough-edged Wild Animals. Then Warped boss Kevin Lyman invited them to play the Vans Warped Tour showcase in Austin in 2007. "Lyman wrote on his blog that we were the most exciting thing he'd seen since he saw the Beastie Boys for the first time," says Furia.

Being an electro-rock ensemble with nods to the heritage of their native land means there's much for Spanish crowds to love. "There must be something good about globalization," jokes Furia.

But with Warped 2008 opening itself up to a million colors and musical genres, the festival itself has grown.

"There're a lot of groups on Warped who don't necessarily belong to one specific scene - like Gym Class Heroes who by the way, joined us for a bit of soccer the other day," says Furia. "I have learned how to throw the American football with members of Pennywise and I've celebrated the Fourth of July in Dallas."