By Chris Varias
Enquirer contributor

Bethany Cramer, 23, of Newport was in full regalia Monday for the Vans Warped Tour. The Enquirer/BRANDI STAFFORD

The music industry has complained all summer about poor ticket sales across the country, but there was no trace of that trend at Riverbend Monday.

The Vans Warped Tour, in its 10th year, has been the most consistent rock festival of its kind over the last decade, and that success is reflected in each trip to Cincinnati.

After playing the Kentucky Speedway in 2001, the punk-rock/extreme sports tour has set up shop at Riverbend the last two years and pulled big crowds each time. This year, it posted its first Cincinnati sellout at 12,000. (Riverbend capacity, normally 20,000, is smaller for Warped because of the multiple-stage setup.)

With a lineup filled with such MTV favorites as Good Charlotte, Yellowcard, Taking Back Sunday and New Found Glory, this year's Warped skewed more to the pop side of the tour's usual pop-punk formula. Big-name acts on two main stages dominated the crowd's attention, while smaller acts on side stages labored in front of one or two dozen people. In many cases, the music from the tiny tents was more deserving of a listen than retooled, cleaned-up punk renderings of the video stars.

And many of the mostly overlooked bands were from this area.

On the hip-hop Code of the Cutz stage, the underground-rap group Glue, featuring local DJ Dan Hargraves, dazzled a crowd of about 100 with breakneck-speed rhymes and beats. It was Glue's 46th show on the tour, which began June 24 and ends this week in Boston.

After the performance, Glue rapper Adeem said he attributes the Warped Tour's success in part to its homogenized nature.

"In all honesty, I think it's about a fashion. I don't know how punk it really is. A lot of these bands sound the same," he said.

Hargraves added that the groups on the Code of the Cutz stage, located near Riverbend's front gate, were asked to refrain from profanity in their acts. "Because of Coney Island and all the kids hanging around," he said.

Another Cincinnatian making the Warped trek is Mr. Dibbs, MC for the Minnesota-based hip-hop crew Atmosphere. The crew was graced with the big, booming PA treatment on the pavilion stage before a good-sized crowd. Other local hip-hop performers invited to the Cutz stage for the Cincinnati show included Animal Crackers, Abiyah and NSPCREW.

As for local punk, Bottom Line did a spirited set on a small stage with a crowd huddled around. One onlooker was Jamie Mandel of Fairfield, president of Bottom Line's label Nice Guy Records.

Mandel, 23, wasn't surprised by the big turnout in Cincinnati. "I think that this year there's more of a mainstream crossover," he said. "And right now, Cincinnati is at its peak with underground music, which also helps draw a bigger crowd. There are always new little bands to discover."

Sam Fetters, 13, of Sayler Park came to see one of the main-stage headliners, Bad Religion. Sam's father, local musician Rob Fetters - of the un-Warped-like pop-rock bands the Raisins and the Bears - was tagging along and keeping his ears open.

"The band I dug the most so far was (local group) Death in Graceland," said Rob Fetters, 49. "I loved it. They had a little touch of Captain Beefheart at one point. I asked one of them about that, and the guy said, 'Yeah, I think I've heard of Captain Beefheart.' "

Fetters described the day and the crowd as "a moveable feast. It feels to me like everybody's in the band, one big band."

Sam would come to find out his father would not allow him to stay for Bad Religion's 8:30 p.m. show-closing set of old-school West Coast punk.

"Tomorrow's the first day of school," he shrugged.