CALGARY -- No one would argue with you if you remarked that yesterday's Vans Warped Tour at Race City Speedway blew -- because it did.

 It blew harder than I've ever seen anything blow in my entire life.

 Halfway through the eight hour festival of travelling punk rock -- about the time that Rancid took the stage -- the wind picked up. It picked up every speck of dust, every eye-sized particle of dirt and sent it and everything that wasn't tied down -- there's no place like home, there's no place like... -- hurtling into the 11,000 fans who were packed into southwest Calgary's monument to asphalt.

 Ah, the outdoor summer music festival in Alberta. Is there anything quite like it?

 And when you get past the weather? Well, what you're left with is an event that should probably employ someone with a starting gun standing at the entrance.

 Because from the moment you step through the gate to the moment you drag yourself home eight hours later, sunburnt, dehydrated, spent, wind-swept and sand-blasted, the pace is almost as relentless as the music that dominates the punk music festival's six stages.

 Blink -- or blink-182, if you prefer -- and you'd miss something.

 Not necessarily something good, because as is always the case with an outdoor event like the Warped Tour, an event that features more than 30 bands, the quality will vary considerably.

 Luckily, yesterday's instalment was a better than average lineup with something for everyone's tastes. Well, as long as those tastes leaned towards punk rock.

 There was old school, new school, punk pop, rock punk, punk rap, new wave punk, goth punk, cover punk, etc.

 And if one of those wasn't your bag, all you had to do was walk 13 metres to one of the four side stages or even wait a half an hour and you could find one that was.

 Actually, in the early afternoon, the sun was shining and everyone's disposition was equally as sunny, the smaller stages yielded some of the day's highlights.

 There was The Apex Theory, which mixed things up in an short though intense set thanks mainly to an enigmatic frontman who proudly wore a chip on his shoulder, but still managed to be likable.

 Lightening things up considerably was the ska punk of Vancouver's Crowned King, which built up a fair-sized audience of happy skankers with their brassy, bouncy set.

 One of the best -- if not the best -- acts of the day was Santa Barbara's Sugarcult, a superb new wave act that crossed Elvis Costello with Cheap Trick for an exceptionally sweet Weezeresque confection.

 Perhaps the biggest complaint of the day came with the ghettoizing of all-girl act Lo-Ball, which constituted over 90% of Warped's estrogen content, and which was also one of its better bands.

 Though given two sets, they were hidden away at the "Ladies Lounge" -- ack! -- which was way at the back, close only to the portapotties and the beer garden, but, because of the dinky sound system, were inaudible in both.

 The group, which leaned more towards the L-7 side of punk rock, were a nice afternoon antidote to the somewhat homogenized shirtless boy punk pop on the two main stages -- Bouncing Souls and H2O -- and the almost unbearable brooding mascara punk of AFI.

 Another notable act on the side stage circuit was The Mimsies.

 Fronted by a pint-sized Bif Naked lookalike -- the only other femme onstage at Warped from what I saw -- they made the most of the small stage and small audience with a harder approach that recalled defunct Calgary band Placebo.

 The two main stages took over for the rest of the evening after The Mimsies finished up, and there the surprises were few and far between. And even the surprises weren't all that welcome. Alien Ant farm, for example, seemed to channel the ghost of Race City Edgefests past, with their modern rock take on metallic hip hop.

 Rancid -- oblivous to Mother Nature's temper tantrum -- whipped up their own storm of Clash punk, but were hardly a showstopper.

 The same for Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, a ironic punk rock supergroup featuring members of bands such as NOFX and Swingin' Utters, that performs sped up, punktified cover versions of songs by artists such as Elton John.

 The one joke wears a little thin after four or five minutes, especially considering that every punk band has a cover tune in its arsenal, something demonstrated throughout the day including by H2O which performed two -- a Fugazi song and Madonna's Like A Prayer -- in its 30-minute set.

 Still not groundbreaking, but road weary punk rock veterans The Vandals -- 20 years and counting -- can still get the pit heated with their tight, melodic material.

 Next up was the festival's token full-blown hip hop act Kool Keith.

 Sandwiched between the very suburban, very white punk rock of The Vandals and the evening's closing act Pennywise, Keith's rapping was a bump in the road that few in the crowd seemed willing to get over.

 That was unfortunate, because his in-yo-face rap attack was another welcome diversion from the Warped norm.

 Back to the punk basics and winding things up while winding down the show was Hermosa Beach, Ca., act Pennywise.

 The Epitaph Records mainstays and its anthemic archaic approach was the perfect note to end Warped on -- sending everyone home with a good gust of old-school punk rock 'n' roll. (More on: Pennywise).