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Here is Senior Editor Eric Snider’s review of Bad Religion’s performance at Warped Tour will run in the Creative Loafing that hits newsstands July 25.

Bad Religion at the Warped Tour, Fri. July 20, Vinoy Park, St. Petersburg

Walking out of Vinoy Park at about 8:30 p.m., I heard someone from the last band standing say to the crowd, “It’s hard closing the Warped Tour if you’re not Bad Religion.”

True. The legendary punk-rock band had just finished its show on an adjacent stage minutes earlier, and the Warped throng — already thinned out after more than eight hours — was beating a hasty retreat. The wilted minions who stayed for Bad Religion enjoyed a feisty, propulsive 30 minutes of old-school punk. (Full disclosure: I arrived about 20 minutes before BR kicked off their set.)

There’s something to be said for 30-minute sets, which is what Warped allots its acts, even headliners like Bad Religion. No time for easing into the performance, no protracted tune-ups between songs — hell, what’s punk about that?

Aside from a couple of songs that skewed medium tempo, BR played one pell-mell, buzzsaw rocker after another. Three guitarists — one dressed in nothing but lime-green shorts and flip-flops — laid down a relentless grind of punchy chords. Drummers are punk’s unsung heroes: They enable good bands to keep an audience enthralled with songs that all have basically the same beat. BR’s Brooks Wackerman is a flat-out animal.

Forty-two-year-old singer Greg Graffin’s dark hair is thinning on top, and he makes no concessions to punk fashion — he wore a plain button-down shirt — or histrionics. He ambled around the stage, his barbed bark expressive and just tuneful enough to deliver the band’s brawny hooks. Graffin smiled easily and seemed to enjoy his role as a punk elder statesman.

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