1999 – turn on the TV and it's all dorky pre-fab boy bands, annoying screeching "divas," or the "Latin" fad featuring Jennifer Lopez's underpants. Looks like punk's dead again, right? Well, guess again.

Lovely blue-haired Vanessa Daughter of Satan and I saw definite signs of life in the venerable American musical form when we attended the 1999 Vans Warped Tour on Randall's Island, July 16th. The concept of the Warped Tour is that people will watch skateboarders and bicyclists perform daredevil stunts while listening to punk rock – kind of like a live version of an MTV "extreme sports" program with sausage and pepper sandwiches and lemonade for sale nearby. Mixing seasoned hard-rock veterans from 7 Seconds to Sevendust with relative newcomers such as H2O, Blink 182 and Royal Crown Revue, the non-stop show kept the mostly teenage crowd (who seemed to know every word to every song) moshing delightedly in the 100-degree weather for over eight hours.

It is kind of strange seeing bands that usually play in dark bars for an adult crowd performing in the bright sunshine for fresh-faced adolescents.

"This whole show is weird," Roger Miret, lead singer of New York City's ground-breaking hardcore band, Agnostic Front, confided in us. "For a while, especially when I first started doing this stuff, I wanted to keep this tight, into our own family, into ourselves. But now I feel like reaching out to the audience is better. So that's what this is really for."

After a moment, the punk rock icon added, "I prefer to play in a club with no barricades and people right there." But, of course, most of this crowd would be too young to be allowed into any rock club. In addition to exposing youngsters to the ways of punk, the tour exposed West and East Coast punk rockers to each other, some for the first time.

Shal Khichi of the Bouncing Souls © 1999 Vanessa Daughter of Satan

Shal Khichi, the drummer of New Jersey's own Bouncing Souls, told us, "You know, we're standing here talking to you and it's the most at home I've felt on this entire tour... A lot of people on this tour who are from the West Coast are like, 'Wow, you've got a strong vibe here,' but I'm like, 'I feel like I'm at home,' you know? I'm relaxed. It's good."

But are the kids in this crowd really getting the same sick, evil, unhealthy, decadent, all-American brand of punk that my generation grew up on? We asked legendary New York City punks the Lunachicks what has changed about their music in the decade that they've been together. We received blank stares and a long silence as our reply.

"It hasn't changed at ALL," responded drummer Chip finally, and guitarist Gina readily agreed. But vocalist Theo insisted that their music has changed. "We've progressed," the sultry songstress suggested, "like a nice fine cheese."

But maybe the biggest staying factor punk has is the curious fact that, like the Stooges records which preceded and inspired them, most punk rock albums don't sell when they're first released.

Mike Muir of Suicidal Tendencies © 1999 Peter Bernard

"Most of the records we've sold have been out five years before people actually bought them," Mike Muir, lead singer of the seminal hardcore punk band Suicidal Tendencies, told Vanessa. "So we say a great record is not how many records you sell the first week it's out, but how many people are listening to it ten years later."

The very Irish Matt Kelly from Boston's Dropkick Murphys got philosophical about it with us. "Punk never died," he claimed. "It was there before the media gave it attention and it was there after it... They couldn't make any money on it, so they declared it dead."

He motioned at the goings-on all around us and added, "Now they're making money on it again."

• More on the Bouncing Souls and H2O
• The NY Rock/Warped Tour Artist Sex Poll

July 1999