River City Extension Adds Something Local, Something Sweet to Warped

At the end of their set at Warped Tour Sunday afternoon, River City Extension's Joe Michelini and Pat O'Brien led the crowd gathered at the Kia Kevin Says Stage to their merchandise tent set up nearby. 

While Michelini strummed his guitar and O'Brien clapped along on a tambourine, the crowd followed obediently, clapping, singing and following their pied pipers to the promised land of T-shirts and records.

River City Extension, based out of Toms River, are not your typical Warped Tour band. While most of the bands at playing at on Sunday are making their bones with screaming, barely-intelligible vocals and sludgy, overly-distorted guitars, River City Extension are playing upbeat, indie music -- think The Arcade Fire (in terms of both catchy melodies and band size) mixed with a level dose of folk rock. It's possible that Michelini holds Warped Tour's most heavily used acoustic guitar, and almost certain that Jenn Fantaccione is playing the traveling festival's only cello.

"A lot of parents have come up to us after the show, and have said, 'my kids are at this stage, that stage, or the other stage, but I came and heard you guys, and it's music that I really like,'" says Sam Tacon, vocalist for River City Extension, on the band's appeal at Warped Tour. 

"We're just being us, and people realize that," adds drummer Mike Costaney.

In the past six months, the band has opened the Bonnaroo festival and played a mid-day set at Bamboozle.  Next weekend they'll be playing the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, where they're likely to be the most punk rock band on the lineup, as opposed to quite the opposite in Oceanport.  

"It's been really special to be able to reach all different types of audiences," says Michelini of the varied bills they've been a part of this year. "It's a great reassurance that music is the great leveler, and that everything is the same between us.  It's been awesome."

How has the Warped touring experience been for the band?  "Really, really hot," says Tacon.  "Very long drives," adds Costaney.

"The stage crew has been phenomenal," says Michelini.  "Everyone who works at the Warped Tour has been more than kind, they're such hard working people.  We have nothing but them to thank for such a wonderful experience."

River City Extension wrapped up it's two-week run on the Warped Tour at home, a place of inspiration for Michelini and the band."I don't think we do anything in our band without New Jersey in mind, especially when we're in the area," says Michelini. 

"We were born in Jersey, we were raised in Jersey ... We have a lot to be thankful for. We've been given so much by the people of New Jersey and the people of Toms River, and we continue to be given things by the crowds who come to see us at Bamboozle and the Warped Tour."

The group will be wrapping up the touring cycle behind their album, The Unmistakable Man, in the coming weeks before hitting a recording studio to begin work on a new record, due out in early 2012.  "We're writing a new record right now," says Michelini.  "It's very much about going out and seeing the rest of the country, coming back, and having a new perspective on home."

If you missed the band in Oceanport, you'll have a chance to check them out again on Thanksgiving eve, when they return home to headline The Stone Pony.

"We're really excited about it," says Tacon.  "We'll just be getting out of the studio, and it'll be good to come back home and see everybody." 

River City Extension's setlist, Warped Tour, Monmouth Park, July 24, 2011:

The Ballad of Oregon

Something Salty, Something Sweet

Adrienne

Mexico

Our New Intelligence

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