warped tour kind of music

75 Warped Tour acts that made the tour legendary

• Published: Jul. 18, 2018, 7:05 a.m.
• Anne Nickoloff and Troy Smith, Cleveland.com

Bryan Bedder

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Over 20 years, countless bands have played parking lots to amphitheaters on the Vans Warped Tour.

For much of that time, Warped has carried the torch for traveling rock festivals. Though, all good things must come to an end.

In honor of this year being the final for the Warped Tour, we look at the 75 acts that made it so hard to say goodbye.

Kevin Winter

1. Paramore

Paramore is a Warped Tour success story. The band started at the small female-fronted Shiragirl stage in 2005 with its first-ever tour and grew to become one of the biggest headliners in its subsequent five Warped Tour performances.

Paramore’s sound has undoubtedly changed over the years, but some of its most iconic releases (2005’s “All We Know Is Falling,” 2007’s “Riot!” and 2009’s “Brand New Eyes”) all arrive during the band’s punky Warped Tour years.

Johanna Leguerre

2. Simple Plan

Simple Plan has played Warped Tour a dozen times, making the trek an essential part of the Canadian band's career, from its rise in the early 2000s to its recent resurgence.

Jason Merritt

3. Blink-182

There is no band more responsible for the popularity of the music featured year after year on the Warped Tour than Blink-182. The band only played the tour four times, but you could find copycat on the bill every year that followed.

Combining elements of skate punk, ska, hardcore and punk, NOFX has been one of the steadiest presences on Warped going all the way back to its early years. The band has served as a must-see on the tour seven times.

5. New Found Glory

What would a summertime party be in the 2000s without some New Found Glory? The band’s fun pop-punk songs and exuberance earned it multiple headlining spots on Warped Tour.

6. Less Than Jake

Although Less Than Jake has performed at Warped Tour 10 times, nothing can tire out the ska-punk band. With colorful outfits, inflatable balls and boundless energy, Less Than Jake has always had a ton of fun on the summer tour.

Atilla Kisbenedek

Sum 41 has a unique Warped Tour. At its peak, the band was one of the most popular acts on the tour. Then things fell apart. But Sum 41's comeback has been staged on the tour the past few years, which has been great to see.

Marsaili McGrath

8. Motion City Soundtrack

Half of Motion City Soundtrack’s lifespan as a band existed in Warped Tour. The band was around for about 20 years and it played the tour for 10 of them, becoming a staple on the lineup.

Mauricio Santana

9. Bad Religion

As pioneers of the pop punk genre, it was essential to have Bad Religion as part of Warped. And the band delivered, performing six times, including two spots ni during important late 1990s runs.

Tina Fineberg

10. Yellowcard

When it comes to stage acrobatics, few Warped Tour bands could beat Yellowcard. Every show, audiences knew to wait for violinist Sean Mackin’s backflips.

Laura Roberts

11. All Time Low

All Time Low burst onto the Warped Tour scene in 2007, but quickly earned fans around the country with its fresh pop-punk sound. The newcomer quickly became a staple for Warped Tour, going on to perform five different fests.

12. Pennywise

Pennywise joined punk acts of Green Day, Rancid, Bad Religion and Blink-182 in gaining mainstream success during the 1990s. Pennywise spread that out over nine warped tours, more than any of those aforementioned acts.

13. Deftones

Deftones were an important addition during the Warped Tour's early run, offering up another name act as the tour was just beginning to take off.

John Davisson

14. Reel Big Fish

It’s hard not to dance at a Reel Big Fish show. The ska-punk band’s infectious, horn-driven sound fits right in with Warped Tour’s punky roots.

It's okay if you've never heard of CIV. Just know they've influenced a ton of punk acts and played Warped three of its first five years.

16. Bowling For Soup

Angsty kids had a soundtrack with Bowling For Soup in the 1990s. Songs like “1985,” “High School Never Ends” and “Girl All The Bad Guys Want” are humorous reminders of the rebellious days of ‘90s kids. The band has continued to play Warped Tour past its heyday, performing throwback tunes for eager fans.

17. Face to Face

Another early Warped pioneer, Face to Face played two of the first three years of the festival. And the California punk band was a solid draw during that time thanks to its hit "Disconnected."

Imeh Akpanudosen

18. Anti-Flag

Anti-Flag has been one of the steadiest acts on Warped during the 21st century, playing the tour no less than 10 times and giving the tour a political charge.

Robb D. Cohen

19. Silverstein

Silversten were a product (influence wise) of several popular Warped acts of the 90s. That made the Canadian post-hardcore outfit a force on the tour nine times, from 2004 to this farewell trip.

20. Katy Perry

Katy Perry played Warped Tour just one year -- 2008. But she made quite the impact. With her single "I Kissed a Girl" No. 1 on the charts, Perry routinely drew the biggest crowds. Another fact: She was dating Gym Class Heroes frontman Travis McCoy at the time and he would carry her out on stage.

Mark Metcalfe

21. Motionless In White

Goth kids can rock, too. And Motionless In White has long catered to the audience members wearing all black on a hot summer day. The gothic metal band has played its heavy, dark music on Warped Tour nine different times.

Noel Vasquez

22. Flogging Molly

Celtic punk band Flogging Molly is one of the biggest leaders of the genre in America. The band played its dancey rock songs to Warped Tour a whopping seven times.

23. The Used

There was a stretch where the emo/screamo sound of The Used was as good a draw as any act on Warped Tour. The band's early albums remain essential parts of canon.

24. The Ataris

The Ataris became the true boys of summer the six times they played Warped Tour. The emo pop band formed in 1996, but continues to tour today (and even played Warped last summer).

25. Green Day

What a treat it was to have Green Day, the band that feels like the godfather of every Warped act, on the tour in 2000.

26. Mayday Parade

Emo rock band Mayday Parade are on Warped Tour’s lineup again for 2018, and it’ll be the seventh time it has played the fest. Fans always eagerly await the band’s best-known hits like “Jamie All Over,” “Miserable At Best” and “Terrible Things.”

From the late 1990s to early 2000s, MxPx spent every other year on the Warped Tour, making itself at home and adding to the tour's skate-punk vibe.

28. Avenged Sevenfold

As Avenged Sevenfold got bigger and bigger in the early 2000s, Warped Tour became the place where fans could enjoy the act in a live setting.

Charles Sykes

29. Fall Out Boy

Fall Out Boy played Warped Tour twice, in 2004 and 2005, before it grew too large for the fest. The band’s 2005 album “From Under The Cork Tree” started snowballing fame for Fall Out Boy that continues today, creating top hits that have crossed over into mainstream success.

Scott Gries

Before Eminem took the world by storm, he played Warped Tour. Yes, you read that right. The Real Slim Shady drew massive crowds in 1999. He would soon get too big to ever return.

31. Good Charlotte

Brothers Joel and Benji Madden have led Good Charlotte into pop-punk stardom since its formation in 1996. The band only played Warped Tour four times, but often led the fest in high headlining spots.

32. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Thanks to bands like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Warped Tour always had a diverse feel to it. It wasn't just about post-hardcore or pop punk, giving ska rockers the chance to shine as well.

33. Chiodos

Chiodos were one of the defining bands of the pop-screamo subgenre, and it mashed together the energetic, melodic rhythms of emo pop, with vocalist Craig Owens’ hellish screams bringing a heavier element. The result: prime tunes for Warped Tour mosh pits.

Duane Prokop

34. A Day to Remember

Warped Tour can be a rowdy day, and that’s especially true with A Day To Remember. The metalcore band had a way of riling up its audience all five times it played the festival.

35. Dropkick Murphys

Infusing traditional Celtic songs with punk rock, Dropkick Murphys added some flavor to Warped Tour’s lineup the five times it participated.

36. We The Kings

Songs like “Check Yes, Juliet” and “Skyway Avenue” are basically Warped Tour anthems. That’s because We The Kings’ infectious, upbeat energy were a fixture in seven different tours.

Chung Sung-Jun

37. Story of the Year

Story of the Year spent most of its time on Warped Tour in the early 2000s, establishing itself as a star of the lineup. The band had just released its hit songs like “Until The Day I Die,” “Anthem Of Our Dying Day” and “And The Hero Will Drown.”

38. The Maine

The Maine formed in 2007, but its first big step into the alternative rock scene was with the 2008 and 2009 Warped Tours. The band released its first album, “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” in 2008, and has gone on to release five more successful albums since then.

Kellie Warren

39. The All-American Rejects

Only a handful of Warped Tour acts have been crossover success in the mainstream music world, and The All-American Rejects are one of them. The band’s songs “Dirty Little Secret,” “It Ends Tonight” and “Move Along” all became famous after its time on Warped Tour.

40. Sleeping With Sirens

Kellin Quinn, the singer of Sleeping With Sirens, is one of the most talented voices in emo rock, with soaring vocals and scratchy growls. He debuted on Warped Tour in 2012, just a couple of years after forming Sleeping With Sirens, and played the fest for five years straight until 2016.

Peter Kramer

Anytime Thrice was on Warped Tour, the band was a big draw. It's complex style brought solid musicianship to the tour and allowed fans to watch the evolution of a band that wasn't afraid to switch things up.

42. Taking Back Sunday

When emo music started to rise up in the 2000s, Taking Back Sunday was one of the most popular bands. Songs like “MakeDamnSure,” “Liar” and “Cute Without The ‘E’” helped to define the genre, and also to define Warped Tour’s distinct sound.

43. Sublime

Sublime co-headlined the second Warped Tour, which was the first time the tour went full-on coast to coast. The band quickly earned a reputation for its naughty behavior, but remained a huge draw.

A mainstay int he West Coast punk rock scene of the early 1990s, Fluf supported Warped during two of the the first three years and helped shape the pop-punk sound.

45. Black Veil Brides

Originally, Black Veil Brides rocked out with big hair, black makeup and tight black outfits, bringing a throwback glam metal vibe to metal music. Over the years, the band has toned down its style a bit, but continued to release heavy, dark music that’s a hit at Warped.

46. Every Time I Die

Since the early 2000s, Every Time I Die has been involved in mini Warped Tour shows. But it wasn’t until 2006 that the band took on a full summer of intense concerts. Since then, the band has played Warped Tour regularly, and is currently on the final fest tour.

47. The Starting Line

One of the most beloved pop-punk acts of all time, The Starting Line played Warped four times during the band's peak period.

Barry Brecheisen

L7 gave girl-rock a face during Warped's early years, helping set the stage for future acts like Paramore and New Years Day.

49. Senses Fail

Senses Fail has played Warped Tour six different times, and the lineup was different many of those times. Yet, despite the turbulence in the band, singer Buddy Nielsen always put on a show, leaping around on the stage with endless energy.

50. No Doubt

It can be hard for a tour to get big acts early on. Fortunately, No Doubt hadn't quite blown up when it played the festival. Gwen Stefani and company would return in 2000 for just one show.

51. Pierce The Veil

Over a decade ago, Pierce The Veil burst onto the emo rock scene, and moved its way up the ranks in Warped Tour. The band started off by playing just one date in 2007, then ended up on the fest’s main stage for the full tour in 2012.

52. Sick of It All

Hardcore rock band Sick of It All played Warped early on but didn't forget its roots. The band returned last year for a standout run.

53. My Chemical Romance

Many Warped Tour fans were hoping My Chemical Romance would reunite to play 2018’s festival. Unfortunately the band, which broke up in 2013, isn’t getting back together any time soon. Yet, MCR’s two performances on Warped Tour were impressionable enough to leave fans begging for more.

54. New Year's Day

When it comes to fans, New Years Day beats a lot of other Warped acts. The band’s fans go all-out with a massive crowd wearing mostly black. At Warped, girls and women can also be seen rocking the half-red, half-black hair pattern made famous by singer Ash Costello.

55. Gym Class Heroes

Gym Class Heroes scored a series of hits in the 2000s and played them live at Warped, giving the tour a steady hip-hop presence.

56. Quicksand

Post-hardcore act Quicksand served as one of the standouts on the first Warped Tour. However, the long trek proved too much for the band who wound up breaking up soon after.

57. Falling In Reverse

Bad-boy singer Ronnie Radke has been in the public eye for several run-ins with the law, at one point serving over two years in prison. That was where he started working on Falling In Reverse, a band that’s played Warped Tour a total of six times and has garnered one of the biggest fanbases of modern metalcore music.

58. Alkaline Trio

Stephen Shugerman

59. Something Corporate

Fronted by pianist and singer Andrew McMahon, Something Corporate put out poppy rock songs that pumped up the crowd all three times the band played Warped Tour. The band was only around regularly for six years, until McMahon continued on with his other band Jack’s Mannequin.

60. Andrew W.K.

Andrew W.K. can pretty much play any kind of festival. But when he brings his wacky set to Warped Tour, it's a one of a kind experience.

Rob Grabowski

61. Dillinger Escape Plan

Don't sleep on metal at Warped Tour. Bands like Dillinger Escape plan have brought their complex mathcore to Warped multiple times.

62. No Use For Name

As one of the most seasoned acts on Warped Tour during the 20th century, No Use For a Name transitioned from hardcore punk to a more melodic sound over the years.

As one of the essential punk rock acts of the 1990s, you knew Rancid would make this list. Tim Armstrong and his trademark guitar joined the tour just three times. But each run was memorable.

64. The Vandals

The Vandals are best known as one of the first rock bands to incorporate turntables into its sound. The band was a steady force on Warped Tour during its peak.

65. Bouncing Souls

Bouncing Souls doesn't get enough credit for its influence on various punk genres 1990s. But anyone who saw the band during at least one of its six Warped appearances knows just how good they were.

Roger Kisby

66. Coheed and Cambria

Coheed and Cambria played Warped three times. But each time the band stood out. Coheed's technical musicianship was unlike anything else at Warped but its bouncy collection of hits was enough to draw impressive crowds.

Astrid Stawiarz

67. Plain White T's

Plain White T’s only played Warped Tour twice. However, the band spiced up the loud, punky event with a softer side, with songs like “Hey There Delilah” and “Rhythm Of Love.”

Karl Walter

68. Underoath

Underoath was a huge part of Warped Tour during the mid-2000s. The band returns to say goodbye in 2018.

Matt Winkelmeyer

69. Saves the Day

Saves The Day formed while singer and guitarist Chris Conley was still in high school, but the band’s sound quickly matured in the form of two full-length albums in the late 1990s. The band’s unique hardcore sound propelled them onto Warped Tour three different times in the festival’s history.

Ethan Miller

70. Unwritten Law

Unwritten Law has toured a lot since the early 1990s and the band has managed to make Warped a part of that four times.

71. Glassjaw

Unfortunately, Glassjaw didn't play Warped Tour during its early years. But the band more than made up for it when it finally joined the tour for a raucous showcase, twice in the mid-2000s.

Katie Darby

72. Four Year Strong

Four Year Strong? More like 17 years strong at this point. The post-hardcore band puts out intense, aggressive music that gets mosh pits going at Warped Tour. Four Year Strong has played the festival six times, including this current summer.

73. Neck Deep

Neck Deep has played a huge role in the more recent pop-punk revival, creating popular albums since 2012’s “Rain In July.” It’s brought that refreshed sound to Warped Tour four different times with massive audiences full of fans.

74. Rise Against

No stranger to any kind of rock showcase, Rise Against's brand of melodic hardcore felt at home all four times the band hit the stage at Warped.

75. Bayside

Bayside has a knack for putting out the catchiest punk and emo songs, like “Sick, Sick, Sick” and “Devotion And Desire.” Those songs proved popular with the Warped Tour crowd—Bayside went on Warped Tour four different times, and frontman Anthony Raneri played the fest one additional time as a solo artist.

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/how-the-warped-tour-helped-artists-and-fans-find-themselves

How the Warped Tour helped artists (and fans) find themselves

Musicians and fans alike are mourning the end of the Vans Warped Tour, whose founder announced last month that the traveling music festival would end in 2018 after 23 years.

Since 1995, the “punk rock summer camp” has been a rite of passage for many big-name artists.

Katy Perry has said she “ got her bearings ” on Warped in 2008. Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman tells a story that The Black Eyed Peas met lead singer Fergie at a barbecue during the festival. Eminem, G-Eazy, and Bebe Rexha all got a kick start from the tour, which attracts an average of 600,000 concertgoers each summer.

Announcing the end “felt like my funeral,” Lyman said. For artists and fans, the buildup to the last tour is a reason to reflect on how much it’s meant to them.

Alex Gaskarth of Baltimore-based pop punk band All Time Low, who played Warped Tour four times, tweeted that without Warped Tour, “I probably would not be where I am today.” Kevin McCallister, drummer for pop rockers Set it Off, wrote on Twitter that the tour was something he looked forward to every summer and was instrumental in shaping his love of music.

Neck Deep, a Welsh pop punk band that built up an American audience on Warped Tour, thanked Lyman for giving them the opportunity to play, tweeting that , “The Warped Tour was something we all grew up dreaming about … some of the best days of our lives.”

In the alternative rock scene, playing the Vans Warped Tour could make careers. Before they played sold-out arenas, Green Day, Fall Out Boy, Blink 182, No Doubt and Paramore joined Lyman’s lineup to perform for whomever showed up.

“To play the entire Warped Tour on a bus is very prestigious in the punk rock world,” said Shane Henderson, former frontman of pop punk band Valencia .

Henderson played Warped Tour five times with Valencia. The band slowly worked its way up from a week of dates in 2005 to eventually joining the tour for all of the 28-plus cities. He remembers walking around the festival playing his music through a set of headphones to drum up support. Later, he sold the band’s record for a dollar to get his music out there.

“Warped Tour makes you take a hard look at yourself and your performance. How can we be more entertaining? How can we make people come back and see us?” Henderson, 32, said. “There’s a lot of competition there.”

Warped Tour has no age limit and its core audience skews young — 15 to 25 years old. Lyman credits that to the kind of bands he booked. Seventy percent of his lineup were the bands popular with teens, like Fall Out Boy, Paramore, the All American Rejects and All Time Low. He remembers standing in the pit, watching bands like My Chemical Romance draw in hundreds of kids who couldn’t even drink yet, and immediately booking the band for another stint on the tour.

“[Warped Tour] had the ability, through access to popular bands and brands, to harness a style and sound kids loved,” said Stephen Thompson, writer for NPR Music. “Because the music tended to have a darker, outcast-y edge to it, Warped Tour could bring together lots of kids who felt alienated and frustrated.”

The tour averages 40 dates a summer, and 20,000-plus young fans attend each stop. To keep everyone safe, Lyman admits chaperones free of charge and sets up air-conditioned tents for them, known as “reverse daycare.”

Set times for specific bands are intentionally kept a secret from not only the fans, but from the musicians as well. Lyman said Warped helps musicians learn to tour, part of which means being ready to go at any time, and making an effort to draw an audience. “There’s no elitism on Warped Tour,” Lyman said. “You just have to be a great live performer.”

Caroline Shaw, 19, brought her 51-year-old father to one of the three Warped Tour shows she’s attended, dragging him into the pit so he could feel the energy that she loves so much. “Warped Tour is loud and chaotic,” Shaw said. “But it’s this tiny piece of chaos that makes sense to me.”

At Warped Tour, Shaw, then an engineering major at Iowa State University and hating it, decided to become a music journalist. Today, she’s the music writer for her college newspaper and uses that platform as a way to chase the feeling she first experienced at Warped Tour.

“I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if I hadn’t gone to Warped,” Shaw said. “Warped Tour is, or was, this place where young people could be themselves and not be hidden.”

Warped Tour set itself apart by traveling to the cities that many arena or club tours often ignore. For 17-year-old Natalie Lindsey, seeing bands like Sleeping with Sirens or Pierce the Veil play her tiny Kansas hometown was a huge deal. She’s attended the tour three times now, and considers the festival “a relief” from the conservatism she’s grown up in.

“The bands on Warped Tour talk about things other bands don’t want to talk about, like addiction and mental health and confidence,” Lindsey said. “Warped Tour allows me to find friends who have gone through the same struggles I have. It’s a sense of family.”

Family values are what Lyman had in mind when he chose a sponsor for the tour in 1996. After declining to have Calvin Klein fund the tour, Lyman was approached by Steve Van Doren, whose family founded the California skate shoe company Vans in 1966.

“Music wasn’t my forte — I was a shoe guy,” Van Doren said. “But we had always seen bands with shoes and we wanted to get into that.”

Vans shoes became a quintessential punk rock staple, and Van Doren says it all started on Warped Tour.

The tour has also brought a philanthropic aim to its merchandising, holding blood drives, collecting canned goods and providing support services for substance abuse and mental health, in addition to working with groups devoted to animal rights advocacy and suicide awareness.

“Warped Tour is the kind of place that can change you as a person,” Lindsey said. “It really showed me that you’re more than just yourself, and inspired me to help other people.”

The final Vans Warped Tour will cross the country June 21 – Aug. 5, 2018. Fans have begged for Warped-Tour greats like Fall Out Boy, All Time Low and My Chemical Romance to play the final round. Henderson has offered to reunite Valencia just to play Warped one last time.

And what does the end of the tour mean for the music? “That’s going to be for the next generation to figure out,” Lyman said. “One of those kids out there has to step up and take the scene forward.”

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Vans Warped Tour: A Journey Through Music, Unity, and Rebellion

Posted by Jason McMahon | Feb 14, 2024 | Culture , Featured | 0 |

In the annals of music history, there exists a phenomenon that transcended mere festivals; it became a cultural movement, a rite of passage, and a symbol of rebellion and unity. This phenomenon is none other than the Vans Warped Tour . For over two decades, the tour crisscrossed the continent, leaving an indelible mark on the hearts and minds of countless fans and musicians alike. It was more than just a showcase of punk, rock, and alternative music—it was a community, a platform for expression, and a celebration of youth culture.

The festival was crucial for the launch of many musical acts as well as independently owned brands such as Substream Magazine . I recall doing a cover shoot with Hey Monday who was a headliner for the festival in 2010. Kevin had offered up his back yard and pool for the afternoon! He offered up his home, pool and grilling skills to the entire crew. That’s the kind of guy he was.

The roots of the Vans Warped Tour can be traced back to the early 1990s, a time when alternative music was surging in popularity. It was during this era that Kevin Lyman, a seasoned music industry veteran, conceived the idea of a traveling festival that would cater to the burgeoning punk and skateboarding communities. Drawing inspiration from the DIY ethos of punk rock and the raw energy of skate culture, Lyman set out to create an event unlike anything the music world had seen before.

“We wanted to bring together the worlds of music and skateboarding in a way that hadn’t been done before,” recalls Lyman. “We wanted to create a space where young people could come together, express themselves, and celebrate their passions.”

And so, in the summer of 1995, the inaugural Vans Warped Tour kicked off in a handful of cities across the United States. Featuring a lineup of up-and-coming punk and ska bands, as well as a makeshift skate ramp, the tour immediately struck a chord with audiences hungry for something new and exciting.

“It was like nothing we’d ever experienced before,” says Tim Armstrong, frontman of the influential punk band Rancid, who performed on the first Warped Tour. “There was this sense of freedom and camaraderie that you just couldn’t find anywhere else. It felt like we were part of something special.”

As the tour progressed and evolved, the Vans Warped Tour grew in size and scope, attracting bigger crowds and more diverse lineups. Bands like NOFX, Bad Religion, and Pennywise became synonymous with the tour, while newcomers such as Blink-182, Green Day, and My Chemical Romance found a platform to showcase their talents to a wider audience.

“It was a crazy time,” reflects Mark Hoppus of Blink-182. “We were just a bunch of kids from San Diego with big dreams, and suddenly we were playing in front of thousands of people every day. It was surreal.”

But beyond the music, the Vans Warped Tour was also known for its sense of community and inclusivity. From its early days, the tour embraced diversity and welcomed fans of all backgrounds, genders, and identities.

“It didn’t matter who you were or where you came from,” says Hayley Williams of Paramore. “At Warped Tour, we were all part of the same family. It was a place where you could be yourself without fear of judgment.”

For many bands, the Vans Warped Tour was not just a chance to perform, but also an opportunity to connect with fans on a personal level.

“It was like summer camp for punk rockers,” says Travis Barker of Blink-182. “We’d spend all day hanging out with fans, signing autographs, and just soaking in the energy of the crowd. It was pure magic.”

Over the years, the Vans Warped Tour continued to evolve, adapting to changing musical trends and cultural shifts. While punk and ska remained at the heart of the tour, organizers also began to incorporate elements of emo, hardcore, metal, and hip-hop into the lineup, reflecting the diverse tastes of its audience.

“We always tried to stay ahead of the curve,” says Lyman. “We wanted Warped Tour to be a reflection of the ever-changing landscape of alternative music. We never wanted to get stuck in one particular genre.”

Despite its success, the Vans Warped Tour faced its fair share of challenges over the years. From financial struggles to logistical headaches, organizing a cross-country tour of this magnitude was no easy feat.

“It was a constant balancing act,” admits Lyman. “There were times when we didn’t know if we’d be able to keep the tour going. But we always found a way to make it work because we believed in what we were doing.” I’ll never forget the afternoon in Cincinnati, OH when sitting with Kevin backstage when he looked at me in all honesty and said, “I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.”  

In 2018, after 24 years and over 1,000 shows, Kevin Lyman made the difficult decision to bring the Vans Warped Tour to an end. Citing declining ticket sales and the changing dynamics of the music industry, Lyman felt that it was time to close this chapter of his life.

“It was bittersweet,” says Lyman. “On one hand, I was proud of everything we’d accomplished over the years. But on the other hand, it was hard to say goodbye to something that had been such a big part of my life for so long.”

As news of the tour’s demise spread, fans and musicians alike took to social media to share their memories and express their gratitude for the impact that the Vans Warped Tour had had on their lives.

“It’s the end of an era,” tweeted Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy. “Warped Tour was more than just a music festival—it was a movement. Thank you, Kevin Lyman, for everything.”

In the years since its final curtain call, the legacy of the Vans Warped Tour lives on in the hearts and minds of those who experienced it firsthand. From the countless bands who got their start on its stages to the millions of fans who found solace and inspiration within its walls, the tour will forever hold a special place in the annals of music history.

“As sad as I am to see it go, I’m grateful for the memories,” says Lyman. “Warped Tour was more than just a job—it was a labor of love. And I wouldn’t trade those years for anything in the world.”

Although the sun has set on the legacy of the Vans Warped Tour, one thing remains abundantly clear: its impact has been felt and will be felt for generations to come. For those who were lucky enough to experience it, the tour will forever serve as a reminder of the power of music to unite, inspire, and ignite the flames of rebellion.

“The spirit of Warped Tour will never die,” says Tim McIlrath of Rise Against. “As long as there are kids out there with guitars and something to say, the legacy of Warped Tour will live on.”

Kevin, if your reading this, let’s bring back Warped Tour!  

About The Author

Jason McMahon

Owner at Substream Media Group LLC (Substream Records, Substream Magazine, Substream Music Distribution)

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An Oral History of the Warped Tour

The hard-partying music festival holds its last Denver show this month.

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In August 1995, a traveling alt-rock music festival called the Warped Tour played at the University of Colorado’s Franklin Field in Boulder—the tour’s second show. Over the next 23 years, it helped launch the careers of big names like Eminem and Paramore, plus hundreds of less-famous talents. These days, the Warped Tour is best known as an epic musical carnival filled with nearly as much debauchery as music. Jon Shockness, of the Denver band Air Dubai, compares it to a never-ending summer block party set to ear-drum-damaging decibels. Unfortunately for the festival’s fans, the party is over: 2018 will be the Warped Tour’s final encore. In advance of its last Denver stop this month, we asked bands and promoters to recall the best, and worst, of Warped.

“Bill Bass was the promoter with [the late] Barry Fey. They were so busy with other shows they assigned an intern to run the Warped Tour. About an hour before, we realized they had no concessions. We bought two Weber barbecue grills and $1 sodas and hot dogs at the supermarket. Barry called and yelled at us because the show was a piece of crap and he lost money. All I could think was, We made $500 selling hot dogs.” – Kevin Lyman , Warped Tour founder

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“Warped Tour isn’t glamorous. Katy Perry’s going in a port-a-potty like everyone else. Toward the end of the tour, she had a number one song. She threw a crazy party in a hotel room in Portland. She was dragging us across the floor of a booze-stained hotel room. It was a rock ‘n’ roll moment.

When we did the whole tour for the first time [in 2008], we shared a bus with another band and two sponsors. This was in the emo era of music—off-center, straight, asymmetrical haircuts were in vogue. I could count the seconds until the bus was going to short out because the bands were flat-ironing their hair. The bus would just power down and go bzzzzsh. It was like clockwork.” – Nathaniel Motte of Boulder electronic duo 3OH!3, which played the entire tour three times

“Playing the show is 35 minutes of the day, and you’re there for 24 hours. My fun didn’t start till 5 or 6 at night. I got the word ‘f—’ tattooed on my back one year; I tattooed ‘f—’ on somebody else’s back.

We rode in inflatable rafts that went out into the crowd every day. Sometimes the rafts reached another stage. I’d have to grab a mic and run back to the [original] stage.” – David Schmitt of Breathe Carolina, a Denver-born EDM band that played the Warped Tour four times

“Some of [the Warped Tour’s stops] are isolated. One time, I did not want to use the port-a-potty, so I walked like five miles to find an office building in the middle of nowhere. Awesome tour. Horrible bathrooms.

Once the doors would close, the barbecue grills would light up. The parties were awesome.” – Jon Shockness , whose band Air Dubai played Warped in 2009 and 2014

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How 23 Years of Warped Tour Changed America

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After almost a quarter of a century, and having showcased upwards of 1700 bands, Warped Tour as we know it will come to an end when summer 2018 does. For the most mainstream of Americans who never attended, the tour always looked like an outlier -- a noisy summertime day out for the same kids that shopped at Hot Topic, wore too much eyeliner, and learned HTML by editing their MySpace profiles. Truthfully though, Warped Tour's impact on mainstream pop culture was enormous.

Warped Tour started out scrappy. It was 1995, pop punk was just starting to explode out of the underground -- thanks to Green Day's major label debut, Dookie -- and founder Kevin Lyman , having spent three years working on the Lollapalooza tour, recognized a gap in the festival market. That first Warped was 25 dates -- a breeze for bands and crews who later got used to the jaunt going on for twice as long. No one could foresee back then just how big -- or long-running -- this juggernaut would become.

While Warped's biggest impact has been taking underground culture and smearing it across America in broad daylight every summer, what is so often forgotten is that this was also the venue used by the likes of Katy Perry and Eminem to launch their careers to wider audiences. It's where Sonny Moore started out (in a band named From First to Last ) before he metamorphosed into EDM megastar, Skrillex . It's where No Doubt spent their summer the year before they exploded on a global scale.

Dominic Davi , Oakland-based bassist of  Tsunami Bomb , has been attending Warped since 1995 and playing it since 2001. "It's so easy to forget now," he says, "but when it started, and for a long time into it, the bands Warped Tour was assembling did not get played on the radio. They were not featured on festival lineups. Kevin Lyman helped shine a light onto all these bands that were drawing various amounts on their own, but together could fill a festival. That took a lot of vision."

"In the end," Davi continues, "Warped launched all these careers and was directly responsible for the punk rock explosion that happened in the early 2000s. That's quite a feat."

Warped Tour, especially in its earliest years, acted this way, year upon year, launching artists out of obscurity and into the eyeline of the mainstream. Blink 182, a band that was long considered too crude and provocative for mainstream success, appeared on three out of the four Warpeds between 1996 and 1999. It's no coincidence that by 2000, they were one of the biggest bands in the country.

Not only did Warped change how punk rock was treated by mainstream music culture, it had an indelible impact on the lives of the thousands of people who lived and worked on the tour over the years, some of whom came back annually, without fail. Along the way, it also helped to further unify a nationwide community of punks, rebels, and renegades.

Dominic Davi compares spending a summer on the tour to "running away with the circus." Photographer Lisa Johnson , whose work documenting Warped Tour has been featured on the covers of several official compilations, as well as in the book, Misfit Summer Camp: 20 Years on the Road With Vans , elaborates: "Warped Tour is a place where seemingly anything is possible. Utopia. Hard work and happiness, plus some fun in the sun. There is just always something magic in the air."

The unique spirit of Warped is precisely why hundreds of people have stepped up, year after year, to work in unbearably high temperatures, notoriously dusty environs, facing parking lot after parking lot with few views of the outside world (unless you count the occasional midnight trip to Wal-Mart) for weeks on end.

It's difficult to fathom why anybody would want to spend an entire summer in those conditions -- until you actually do it. In 2006, I joined Warped Tour for five days to write a story for a British rock magazine. Somehow, five days turned into seven weeks. I skipped my flight home to sell merch for one of the bands I had met along the way, and had zero regrets about hitting 'pause' on the rest of my life to do so.

For thousands of us, Warped has always been that way -- once you get caught in its vortex, it's hard to extricate yourself from it. "It's this huge production," Davi says, "with so many moving parts. It's hard work. You are moving all day. I think you have to be a particular personality to love that life. I always did."

The video below that Lisa Johnson took at a backstage party in 2014, effectively sums up the hilarity, unified chaos, and good-natured anarchy of Warped Tour (and also why the nightly after-show barbecues have become the stuff of legend). Take into account that the people you see in this clip are the people working the tour -- crew members, band members, merch people, stage hands. Work days may be long and conditions may sometimes be hard, but on the best nights, this is what happens once the ticket-buying public leaves:

There's no doubting that in recent years Warped Tour has, to some degree at least, lost its niche, while also weathering some damaging storms. "In many ways," Davi notes, "I think when the bands on the tour became bands that the radio and MTV embraced, it became harder to preserve that core exclusivity and unique feeling that Warped Tour had. At first it made the tour bigger, but having to chase the trends and adapt to bands with more exposure, I think made it more difficult to make the tour a special experience. By trying to please everyone they had a harder time pleasing anyone."

The summer tour's time might be drawing to a close, but Warped promises to live on in other capacities: there will be some sort of 25th anniversary celebration, and the first Warped Rewind at Sea cruise just happened last month. More than that though, the tour leaves behind a legacy. It impacted a couple of generations of punk, emo and hardcore bands, as well as their fans. Warped brought a newfound acceptance of alternative culture to all corners of the country. It was a confidence builder for teens who felt alienated in their suburban high schools; it was a training camp for small bands, and a springboard for larger ones; and, for a long while there, it fundamentally changed the fabric of alternative music in America.

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How Warped Tour led the consumerist music festival revolution

The iconic festival was as much about brands as it was about bands.

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by Hilary George-Parkin

Most of what I remember about being 14 involves wanting stuff: I wanted straighter hair. I wanted to seem like a grown-up (or at least like a 16-year-old). And I really, really wanted to go to Warped Tour. 

It was the summer of 2004, and pop-punk was ascendant. In Canada, where I grew up, this meant listening to a steady stream of Sum 41, Avril Lavigne, Simple Plan, and Billy Talent — all homegrown acts that got regular radio play thanks in part to Canadian content laws . With that as our gateway, my friends and I began our foray into skate-punk lite, memorizing Taking Back Sunday lyrics, trying (poorly) to land an ollie , and developing extremely unrequited crushes on any boy who bore a passing resemblance to Blink-182’s Tom DeLonge.

To us, Warped Tour — the traveling “misfit summer camp” that merged punk, ska, rock, and emo with extreme sports and a healthy array of corporate sponsors — was the pinnacle of cool. Unfortunately, I never got to attend, on account of being at actual summer camp.

This summer, Warped Tour celebrates its 25th birthday, making it far older than the teenagers it has courted for two and a half decades. Last year was the tour’s final cross-country run — it featured hundreds of bands over the course of 38 stops for which nearly 550,000 tickets were sold, but this impressive turnout was buoyed by the announcement that it was the event’s last hurrah. Attendance the prior year, in 2017, had been down significantly, particularly among the 14- to 17-year-old demographic that had historically been Warped’s lifeblood. The audience was getting older, production costs were rising, and bands weren’t sticking around year after year like they used to. Plus, according to founder and producer Kevin Lyman, he was just getting tired. 

But in the era of reboots and remakes , it’s not surprising that organizers would want to honor the tour’s silver anniversary just one year after it shut down. The result is a three-city affair: a single-day event in Cleveland celebrating the opening of a retrospective exhibit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and weekend shows in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Mountain View, California. While not strictly a nostalgia play — there are up-and-coming bands booked alongside veterans, and plenty of fans are first-time Warped attendees — this year, the average age of concertgoers appears to be more than a decade older than it was at the tour’s height (15 or 16, as of 2006 ), and plenty of the once-wayward youth now have kids of their own in tow, keeping them a safe distance from the mosh pit.

This is how, on a Saturday in late June, I find myself on a crowded Jersey beach sandwiched between Caesars Casino and the Atlantic Ocean, belting out Simple Plan’s “I’m Just a Kid” with nearly 30,000 other people — many of whom, like me, were in fact kids when the song came out in 2002. High school may be a distant memory, but at least now I’ve finally made it to Warped Tour.

”Oh, my god, I am 12 years old again,” says the sunburnt guy in checkerboard Vans beside me as the crowd whines along with singer Pierre Bouvier: “Nobody cares, ’cause I’m alone and the world is having more fun than me tonight.”

The lyrics don’t exactly fit the setting — no one here is alone and everyone seems to be having fun — but the feeling’s still there. For a little while, we’re all our angsty teen selves again. Likewise, there’s a twinge of irony when Good Charlotte tear into their breakout single “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” a middle finger to celebrity culture written long before Joel and Benji Madden (the band’s lead singer and guitarist) married Hollywood it-girls (Nicole Richie and Cameron Diaz, respectively).

Warped Tour itself is a contradiction — it’s a punk rock festival that’s also a prodigious marketing machine, sponsored from top to bottom by brands hoping to win over fans in between shows. This isn’t a knock on the tour, really: if it weren’t able to bridge that gap, it probably wouldn’t exist. 

The idea for Warped began germinating while Kevin Lyman was working as a stage manager for the alt-rock-focused Lollapalooza in the early ’90s — back when that, too, was a touring festival. He had been immersed in SoCal’s hardcore and ska scenes growing up and wanted to bring some of his favorite bands to audiences around the country with a back-to-basics tour that did away with the music industry’s hierarchies and out-of-control egos: no headliners, no arenas — just a few thousand fans in a parking lot and an average ticket price of less than $30.

Even for the biggest acts, that DIY spirit shone through. “You feel more like a carnie on Warped Tour than you do on any other tour or at any other festival,” says Adam Lazzara, the lead singer of Taking Back Sunday, who are currently in the midst of a 20th-anniversary tour , “just because you’re literally there setting up and breaking down into the next town.” Lyman also tapped a handful of pro skateboarders and BMX bikers to come along, recognizing the crossover between extreme sports fans and punk rock’s moshing masses, as well as the fact that both subcultures were becoming increasingly mainstream. 

In 1995, the same year Warped made its debut run in the summer, ESPN aired the inaugural X Games (then called “Extreme Games”), with athletes competing in action sports such as barefoot water skiing, street luge, and skateboarding. The year prior, the Offspring and Green Day — both bands with roots in California’s underground punk scene — released best-selling albums that catapulted them into popular culture.

The time was ripe for something like Warped to exist, though in order to get it off the ground, Lyman needed to buck one of the central tenets of punk and get a few executives to break out their checkbooks. “I grew up with that whole ‘eff corporate America’ mentality,” he says. “And then, for me, I just started looking at corporate America, and no matter how punk rock we were or whatever, we were still supporting it in some way. We were buying their brands; we were using their products.” He looked at the Rolling Stones pulling in millions through sponsorships with Jovan fragrance and Budweiser, and thought: Maybe we can get some money too.

It didn’t go seamlessly at first. After the 1995 run — which featured an eclectic lineup that included the ska-reggae band Sublime, a Tragic Kingdom -era No Doubt, and the grunge pioneers L7 — the tour was in dire straits financially, as the small sponsorships Lyman had landed from brands like Converse and Spin weren’t enough to cover the significant production costs. To keep it going, he was desperate enough to consider brokering a deal with the decidedly not-punk Calvin Klein to become the title sponsor. “I don’t really think that would have worked,” he now says, matter-of-factly.

Fortuitously, the meeting with the fashion brand was delayed by the devastating East Coast blizzard of 1996, and before they could go any further with the arrangements, Lyman got a call from Vans CEO Walter Schoenfeld.

Founded in 1966 as the Van Doren Rubber Company, Vans had engendered strong ties to the skateboarding community, which was loyal to the brand’s sneakers thanks to their grippy soles. The $300,000 check the company wrote turned the Warped Tour into the Vans Warped Tour, giving Lyman some financial runway while securing the festival’s ties to corporate America. (At the time, Vans was owned by the venture banking firm McCown De Leeuw & Co., thanks to a $71 million 1988 leveraged buyout .)

The Warped partnership was led by Steven Van Doren, the company’s vice president of events and promotions and the son of Vans founder Paul Van Doren, who saw an opportunity to give the brand national exposure beyond the Sun Belt states that at the time accounted for most of its sales. He also introduced amateur skateboarding competitions to the tour, giving contestants the chance to win pro contracts with Vans. “Having Steve involved really solidified our partnership,” says Lyman, noting that he turned down bigger subsequent sponsorship offers from the shoe brand Airwalk because he felt Vans was in it for the long haul. 

He was right: By 1999, Spin reported at the time, Vans owned a 15 percent stake in Warped and was paying $1 million per year “to strengthen [its] presence with ‘Generation Y’” (or, as we’d call them today, “millennials”). Two years later, it stepped up its investment, paying $5.2 million for a 70 percent controlling stake, according to Forbes .

Today, Vans is a $3 billion brand — current parent company VF Corp bought it for $396 million in 2004 — and a household name for most Americans, including those who have never set foot on a skateboard. Even as it has grown well beyond its fringier roots, though, the brand’s relationship with Warped has endured, and at the 25th-anniversary show, seemingly every other fan is wearing Vans sneakers: Sk8-Hi’s , Old Skools , the ubiquitous checkerboard slip-ons . 

(Airwalk fizzled by the early 2000s and was reborn as a Payless brand; its current owners — the same company that recently acquired Sports Illustrated — are trying to stage a ’90s-nostalgia-fueled comeback .)

Even with the Vans investment, Lyman had to hustle to keep the tour afloat in the early years. “We had to raise nearly $4 million in sponsorships to make the ticket price what it was, to give you the show you wanted, to bring all those side stages that developed young artists,” he says.

In 1999, he signed a partnership with the brand new surf label Hurley and got up-and-comers Blink-182 — then still a year out from the explosively popular Enema of the State — to wear the brand’s clothes onstage in exchange for free seats on one of the Warped Tour’s buses, since the band couldn’t yet afford their own transportation. It was a turning point for both band and brand: Blink had just replaced its former drummer with Travis Barker, who’s still with the group today, and Hurley’s founder Bob Hurley had left a successful career with Billabong to start his namesake clothing line earlier that year. Four years later, Blink was selling out arenas and topping Billboard charts, and Hurley had grown into a $70 million business, which Nike acquired in 2002 . 

It wasn’t just hormone-addled fans going through an adolescence of sorts at Warped. “I always said Warped was a developmental spot, not only for bands but for crew people to learn how to tour and learn how to be good citizens in the music community, as well as brands,” says Lyman. “A lot of brands got their starts in those parking lots.”

One of those was Monster Energy, which has been a tour sponsor since it launched in 2003, back when it was made by a California soda company called Hansen’s Natural Co. The company set up a portable rock wall, became “the official energy drink of the Vans Warped Tour,” and embarked on a wildly successful rebrand that has seen its stock soar more than 72,000 percent since its public debut that same year. According to Lyman, Monster also came up with the idea of “Tour Water” — specially designed cans of water that make it look like bands and crew members are chugging energy drinks all day onstage without the risk of cardiac arrest; the concept is now an industry standard, and cans from early tours go for more than $75 on eBay .

Another was Jeffree Star Cosmetics. Before Star was a beauty mogul, he was a MySpace-famous scene kid who performed on the tour as a solo artist in 2008 and 2009. In the following years, he came back to host meet-and-greets with his YouTube fans and, when he launched his makeup empire in 2014, set up shop among the merch tents.

The Warped Tour also forced more corporate brands to loosen up a little: After the PlayStation team showed up in uniform polo shirts their first year on the tour, Lyman told them they’d have to change, citing a life motto of his: “Never trust a person in a golf shirt unless you’re at a golf course.” (They’re either a douchebag or they don’t know what they’re talking about, he says.) 

When the tour created a “reverse day care” for parents on-site in 2001 — complete with air conditioning and noise-canceling headphones — Lyman convinced Target to put its bull’s-eye logo on top, sans brand name, citing the symbol’s history with ’70s mod bands like the Who and the Jam. He even dug out the Ramones’ tour rider to persuade the makers of Yoo-hoo that the chocolate drink was, in fact, kinda punk rock, and by the 1998 tour, fans were climbing a rock wall shaped like a giant Yoo-hoo bottle and competing for branded skateboard decks . 

Walking around the grounds in Atlantic City, there’s a near-endless array of stuff to buy at Warped this year: limited-edition Vans, commemorative 25th anniversary bracelets, T-shirts reading “Mall Goth Trash” and “SadBoy Crew,” henna tattoos, water bottles, skate decks, and beer koozies (plus $14 Pacifico). There are also plenty of freebies: branded coupon wristbands from the teen retailer Journeys, which has been the tour’s presenting sponsor since 2014; T-shirts from Truth, the anti-smoking organization; stickers from PETA.

Among the panoply of shoppable teenage rebellion are booths with a cause, like Hope for the Day , a suicide prevention organization, and A Voice for the Innocent , a nonprofit that offers resources to survivors of rape and sexual abuse, which was brought on board in the wake of a series of sexual assault and harassment allegations involving artists who had performed on the tour.

”The Warped Tour is really interesting because it jumped early on the idea that crowds could be commodified,” says Gina Arnold, a former rock journalist and the author of Half a Million Strong: Crowds and Power from Woodstock to Coachella . “They were able to widen out the notion of the festival as a marketplace — not so much of ideas, but a marketplace of actual things.”

Today, the concept of festival-as-shopping-mall is well established — so much so that this year’s Coachella attendees could have Amazon orders delivered same-day to lockers on site — but in the ’90s, it was still a novel idea. Before then, it was all “bad food and band T-shirts,” as Arnold put it. (The exception: the parking lot of any Grateful Dead concert, long a thriving marketplace of tie-dye tees , beaded jewelry, DIY taco stands, and any drug you might fancy, collectively known as Shakedown Street .)

Band T-shirts still make up the bulk of the merch at Warped, just as they do at most concerts these days. As album sales have dropped off a cliff and services like Spotify have taken their place, paying a fraction of a penny per stream, merchandise has become an increasingly essential part of artists’ income. A superstar like Taylor Swift or Kanye West can gross $300,000 to $400,000 in merch during a single show, according to a Billboard interview with licensing exec Dell Furano. Warped artists aren’t coming close to that, but especially at the tour’s peak, they were pulling in a good amount of cash.

Taking Back Sunday made a reported $20,000 to $30,000 per show on merch on the 2004 tour; My Chemical Romance set the record the next year, selling $60,000 worth of black T-shirts, sinister-looking posters, and fingerless gloves at a single stop. 2005 was also the only year Warped made money on ticket sales, according to Lyman. Headliners Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance were regulars on MTV’s TRL thanks to crossover hits “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down” and “Helena.” Teens who hadn’t heard of most of the “authentic” punk bands the tour had booked in prior years were turning out in droves. By the end of the 48 dates, 700,000 fans had bought tickets, and the tour grossed an all-time high of $25 million .

”That was a pretty wild year, with all the bands exploding,” says Lisa Johnson, who’s been photographing Warped Tour since its first run. “I’m not gonna lie, it was a little frustrating in the photo pit because it was so jam-packed. And a little dangerous, because there were so many kids coming over the barricade constantly. But at the same time, how fantastic is that?”

Of course, not everyone agreed. From its inception, Warped provoked criticism from punk purists who argued — not without reason — that the corporate-sponsored festival was antithetical to the values of the genre. It also ruffled feathers with the bands it booked, particularly as the rise of “mall punk” and emo put bands like Good Charlotte, Blink-182, and My Chemical Romance alongside punk mainstays like Rancid, Pennywise, and Bad Religion. 

”You go to the Warped Tour and walk around and you’ll hear 100 bands that try to sound like Green Day or NOFX. It’s just disgusting,” said Mike Avilez, a vocalist for the California punk band Oppressed Logic, in the book Gimme Something Better: The Profound, Progressive, and Occasionally Pointless History of Bay Area Punk from Dead Kennedys to Green Day . “They’re missing the angst. To me, punk rock is supposed to be angry and pissed off.”

The tour has also caught flak from within over the years. In a 2004 Chicago Reader piece , “Punk Is Dead! Long Live Punk!” the music critic Jessica Hopper chronicled a clash between Lyman and a band called the Mean Reds: “It was only the sixth day of the tour, and they were already on ‘probation’ for running their mouths onstage about what a sold-out capitalist-pig enterprise Warped is, how it isn’t really punk, et cetera.” 

Even Adweek, hardly a voice of the counterculture, said in 2005 that the influx of corporate cash “does somewhat undermine the legitimacy of the event, even as it introduces groups of men in tight pants to new audiences.”

Among those who’ve been along for the ride since Warped’s early days, though, ambivalence about the scene’s brushes with the mainstream is tempered by ideas both idealistic — that the tour provided a platform to bands that otherwise might not have made it, and a community for kids who didn’t always fit in elsewhere — and practical.

”There’s always going to be critics,” says Shira Yevin, who’s performed at Warped as Shiragirl since 2004, and for a decade produced a stage at the tour dedicated to promoting women-fronted bands. “But they’re the same ones bitching because they only got paid $100 for the gig and they don’t have enough money to get to the next state, you know?” 

In 2019, the idea of “selling out” seems like a product of an earlier generation — one without climate change or student loans or school gun violence to worry about. And anyway, the purists may be getting their way for now, since even pop punk isn’t popular these days. Instead, the top 40 charts are ruled by Lil Nas X’s boundary-pushing country trap, genre-fluid acts like Billie Eilish , and mumble rappers like Post Malone. The loud, fast, guitar-driven sound that Warped is known for? “In top 40, it’s very rare,” says Nate Sloan, a musicologist and the co-host of Vox’s Switched on Pop podcast . “Even the bands that sort of assert that look and that style and may throw a guitar around their shoulder, the actual sound doesn’t necessarily have that.”

On the second day of the Atlantic City shows, in one of the festival’s seemingly endless meet-and-greet lines, I meet 20-year-old Sam and 14-year-old Tori, friends from Philadelphia who made the trip down for their first Warped Tour. Sam has rainbow hair and rainbow gauges in her ears; Tori’s wearing a Set It Off band tee. They met at the Hot Topic where Sam works, a store that itself has transformed from mall-goth central into a haven for geek fashion . 

”I basically live there,” says Tori.

”We vibed about the music we listen to,” says Sam. 

”I don’t really have any other friends that listen to this kind of stuff,” explains Tori. “I almost kind of get made fun of, because it’s like, ‘Oh, emo music, what do you do, cry all day?’”

At Sam’s high school, most guys listened to trap or rap, while “angsty music” was mostly the domain of girls or “the guys who had a bad upbringing.”

”It was just divided,” she adds. “Like the way the country is right now.”

While genres may separate fans into factions in high school, Sloan says they’re not necessarily as diametrically opposed as they seem. “A lot of the sensibility of rock ’n’ roll has gone into the sound of SoundCloud rap and mumble rap,” he says. “This genre is sort of the spiritual heir to a lot of the acts that first kicked off the original Warped Tour. Sonically, it feels like a world apart in a lot of ways, but in terms of the intense emotional affect, it’s very clearly picking up the mantle.” 

Part of the transformation may be technological. “Maybe 20, 30 years ago, if you were an angsty teenager, the easiest way to express yourself would have been by installing yourself and your friends in the garage with a couple of crappy guitars and a battered drum set,” says Sloan. “Today, the easiest way to express your angst would be through a pirated copy of [the music software] FruityLoops and a USB microphone.” This evolution may also help explain why punk’s communal, anti-commercial spirit seems to have fallen out of favor while themes like alienation and disaffection (which Gen Z artists like Eilish mine extensively) have endured. 

Shifting musical tastes are just one factor contributing to Warped’s decline. Most people I talked to had similar theories about what’s behind the drop-off in teen attendance: It’s not just that today’s rock bands can’t compete with the colossal forces of hip-hop and pop; they’re also up against YouTube, Netflix, TikTok , esports, and social media, all of which are pouring billions into the race for young people’s attention. Plus, parents are warier about sending their kids to live shows because of tragedies like the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas and the bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England .

Lamenting the changing habits of teenagers has always been an adults’ game, though. For the current generation of fans and artists, the end of the tour is, inevitably, the beginning of whatever comes next. Not Ur Girlfrenz was the youngest touring act at Warped last year, and now at ages 13 (bassist Gigi Haynes) and 14 (lead singer and guitarist Liv Haynes and drummer Maren Alford), the trio is on the cusp of what was once the festival’s prime demographic. They also just released their first EP, the title track of which, “New Kids in America,” riffs off the Kim Wilde hit with bouncy pop-punk energy and lyrics like, “When did the trend of no one ever having fun / Spread throughout the land infecting everyone?”

Still, they’re more optimistic about the future of the kind of music they play. “Kids our age these days just aren’t really exposed to it anymore. It’s not exactly like they just don’t like it. They’re just not exposed to it,” says Maren. She’ll introduce her friends to a new band or tell them to stay and watch whoever Not Ur Girlfrenz has opened for, “And they’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is my new favorite band!’” 

Plus, with early-aughts nostalgia already trending heavily among Gen Z (so much so that this year’s VidCon — a conference for online video creators and their mostly teenage fans — featured a meeting room decked out in Lizzie McGuire posters and blow-up furniture), a musical comeback seems timely. “You hear the 1975 bringing back the ’80s sounds, so I think now’s the time to bring back the 2000s,” reasons Liv.

At their Sunday set, it’s easy to see why they’re hoping for another Warped Tour next year — even if Lyman insists that, for real this time, this is the last. Fans are yelling their names and singing their lyrics back at them from the crowd. 

”I did the whole thing where, you know, someone points at you and you look behind you and then you’re like, ‘Oh, wait, it’s me!’” Liv says with a laugh.

At a signing at their merch tent after the set, the screaming starts again. “We were like, ‘Is somebody famous here? Oh, my god, is it Blink-182?’” recalls Gigi.

”Yeah, we saw this huge group of people,” says Maren, “and we were like, ‘Ooh, someone important is giving a signing. I wonder who it is.’”

”Nah, it was just us. Psh ,” Gigi sighs.

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20 things we learned at Warped Tour UK

All the fun of the US punk rock fair, without being baked into the tarmac

On October 18, London’s Alexandra Palace got another taste of the US punk institution as the Warped Tour rolled in for one day only. Here’s how it unfolded…

**FIRST AND FOREMOST, WARPED IS STILL A PUNK FESTIVAL **The first band we see after the doors at Ally Pally open for Warped UK 2015 is the Kenneths, who ask the small but might crowd gathered if they remember “a thing called punk rock”, to which the response is a resounding “Fuck yes”. Fresh off the US Warped Tour, the three-piece sound like early Green Day, they sport Mohawks and denim jackets, and in true Ramones fashion they wear their own band T-shirts. Their songs also burst with punk rock spirit, and they even treat the early birds to a lavish dose of the old cowbell. Talk about starting the day right. (MS)

THE WORD ALIVE SEEM TO BE CHASING A WORLD RECORD Kicking off the proceedings after a half-hour delay while the final bits of the stage are assembled is The Word Alive, and they’re not letting a dwindling crowd dull their enthusiasm. They play as if Alexandra Palace was full to its 7,300 capacity and even attempt what appears to be a world record for the longest scream – frontman Tyler Smith lets out a roar that lasts a good fifteen seconds. Guitarist Zack Hansen is in his element, too, soloing like his life depends on it, and they prove that the old trick of getting everyone to sit down and jump up during the chorus really does work. (TDG)

LIKE YOU, ROB LYNCH WENT TO WARPED TO HAVE A GOOD TIME And this time he’s brought his full band with him. Indeed, this is the first time we’ve witnessed the British punk troubadour play accompanied, and the addition of electric guitar, bass, drums and keyboards really bring his acoustic sing-alongs to life. It’s barely 3pm and we haven’t touched a drop of alcohol, but Rob has us joining in the choruses on tracks like Hawking as if it’s closing time after the best night of our lives. His charisma is truly infectious, and it’s great to see another US Warped Tour luminary showing the UK fans a good time. (MS)

NICE BOYS DO PLAY ROCK ’N’ ROLL Moose Blood are four nice polite young chaps from Canterbury who write emotionally charged songs about their parents. Their singer Eddy Brewerton is so softly spoken and openly vulnerable you feel as if he might break into tears at any moment, and in between songs he keeps thanking everyone profusely for coming to see his band. He also seems genuinely surprised by the turn out. But he shouldn’t be. For whilst they might not spit or curse, or appear on the surface to have much in the way of edge, Moose Blood bloody well rock. Their songs teem with romance, pain, honesty and promise, and if you’re not familiar with their astonishing debut I’ll Keep You in Mind, From Time to Time then quite frankly your life is incomplete. (MS)

FOREVER CAME CALLING DOES POP PUNK PROPERLY Three guitarists playing in perfect harmony make for some sweet counter-melodies as Forever Came Calling take to the Jukely Stage to play a slice of pure, unadulterated pop-punk. The California four-piece show that the old devices of sing-along choruses, yearning lyrics and twinkling guitars still pack as much punch now as they did during pop-punk’s first rise to popularity in the early ‘90s, and when guitarist Thomas Lovejoy proclaims that playing music is his ‘dream come true’, it’s like he really means it. He also recounts a tale of getting heatstroke while playing the American Warped Tour – something he definitely isn’t in danger of in the UK’s lukewarm climate. (TDG)

WARPED TOUR IS FOR THE KIDS “A lot of people get mad and say that Warped Tour used to be punk rock, but it was never all one kind of music,” says Reel Big Fish’s Aaron Barrett. “People only remember what they want to hear. I remember doing Warped Tour in 1997 and Ice-T and Body Count was there, and Sugar Ray and Limp Bizkit were on that one too. So it’s always been really diverse, and I think it’s really just the soundtrack of the young generation at that time. Of course someone who’s in their 40s now is going to look at Warped Tour and say, ‘This sucks! I don’t know any of these bands.’ But the way I look at it, it’s just what the kids are into right now . So I don’t know why we’re on it, but I think Kevin Lyman puts us on just to mix it up a little bit – like a palette cleanser. You need a clown at every circus I guess, and that’s us!”

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…AND THE KIDS REALLY LOVE MERCH For every band on the bill at Warped UK, there are twice as many merch stalls and clothing stands. That’s all well and good, because for kids in attendance today it’s their chance to fully immerse themselves in a world of alternative culture and get a taste of what the stateside festival is all about, but it’s also important to remember (and here’s where we sound like old farts) that the music should come first. We’re not saying don’t come and get kitted out in a load of cool clobber, but don’t also forget the main reason why you’re there: to discover new music. (MS)

AUGUST BURNS RED PUT THE ‘FUN’ IN METAL Who said metal takes itself seriously all the time? Certainly not August Burns Red. William Luhrs seems to harbour ambitions of being a juggler as he flings his mic between his hands, and breaks into a moonwalk during an instrumental breakdown after Identity , from their latest record Found In Far Away Places . The crowd laps up the new material as JB Brubaker shows his metal allegiance with some seriously fast-fingered soloing, proving that the positive accolades heaped on their newest album are truly well deserved. (TDG)

KEVIN LYMAN IS STILL VERY MUCH AT WARPED’S CORE It would be easy for Kevin Lyman, founder of Warped Tour and head honcho since 1995, to take a step back and let his personnel run the day-to-day proceedings. But that’s not his style. He’s on the ground, among the crowds and the bands, staying true to his proclamation that he wants to be personally approached by fans with their line-up fantasies, praise or problems. It isn’t just the big acts he has time for, either; we caught him deep in conversation with up-and-coming punks The Kenneths, and he tells Team Rock that he thinks Set It Off are destined for great things. With this kind of dedication, it’s no surprise Warped is in its 20th year. (TDG)

BLACK VEIL BRIDES ARE A HIT WITH PARENTS One unique feature of Warped is the adult crèche, where parents chaperoning their offspring can sit, read the paper, or even go to sleep, as one tired mum was doing in the armchairs provided. They’re not all sitting waiting for the end, though. Anne-Marie, Amanda, Jenny and Janet, who’ve accompanied their Black Veil Brides-loving kids to Warped, are actually looking forward to watching the band themselves. “It’s all we’ve heard in our house for the past two-and-a-half years! I’m quite into In The End now,” says Amanda. “We’ll be watching them later. I think they should let the parents stand next to Andy Biersack just so we can show our kids!” (TDG)

CHUNK! NO, CAPTAIN CHUNK! ARE GIVING THE AMERICANS A RUN FOR THEIR MONEY It’s easy to see how Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! broke out of their native France, despite their mouthful of a name. Their jaunty pop-punk is generic in places, but, as Forever Came Calling proved earlier in the day, there’s no point fixing a formula that ain’t broke. They swing between metalcore-influenced screams and melodic sections like France’s answer to A Day To Remember, and are easily in a league with the likes of The Wonder Years and All Time Low. They nod to their influences with a cover of Smashmouth’s All Star , which momentarily turns the Jagermeister stage into mass karaoke. If anyone’s having a good time, it’s this lot. (TDG)

IN HEARTS WAKE FLY THE FLAG FOR AUSSIE METAL Parkway Drive may be the first name that springs to mind when Australian metal is mentioned, but In Hearts Wake show they’re worth taking just as much notice of. They’re one of those rare bands that actually sound better live than they do on record, and they prove it as they tear through tracks from their latest album, Skydancer . Even in the sound-swallowing hall, they’re crisp and melodic, and judging by the amount of people heartily singing along, they’ve well and truly made their mark on the British scene. They’re also a token of Kevin Lyman’s commitment to having a diverse line-up – they’re no pop-punks, but somehow they fit right in. (TDG)

FRANK CARTER STOLE THE SHOW The ex-Gallows frontman knows he’s the black sheep on today’s bill. But he also relishes the role. And he’s here to do one of two things: convert you to punk rock, or scare you away for life. He walks on stage pulsating with rage like one of the infected zombies from Danny Boyles’s 28 Days Later , and throughout the course of the next half an hour he slags off headliners Black Veil Brides and Asking Alexandria, taunts a nearby group of Young Guns fans by comparing them to his own by saying, ‘This is what real fans sound like’, and basically offers the whole room to a fight as he instigates by far and away the biggest circle pit of not just today, but of any Warped UK event to date. He came to steal the show and that’s exactly what he does, ending on a song called I Hate You . Nicely done Frank. (MS)

**CREEPER ARE GOING TO BE MASSIVE **Bringing back the punk theatrics AFI left behind is Creeper, and they’ve attracted such a crowd to the Kevin Says stage that it’s a two-in, two-out policy. The relentlessly jaunty punks prove that glam can be accessible when done in moderation; they save big ballad Henley’s Ghost until last, of course, and show in the process that they’re ready for much bigger venues. A big, heartfelt, piano-led number like that belongs in an auditorium it can boom across, although they still get plenty of arms in the air in the downstairs bar.

YOUNG GUNS ARE AT THE TOP OF THEIR GAME Singer Gustav Wood tweeted something about technical difficulties after their set had finished, but what we caught of the band’s performance sounded watertight. The only problem they had was following the utter devastation brought on by Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes, but they dealt with the jibes thrown their way with grace and style, reminding people that they were in their home town and there was no way the band were going to have anything less than a spectacular show. From old songs like Winter Kiss , through to newer singles like Speaking in Tongues and the rock anthem that is Bones , the boys inspired mass sing-alongs and put on a hometown show to be proud of. (MS)

**HECK NEED TO RELEASE THEIR HECKING ALBUM ALREADY **The band formerly know as Baby Godzilla have been making a name for themselves as one of the most explosive live acts in the country for some time now, but that buzz can only go so far. Compared to the crowd we saw gathered for their performance on the Lock Up Stage at Reading last summer, today’s numbers are disappointingly small. Not that the band let that affect their performance in any way: it’s still as if we’ve walked onto the set of Apocalypse Now as we head below ground to the Kevin Says Stage to check them out, with bodies and bits of equipment flying everywhere. As a live band they never give anything less than 300%, but they need to get that debut album out pronto if they want to capitalize on the fanbase they’ve built through touring over the last couple of years. Are you listening to us Heck?

**DENIS STOFF LOOKS LIKE HE’S BEEN IN ASKING ALEXANDRIA FOR AGES **Asking Alexandria’s first UK performance with Denis Stoff is the true litmus test for the new frontman. After cancelling planned shows in Manchester and London due to Denis’s visa issues, they could have found themselves coming on stage to a bunch of pissed-off fans, but what they get is an incredibly welcoming bunch, moshing along like AA never went anywhere. Denis fits right in, and has the crowd obeying his every command to sit down, stand up, push back – it’s a wonder the joker of the band, Ben Bruce, doesn’t pick a moment to shout “Simon says…”. He does throw in some humour, though, getting the crowd to chant the Power Rangers theme song, before giving a heartfelt thank you to the audience for “welcoming Denis into our family”. New tracks *I Won’t Give In *and *Undivided *get their first UK live outing, and mark the return to a heavier sound for the band. Is this what the fans want? Judging by the reaction, it would appear that they do.

THE BANDS STILL BELIEVE IN THE SPIRIT OF WARPED “The number one thing about Warped Tour for me is Kevin Lyman,” says Anti-Flag’s Justin Sane. “He started it with this idea that when you go to a regular concert, you go to see the headliner. But you might miss a really great opening band that you should also see. So his idea was to announce the bands that are going to play, but don’t announce the line-up, and change it up every day so that people are forced to see music and bands that they might otherwise not take the time to see. I think that’s a really cool concept and I love that idea. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always been a big supporter of Warped.”

THERE WAS SOMETHING THAT WASN’T QUITE RIGHT This festival is obviously still ran with the same passion and principles as when it first started in the US 20 years ago, and the bands who’ve been around for years playing it still have faith in the format – but at this year’s Warped UK, there seemed to be a significant divide between the younger and older generations. The crowds for the heritage Warped bands were alarmingly small, and it was saddening to see iconic acts like Reel Big Fish and Anti-Flag play brilliant sets in front of such minuscule numbers. Something seemed off, and we can’t quite put our finger on it. (MS)

YOU CAN COUNT ON BLACK VEIL BRIDES TO DELIVER THE GOODS The booming acoustics of the main hall might be doing their best to swallow up all of Black Veil Brides’ middle frequencies, but it’s going to take more than that to put off a bunch of fans who’ve painted their faces with various band-inspired designs. If there’s one thing to be said about the Brides, it’s that they’re consistent. Fire, posturing guitar solos, and Andy peeling his top off are all certainties at their shows, and their setlist doesn’t change much, but the likes of Coffin and Knives and Pens never fail to get a reaction. They know what the crowd wants, and they deliver it with gusto every time – it’s highly likely that even the parents enjoyed it. (TDG)

Warped Tour UK at London’s Alexandra Palace. Photos by Sandra Sorensen

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Punk's not dead? How Vans Warped tour jumped the shark

The festival defined noughties pop-punk and united America’s outcasts – but as it shuts for ever, we ask: did it fail to champion diversity?

T he sun is blazing mercilessly in Columbia, Maryland, on a Sunday in July. It is not yet noon, and the nasal singer of a jet-black metalcore band is crying out: “Will you miss me when I’m gooone?” Already this weekend, I have seen hair-dye jobs in impossibly electric hues of bubblegum pink and highlighter-pen lime. I have seen ripped fishnets and Tim Burton mini-backpacks and earlobes stretched as big as the rims of drinking glasses. I have perused the wares of outfitters called Mall Goth Trash and Sad Boys Club. I can confirm that the campaigns to “Stay Positive and Hail Satan” and ensure that “Ska’s Not Dead!” have endured in some corners of America.

I am on my third consecutive day inside the misfit carnival that is Vans Warped tour, which, after 24 years, finished its final run as a national touring festival last week. While American festivals such as Lollapalooza have long retired their caravans and turned into annual fixed-site weekenders, Warped persevered as a roving punk-themed circus. The brand will probably continue with abbreviated tours, says Kevin Lyman, its founder. An exhibition about Warped’s history will open next year at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. But it is the end of an era for the generation who invented “mall punk”.

Now 58, Lyman says he felt like an outcast as early as junior high. He was partial to British street punk, reggae and the Clash’s Sandinista! album. Socialising with the band geeks and theatre kids – “You got food thrown at you in school,” he says. “I was always the guy who said, ‘Let’s unite and throw food back.’” After several years working behind the scenes at Lollapalooza, Lyman founded Warped in 1995.

Warped made its name packaging the more brashly commercial strains of pop-punk, emo, hardcore and ska that peaked in the early- to mid-2000s, though the tour has also featured household names including Limp Bizkit and Eminem (and, early on, Katy Perry). It had no identified headliners: the schedule changed daily and was not announced until gates opened. To ensure you would see your favourite band, you simply had to arrive by 11. “No one did things the way I did, and no one has since,” says Lyman. “This was the last festival for the people.”

Lyman sought to “put punk rock in the sunshine”, to escape the violence of clubs, which he thought distracted from the genre’s radical message. But Warped ultimately became a shorthand for an easily digested candy-coated version of rebellion. The spirit of commodified dissent was exemplified by its name – sponsored by Vans shoe company, in a checkerboarded break from punk’s historically anti-capitalist ethic. Warped’s scale meant it dealt bands like gateway drugs, which plenty of young people need. My three days following the tour evoked a complete scene of maladjusted suburban youth: the car park, the mall, the skate park, the mosh pit.

In contrast to its diverse audiences, Warped’s lineups were shockingly male and white and, at times, the tour presented worrying streaks of conservatism – in Maryland, I saw a recruiting tent for the US Marines. Warped came under fire in 2015 for allowing a performance by Front Porch Step after he had been accused of sexual misconduct and preying on young fans. This prompted Paramore’s Hayley Williams, one of Warped tour’s most renowned alumni, to tweet: “What happened to our scene?”

Lyman says: “If I look back at Front Porch Step, probably I made a mistake. With hindsight, I probably wouldn’t have let it happen.” Lyman says he’s open to criticism, though he seems allergic to the way it plays out online. “Maybe that’s why I’m ending it,” he says. “We all used to be a community that figured things out. Now people prejudge so quickly on the internet.”

Only 7% of bands on this year’s touring lineup included women, such as Australia’s Tonight Alive and ska revivalists the Interrupters. The feminist rock band Potty Mouth (incidentally once managed by Warped veterans Good Charlotte) ended up on one Californian date after tweeting about gender disparity on the tour: “We wanted access to that fan base of young girls,” says bassist Ally Einbinder. “For us, it would be breaking into a whole new audience who might not hear of us otherwise.” Lyman mentions that the production crew of Warped tour has been heavily dominated by women, and reasoned that this year’s gender disparity was due in part to the fact that he curated the festival (he still chooses the bands) as “a nostalgia tour”.

Over the years, Warped formed alliances with bands such as Less Than Jake, a Floridian ska-punk troupe who first played the tour in 1996 and have remained fixtures since. The drummer, Vinnie Fiorello, reminisces about performing, in the scrappy early days, on a stage made of plywood and cinder blocks. “Warped was supposed to be a punk rock summer camp,” he says. Less Than Jake embodied that, instigating “maximum fun” and an air of weirdness: regular mayhem at a Less Than Jake Warped set might, for instance, find “a metalhead shooting a toilet-paper gun”.

“We were never, at any point, even remotely in the cool kids’ club of punk rock,” says Fiorello. “But Warped was a common denominator among punk bands, hardcore bands, screamo and metal, ska punk. You had to play Warped tour.” Fiorello, who also co-founded the influential pop-punk and emo label Fueled by Ramen , noted that Warped was a crucial marketing tool: “Warped tour would be a huge chunk of the launch for a record or label or band. It was in the Less Than Jake marketing plan in the 90s, for sure. The end of that truly means the shrinking of some ways to market what’s out there.”

Fellow ska-punk elders Reel Big Fish have also been enmeshed in Warped since 1997. Year after year, they built their audience on the tour, though trumpeter John Christianson was not shy about the price. “There’s a lot of anxiety,” he says. “There’s five bands playing at one time. Five bands playing at one time is cacophony, and that is not any fun for me.”

Chuck Comeau is the drummer of Montreal pop-punks Simple Plan: 11 Warpeds in total. “You had this cultural movement that was happening,” he says of the scene’s 2003 peak. “And Warped had the cultural currency. If you wanted to be part of this scene, if you wanted to be respected, if you wanted to reach the audience, it was a must.”

The music of Warped has not all aged well. In Maryland, surprise guests Good Charlotte led a workmanlike singalong to Girls and Boys, their arguably sexist 2002 single about teenage materialism. Speaking backstage, Buddy Nielsen of the New Jersey post-hardcore band Senses Fail (eight-time Warped veterans, who this year performed a medley of nu-metal covers) cited childhood trauma and a bad relationship with his mother as sources of the toxic masculinity in some of his earliest material. “I don’t necessarily celebrate those songs,” Nielsen says. “I wouldn’t encourage my daughter to listen to music like that.” His self-awareness reflects a broader cultural milieu that has recently been forced to reckon with its ingrained misogyny.

I was watching a formulaic pop-punk band in matching Hawaiian shirts play a side stage when I heard a woman’s demonic roar in the distance and ran towards it. “Where my fucking ladies at?” seethed Lauren Kashan, singer of Baltimore metalcore band Sharptooth. They played Clever Girl, the title track from their 2017 debut, which culminated with a mosh-summoning breakdown and an incendiary refrain: “Dead men tell no tales,” the crowd chanted. “Dead men talk no shit.” This jolt of radical feminism felt shocking in the context of Warped tour. “The world we live in is not a safe place for too many of us,” Kashan shouted from the stage. “So this needs to be.”

Sharptooth’s sets were thrillingly righteous. Kashan issued a call to arms or systemic indictment between every song, attacking street harassment, police brutality and US border policy. She drew attention to the fact that she would be the only woman performing on that stage all day and, before a song called Left for Dead, spoke bluntly about her experiences of sexual violence. “I’ve been raped multiple times,” Kashan told the crowd. “I don’t like talking about it, but if I’m the person with the mic and I can’t talk about my trauma, how is any other survivor supposed to ask for help?”

I watched a pink-haired girl in the eye of the pit scream along with Kashan: “I can’t be silent anymore!” “Sharptooth and [2017 Warped band] War on Woman make me feel so relieved about being into music in this scene,” says Niquey, 20. “Stuff like that needs to be talked about at places like Warped tour because it’s so hypermasculine.” Niquey has come to Warped every year since she was 12 – she had only seen Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers in concert before that – and said she looked forward to it more than her birthday.

Some have welcomed the demise of Warped and the aggressively male-dominated culture it came to represent. But after witnessing Sharptooth’s set, it occurred to me that it would be a tragedy for Warped tour to simply end, not evolve, at a moment where powerful, wide-reaching platforms are increasingly rare in rock music of any kind. Potty Mouth’s Einbinder agrees: “There is so much potential to make some changes and evolve the whole culture of the festival,” she says. “But so much of that cultural shift would have to come from the top down.”

I felt optimistic watching Doll Skin, a band of women aged 18 to 21 who play pop-punk with riff-heavy nods to classic rock, and strive to be “as raw and feminine and powerful as we can”, according to singer Sydney Dolezal. They played an original song called Punch a Nazi and a cover of Fugazi’s Waiting Room, which stood out as strongly at Warped as the flower crowns in their circle pit.

Multiple times a day, Dolezal says, young girls approach Doll Skin to say they feel inspired by their set, sometimes crying. “If there’s anyone out there who feels like they can’t be in a band – they can,” she says. “It’s attainable. You don’t have to be a super shredder – you can just play guitar. You don’t have to be soloing on drums, you can just play a beat. You don’t have to be doing runs, you can just yell into a microphone.” It’s no stretch to say this was the most punk statement I heard at the 2018 Warped tour.

In Mansfield, Massachusetts, I meet 19-year-old Felice, who wants to see more bands resembling Doll Skin at Warped. “I wish we could see more intersectionality,” she says. “I wish I could hear more queer artists or artists of colour.” Her friend Felisha chimes in: “It’s a prime time to keep going if anything.” But after Doll Skin’s Long Island set, another new fan, Katie, 26, had a firmer suggestion: “Burn it to the ground and start something new.”

A pair of 23-year-old fans on Long Island, Neena and Gabrielle, tells me they had long fantasised about forming bands. Growing up, they were enthralled by fictional all-girl groups such as Josie and the Pussycats. Neena wonders whether she might have taken up drums had she seen more female instrumentalists.

“I’m such an emo kid. You feel like an outcast sometimes,” Gabrielle says. “But when you’re in this setting, you see there are thousands upon thousands of people who are just like you. It’s so comforting.” I mention how the huge number of outsiders does not quite register until you get here, and it makes you realise – Neena finishes my sentence – “how not alone you are”.

• Pop and rock
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The Untold Truth Of Vans Warped Tour

From 1995 to 2019, Vans Warped Tour became the mecca of alternative music. Fans would flock to the traveling festival to see their favorite artists and to discover the next big thing, while musicians would know a spot on this coveted tour could elevate their career. After all, there's no disputing the impact it had in the ascension of the careers of groundbreaking acts like Paramore, My Chemical Romance , and Fall Out Boy .

Founded by Kevin Lyman, Vans Warped Tour is widely associated with the punk rock movement and a strong ethos of the do-it-yourself attitude, being seen as the everyday person's music event. However, in the later years, controversy engulfed the tour. From scene politics to giving a platform to disgraced musicians, there were accusations that it was no longer the same place it was in the beginning. For some, it simply didn't feel like home anymore. As a result, there were mixed feelings when Lyman announced the tour would officially call it a day after its 25-year celebration.

Regardless of the sentiment toward the Vans Warped Tour, no one can deny the importance it played in the music scene throughout its run. It outlasted many of its peers and inspired others to start their own events, too. With that said, let's take a look back at the untold truth of Vans Warped Tour and if it is due to make a comeback.

The founder cut his teeth on Lollapalooza

Anyone who has worked on the live side of the music industry understands it is a demanding and grueling job. Not only is there the physical aspect of setting up the equipment and ensuring everything is in working order before the doors open, but there is also the marketing element and understanding of how to deal with unexpected issues that may arise on the day. Think of it like organizing a big birthday bash, but times the difficulty level by 100.

Kevin Lyman was no rookie when he decided to start his own tour, since he had already spent time working as a stage manager at another famous music festival. "Before Warped I was on three years of Lollapalooza, so [it's been] 26 straight summers out on the road," he told Billboard .

Having experience, Lyman also understood that he needed significant sponsorship to make this dream tour a reality. As revealed by Vans Vice President Steve Van Doren, Lyman approached the sneaker manufacturer for finance, and Vans saw it as a mutually beneficial opportunity to expand its reach throughout North America.

Vans Warped Tour gave a lot of people second chances

When applying for jobs, background checks have become the norm. However, that hasn't stopped people from being prejudiced against for having a criminal or substance abuse history, as research has shown, per Criminology . There's a stigma that sticks with people long afterward and makes it exponentially more difficult for them to find work and rebuild their lives.

Speaking to Loudwire , Kevin Lyman discussed the importance of affording people second chances, explaining how it is something deeply personal to him and his value system. "The majority of my early Warped Tour crew guys all had to spend a little time in jail for stupid decisions," Lyman said. "A lot of them were selling meth or whatever and did their time, and I gave them their second chance. And that built a loyalty, giving a second chance to people."

It is also one of the main reasons Lyman became involved in other organizations and philanthropy projects, such as MusiCares and FEND, which address addiction. He believes a large portion of society is still reluctant to allow others back into the community after they have shown remorse and tried to make amends, so he wanted to do his part in inspiring change.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Why the schedule for the Vans Warped Tour changed daily

Vans Warped Tour would take the acts across the country, performing sweaty day-long sets in numerous cities and states. There were even groups of fans who would follow the tour and try to attend as many shows as possible. To keep the shows fresh and unpredictable, the tour's organizer switched up the order of the lineup on a daily basis.

In an interview with Forbes , Kevin Lyman brought up his past as a stage manager for Lollapalooza and how this influenced his decision with Warped Tour's schedule. He explained how he would notice the same acts performed at the same time every day, and the predictability reflected in the audience attendance, as a majority of the people would only show up when it was time for the headliner to go on stage.

"So I said, if I ever get to do this, I'm going to mix it up," Lyman said. "It just spurred in my mind what I thought I'd do. I'll write the schedule each day. It keeps people engaged — you never knew who you were playing before or after, or what time you were playing. It keeps everyone on their toes." The unpredictability encouraged the audience to hang out for the whole day since they never knew who would be playing and when, while it excited the bands too. As Every Time I Die's ex-vocalist Keith Buckley explained, no one knew when they would be hitting the stage, which provided an element of surprise.

How the BBQ Band concept came to be

With all those bands on the road for Vans Warped Tour, there were bound to be a lot of hungry stomachs after a show. However, the tour figured out a way of solving this problem while also giving a group a unique opportunity every year. In return for working the grill after every show, a musical act would be given a spot on the tour's lineup. Hence the birth of what became known as the "BBQ band."

Kevin Lyman revealed to Vice where the initial idea stemmed from. He explained how punk rockers Lagwagon had their own barbeque after a show, but only bands with laminate passes sourced from Lagwagon themselves could get any. Lyman thought that every group deserved access to this and that it shouldn't be limited to the friends of the band, so he came up with a plan where a single act would be responsible for the barbeque at every stop for everyone.

Explaining what the group would get in return, Lyman said, "Yeah, they get a full set, they sell merchandise, they sell albums, and I pay 'em some money on top."

The time when Deftones set a Porta-Potty on fire

If there isn't an element of danger involved, can it really be considered rock 'n' roll? While no one decided to put their head inside a tiger's mouth or challenge a bear to an exploding barbed wire death match, other outlandish shenanigans took place throughout Vans Warped Tour's history.

Alternative Press interviewed numerous people who participated in the tour, and the stories ranged from a golf cart being wrecked to Sublime's trusty dog biting people. However, it was Kevin Lyman who recollected one of the wildest tour tales.

Lyman explained how he intended to take a few days off in 1997 after the birth of his child, but when he stepped off the plane, he was alerted to the chaos taking place in his absence. "It turned into the 'Lord of the Flies' out there," he said. "Deftones got fireworks and set a portable toilet on fire. My production manager's quick decision was to take the Porta-Potty on a forklift and push it into the river. The city's mayor had been running on this 'clean up the river' platform, and that was on the front page of the newspaper the next morning."

The presence of the controversial anti-abortion clinic

The spirit of punk rock is built on progressive values and fighting against oppressive systems. As a result, many non-profit organizations set up tents to promote their causes at Vans Warped Tour throughout its 25-year run; however, there was one that raised more than a few eyebrows. In 2016, the anti-abortion organization known as Rock for Life became a part of the tour, and it drew ire from many attendees and online commentators. The next year, Rock for Life returned to Warped Tour, again reigniting the debate about the presence of a pro-life organization there.

Speaking to Spin , Kevin Lyman explained how Rock for Life's values didn't necessarily align with his pro-choice stance, but that he included various other NPOs on Warped Tour with differing ideologies so that debate and conversation could take place between people.

He said: "I go to the booth, and I see people talk to them. They're really promoting adoption, and other things besides abortion. I'm adopted. I'm not supporting them, but they can have the spot. They're not hassling people."

13,000 people signed a petition to stop a musician from playing, but he did

In late 2014, disturbing accusations surfaced regarding Jake McElfresh, aka Front Porch Step. According to the allegations, McElfresh had sent inappropriate messages and images to minors. Considering Front Porch Step had performed at the 2014 Vans Warped Tour and was relatively well known within the music scene, the news spread fast and wide among the community.

Over 13,000 individuals signed a change.org petition to not allow Front Porch Step to play at Vans Warped Tour again. However, in 2015, McElfresh was confirmed to appear on the tour. This resulted in backlash from fans and other musicians, who couldn't believe Front Porch Step had been allowed this platform — especially considering how many young fans attended Warped Tour and the harrowing nature of the allegations.

Speaking to Alternative Press , Kevin Lyman stated that McElfresh had not been formally charged with any crime and his appearance was part of a rehabilitation program, based upon discussions with his counselor. In a later 2018 interview , Lyman expressed regret at allowing Front Porch Step to have performed at the 2015 Vans Warped Tour.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

The accusation of being a boys' club for the most part

The Vans Warped Tour faced accusations of being a boys' club from certain sections, with  The New York Times citing how only seven percent of the bands listed for the 2018 edition featured female members. Although the tour had shown improvement in its numbers and given more opportunity to women over the years, especially as headliners, there was no disputing that the acts on display were predominantly male throughout the years. Coupled with this was the prevalence of a bro culture that boasted bad behavior. 

The publication spoke to several women and nonbinary artists to get their perspectives of the tour. Each person had their own unique experience, with some stating they hadn't seen misogynistic behavior, while others expressed opposite views.

Five Iron Frenzy's Leanor Ortega Till, for example, explained how there was a need to be cautious with tour buses as an example. "One of the bands we went out with had a little inflatable pool," Till said. "They'd get in their underwear and go out there and hang out. And I knew what they were up to, which was get girls into their underwear to hang out, too."

Kevin Lyman said 2017's Vans Warped Tour was a bad one financially

When Kevin Lyman announced the end of Vans Warped Tour, there was a lot of debate about the real reasons for doing so among fans. One of them was that the tour had stopped making money. However, Lyman dispelled this notion in an interview with "All Punked Up" podcast, revealing that Warped Tour made money — except for one year.

"I had one bad year: 2017," Lyman said. "It was one of those years where everything goes wrong that could possibly go wrong, went wrong in 2017."

While Lyman didn't delve into exactly what his challenges were, the initial announcement of the lineup for the Vans Warped Tour 2017 wasn't warmly received by the fans. There were notable acts such as Anti-Flag, Andy Black, Gwar, and Hawthorne Heights on the bill, but the audience felt it didn't have the star power of the previous year's edition, which had featured the likes of Good Charlotte and New Found Glory. Undoubtedly, the lack of excitement for the artists might have factored into the decision for many fans to give it a skip that year.

The one thing that the Warped Tour never managed to do

From Katy Perry to My Chemical Romance and Blink-182, there was no shortage of world-renowned musicians who performed at Vans Warped Tour. Considering the traveling festival ran for a quarter of a century, there can't be much that it failed to achieve in this time. However, for Kevin Lyman, there is something he wanted to do that he never managed to. When asked by Outburn what that is, he replied: "Have a Ramones reunion."

The seminal New York punk band called it a day in 1996 — a year after the formation of Vans Warped Tour. At that early stage, it might have been difficult for Lyman to attract a band of that caliber to the tour — plus, it would have been mighty costly, since the Ramones were bona fide legends and wouldn't come at a discount price.

Unfortunately, by the time Warped Tour had become a force to be reckoned with in the early 2000s and could probably afford the Blitzkrieg Boppers, most of the members of the Ramones had already died . 

Scene politics contributed to its demise

Music brings people together, but the community also has the potential to divide like no other. Much like with any other fandom on Planet Earth — just ask "Star Wars" fans — there is a lot of politics, elitism, and people disliking each other for random reasons. Heck, even the bands themselves partake in this peculiar behavior, with social media feuds becoming equally the most hilarious and sad things to witness online.

Appearing on Kerrang's "Inside Track" podcast, Kevin Lyman opened up about how scene politics contributed to the demise of Vans Warped Tour. The promoter explained how he would reach out to various groups that he found talented and would offer them a slot on the tour; however, they would spurn his advances, citing how they didn't want to perform alongside X band or be seen as a "Warped-esque" band. They either had preconceived negative notions about other acts on the tour or didn't want to be bracketed with the type of genre artists the tour attracted.

Lyman didn't understand the logic, as most bands wouldn't even know the others and acted based on impressions rather than facts. Plus, he considered this a self-limiting behavior that impacted a band's ability to grow their fanbase and reach different audiences. Consequently, Lyman started to feel a disconnect from the community and the very reason he started the tour in the first place.

Fronzilla wants to bring back the tour

Since Vans Warped Tour hit the stop button in 2019, a massive gap has been left open in the music festival scene. Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic did no favors to live music, and many have pondered if the return of Warped Tour could help bring back the crowds in droves. Appearing on "No Jumper" in 2020, Attila frontman Chris Fronzak explained what Warped Tour meant to bands. "It's not glamorous, but it's an opportunity for bands to play in front of a huge audience that they wouldn't normally have," he said.

Fronzak added that Kevin Lyman offered to sell him Warped Tour in the past, but Fronzak didn't have the funds at the time to strike a deal. When that changed, the musician reached out to Lyman again in 2020.

"He explained to me that for legal reasons, which I can't go into depth, Warped Tour can't come back for at least another three years or so," Fronzak said, "but after that I'm happy to re-open conversation, and hopefully I'm the one that brings it back because I have a really good plan for how to make it sustainable and make Warped Tour even bigger than it's ever been."

Warped Tour Was a Music Institution. And It Will Not Be Missed.

An examination of the iconic pop, punk, and emo music festival that's ending after a two-decade run.

In an interview with Billboard this week , Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman cited dwindling ticket sales, a smaller pool of potential bands, and pure exhaustion as the reasons to hang up his Vans: “To be honest, I’m just tired.”

He has reason to be. The Warped Tour began in 1995, featuring newcomers No Doubt, plus L7, The Deftones, and a Sublime that had yet to go into the studio for their major-label debut. Through the rest of the decade, they hosted up-and-comers 311, Limp Bizkit, and Blink-182, SoCal legends Social Distortion and Pennywise, as well as legit greats The Get Up Kids, Lagwagon, and Sense Field. Also, Kid Rock, Incubus and a pre-Fergie Black Eyed Peas, because the 1990s were weirder than you remember.

Around the turn of the millennium, things took a turn toward the Hot Topic, with bands like The All-American Rejects, Simple Plan, and Something Corporate taking over, and later A Thorn For Every Heart, Upon A Burning Body, The Receiving End of Sirens, and other bands you can’t convince us aren’t self-published vampire romance novels. It’s been quite a ride.

So now that we’ve come to the end, how do you feel? Were you there at the beginning? Were you ever there? Are you a festivals guy, or do you do the sensible thing and stream it from the comfort of your own couch? We discuss the long-running festival tour's legacy.

LUKE: I’ve been a Warped Tour attendee at heart, if not always in body, for my entire life. This is my music, these are my people, this is my scene. I’ve been multiple times over the decades—although not for a few years now—and I can honestly say I won’t miss it. Neither, I think, will the culture at large. And yes, that has a lot to do with the fact that I am too old at this point to be able to enjoy it, but it also seems as if the Warped Tour as a brand has run its course, for reasons both silly and deadly serious.

DAVE: It’s not my type of music, but I do have experience with the Warped Tour. My boyfriend Ben’s old Celtic punk band The Mighty Regis played it in the summer of 2010. I only got to see a couple of stops: once in the Warped Tour’s ancestral home of Southern California, and once in my hometown of St. Louis, with my octogenarian parents in tow. They didn’t know what to make of The Pretty Reckless, either.

The Mighty Regis started the summer with such hope and promise! Ben bought a medical-transport van and turned it into a tour bus, which they loaded full of CDs and t-shirts they’d silk-screened themselves. They mapped out all the Wal-Marts where they could park and sleep for the night, and the handful of Motel 6s to which they would treat themselves once a week. We sent them off one dewy June morning, off to punk rock glory.

What I remember hearing about that summer was how much begging the job entailed. As soon as the gates opened each day, the band had to approach the kids, give them stickers and postcards, make sure they all knew where and when to come see them. There was a lot of competition, a lot of stages, a lot of bands, and everyone had to put in the work to get those eyeballs and earholes. It sounds exhausting, and that’s before they took the stage on hard asphalt in the middle of an August afternoon to play punk music that largely got drowned out by Andrew WK from clear at the other end of the fairground. On the plus side, I heard there were a lot of good vegan options at catering.

The experience took a lot out of The Mighty Regis, and they didn’t last long past that summer. Now Ben and two of the others are a folk trio, the bus has been sold to an eager baby band, and the lead singer is a pundit on Fox News. Life comes at you fast.

LUKE: That idea of having to really bust your ass to stand out is something that is either a damning condemnation or a ringing endorsement of Warped, depending on how much of a get-in-the-van hardass you are about music. The sense that I get from having interviewed bands about it over the years is that it can feel like playing a tour where you’re not even really there. The pay is hell, the call times are out of whack, and the experience in short is a microcosm of the entire awful music industry crammed into one afternoon. Capitalism, baby! Only the strong survive. Not that there’s anything wrong with hard work for a band, but Warped, and tours like it, sort of exacerbate the problem by taking all of the normal drawbacks of touring and elevating them to 11.

Aside from that, there’s also been some other really bad stuff associated with Warped of late. In a way, Warped announcing the end of its run at this particular moment seems appropriate, the likely demise of scene favorite Brand New coming at the same time being fitting as well. I am not sure if Warped is in and of itself uniquely problematic in terms of its issues with abuse and harassment—rock and roll at large has a pretty long list of issues—but it does seem to have had a pretty dreadful run over the past few years when it comes to abuse, particularly involving minors. I wrote a big story about it a couple of years ago for Alternative Press , something other writers have tackled as well in depth . But the big sticking point seems to have been founder Kevin Lyman’s perceived inability or unwillingness to fully rectify the issue, despite making overtures at doing just that many times. The sheer number of bands that have been accused of assault or sexual abuse, and then been allowed back on the tour, would make for a full day-long festival on its own. Particularly galling to a lot of observers were the allegations against the act Front Porch Step, who was let back onto the tour that same year. Lyman really, really fumbled that one .

I think the general sense, at least from listening to women and young people and advocacy groups who’ve talked about and written about Warped, is that it just wasn’t seen as a safe place anymore. And once you’ve lost that in a punk rock scene, you might as well close up shop.

Dave, have stories about all that stuff crossed over into your radar as well?

DAVE: It’s hard to keep up with all the stories of people being creeps, but I don’t specifically remember having heard about any of this. In fact, up close, the whole thing seemed so (oh God, this word) woke. All sorts of booths for suicide prevention and eating disorder awareness and organ donation. But I guess people are just animals no matter what.

LUKE: It is woke, for sure, but with a specific blindspot. Although I do think they’ve invited some groups dedicated to this issue on the road of late if I’m not mistaken. That said, this aspect of Warped will likely be thoroughly discussed elsewhere online soon, so in the meantime, speaking of it as a festival reminds me of all my other problems with it. Here in Massachusetts it’s always at this amphitheater type venue, with a half-dozen stages erected in the middle of the parking lot. And it has never not been either 90 degrees or raining whenever it comes through. Respect to the production team for being able to pull something of that size and scope off and bring it on the road day after day, by the way, but—and this isn’t just me being an old crank—I really do not think music of any kind—and in particular, punk, metal, and hard core—is meant to be enjoyed outside, in the day, standing in a parking lot. It’s just not. It’s like watching a baseball game on a basketball court to me. Punk is meant to be played and listened to and moshed to inside a dingy club.

The last Warped I went to, probably like 4 years ago, reminded me of this. You often cannot see, unless you elbow your way to the front. And with so many different stages and staggered start times, you have to make that herring-like swim upstream over and over again. You cannot hear, because the sound is bouncing off the pavement and bleeding into the next stage over, and you are subjected to the vagaries of the elements. I think I saw Taking Back Sunday on the last Warped I went to, a band I’ve seen many times in clubs, and it sucked. There’s no point in me being here, I thought. And all of the newer bands at the time—Story So Far, Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! (I know, that name)—played on smaller stages to a much less enthusiastic crowd than they might if they were in a local club.

DAVE: Can I tell you something else I learned about the Warped Tour by being a band wife? The first time I saw The Mighty Regis, I got way up close to the stage, and as they were sound-checking, I noticed that each one of them was drinking a Monster Energy Drink. This is a healthy bunch of people in their 30s we’re talking about here, and I’d seen their medical-transport tour bus off just days before. Had the Vans ethos infected their spirits so thoroughly, so quickly? That much sugar, guarana seed extract, and green dye #6, in this heat? Who were these people all of the sudden?

I will tolerate many things, but Monster usage is not one of them. I confronted Ben just after their set as he popped open another can. And then he handed it to me. Spring water, disguised as an extreme beverage. A marketing ploy, as disgusting and unhealthy as Monster itself.

LUKE: There is nothing more that the teens love more than punk and emo than brands. They cannot get enough of the brands. I think it’s ironic then that that’s what Warped will be remembered as most in the end. A tour that turned a scene into a brand. It was fun while it lasted, but nothing lasts forever. I think I saw Fun While It Lasted and Nothing Lasts Forever on Warped in 2010, by the way.

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Why Did Warped Tour End?

Why did Warped Tour finally come to an end?

The annual rite of summer passage, also dubbed "Punk Rock Summer Camp" by many, was a place where many music lovers discovered new bands in the '90s, 2000s and 2010s, but in 2018, the Vans Warped Tour finished its final run.

What Was the Warped Tour?

The Warped Tour, which eventually picked up sponsorship from shoe manufacturer Vans, was a traveling rock tour that started in 1995, initially with the idea of being an alternative rock festival, but eventually finding much of its early success focusing on the punk rock music scene.

As the years passed, the festival evolved to include a wider variety of acts. From the early ska and skate punk bands to welcoming nu-metal, emo, pop-punk and eventually metalcore, there was a little something for everyone.

READ MORE: Whatever Happened to the Bands From the First Warped Tour?

When Did Warped Tour Officially End?

Though 2018 was the final year of Warped Tour as a touring festival, plans were announced that a 2019 25th anniversary would be taking place.

This turned into a three-city celebration, with shows taking place in Cleveland on June 8, 2019, Atlantic City on June 29 and 30, 2019, and Mountain View, California on July 20 and 21, 2019.

Why Did Warped Tour Come to an End?

While there had been rumors of the festival not being as profitable in prior years, Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman spoke of the traveling tour's eventual downfall and marked it up to a loss of community.

Speaking on Kerrang! 's Inside Track podcast in 2019 , Lyman stated, "Ultimately, when I started to think about winding this down after 25 years, it was, ‘I think we’ve lost the sense of community.'"

"It took a community to make Warped Tour go," he added. "Some of that was self-inflicted… I thought you addressed the fans that complain on Twitter! I was addressing everyone and tried to keep that conversation going, but you realize that you can’t really negotiate, debate, or educate on social media!"

Lyman also added that playing on Warped Tour also came with its own stigma, revealing that some bands turned down playing the festival because they didn't want to be known as "a Warped act."

"This is what kind of pissed me off," he recalled. "Because in 1997, ‘98, Pennywise couldn’t judge a band until you met ‘em in the parking lot. You’d be in line at catering because of this community setting with no dressing rooms. You’d meet these people, and they were musicians too. Then I started watching this community tear itself apart from within, with this band — not even meeting these people, just disagreeing with them or with how they look — bashing that band online."

"People would come up to me on Warped Tour, and say, ‘Well, I don’t want to be on Warped Tour because Attila are on Warped Tour,’" he continues. "Have you met the guys in Attila? We’re not here to judge each other’s music. The fans will judge each other’s music.’ Atilla brings people. Do I personally run around screaming ‘Suck my fuck?’ No. Do you? No. But they’re good musicians and they’re not bad people. I’ve never seen them do a bad thing to someone."

"Every year, I’d send offers, and just — ‘We don’t want to tour with those bands. We don’t wanna be a Warped-esque bands,'" sighs Lyman. And it’s like, dude, Warped-esque bands — you mean Bad Religion . A Day To Remember . Paramore … it got very frustrating."

Will Warped Tour Return?

Though Warped Tour wrapped in 2019, there have been rumblings in the years since about a possible return.

In 2020, Kevin Lyman suggested in a tweet responding to a fan that it could eventually return, but with one caveat .... "it might just be called something else." But, so far, there has not been a Warped Tour rehash under the old name or something different.

One other proponent of Warped Tour's return has been Chris Fronzak , the vocalist for Attila. In 2019, Fronzak reached out to Kevin Lyman with a plan to resurrect Warped Tour .

"I've honestly been thinking about this for 2 years now," he explained at the time. "In this time period I've formulated a business plan and setup that would be viable for both bands and @VansWarpedTour itself. I have a chip on my shoulder and I wanna prove to the world that rock isn't dead."

Then, in 2023, Fronzak revisited the idea of reviving the Warped Tour as part of his presidential platform , announcing that he had planned to run for President of the United States in 2024. "If you vote for me as our next president, I promise to bring back Vans Warped Tour," he responded to a fan who suggested they'd have his vote if he brought back the popular tour.

So far, the Warped Tour has not returned.

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Goodbye, Warped Tour: 21 Bands Relive Their Favorite Festival Memories in Their Own Words

New Found Glory, Yellowcard, Senses Fail and more look back on the annual cross-country trek.

By Taylor Weatherby

Taylor Weatherby

For 24 summers, the Vans Warped Tour — the traveling alternative music festival beloved by fans and artists alike for its summer-camp atmosphere — has crossed the country and created a hallowed ground for punk, metalcore, ska and everything loud.

Every year since 1995, with around 70 bands and about 40 locations to hit in a matter of weeks, Warped has allowed hundreds of thousands of fans to be themselves, meet their idols and mosh together under the hot sun — all in the name of the of the music they love. In addition to attracting the biggest names in punk and alternative music as headlines, Warped Tour has also played an integral part in breaking young bands who would become staples in the scene, including New Found Glory , Senses Fail and Yellowcard .

Will Butler on Writing the Tony-Nominated Music for 'Stereophonic': 'It Was Like a Thousand-Piece…

As the Warped Tour prepares for its final show in West Palm Beach on Aug. 5, Billboard asked festival veterans and newbies alike to bid the tour adieu by looking back on their favorite memories and sharing what the festival has meant to them.

Trending on Billboard

NEW FOUND GLORY

Cyrus Bolooki (drums): This year will mark the 12th year that I’ve played Warped Tour, and my 14th year attending as a fan. Whether it was our first Warped Tour on the local stage in Pompano Beach, Florida, in 1999, the first time we played a main stage in 2001, or our first time playing the full tour in 2002, I will never forget things like being able to meet and hang out with bands I loved like MxPx, Less Than Jake, Rancid, NOFX, Bad Religion, and Reel Big Fish. I’ll also never forget the random times that I actually got to fill in on drums for bands on Warped, starting in 2002 when I filled in for Good Charlotte for a few shows. I kept a bunch of the daily schedules throughout the years, because it’s awesome to grab one and glance over it, just to remind myself of how many cool bands were on the tour at the same time as us. [I’ve kept] all of the Warped backstage laminates. In recent years, they started including pictures of the passholder on the back of the laminate, so it’s funny for me to go back and see how I’ve changed. 

The most important thing about Warped is the sense of community there is backstage throughout the tour. No one is allowed to put themselves above others on the tour. Everyone comes together each day to try and put on the best festival they can for all the attendees. There really is a family vibe that goes on every summer, no matter what the lineup looks like that year. We met so many of our idols and bands we looked up to on that tour and became friends with a lot of them, mainly because of how down to earth everyone is — and has to be. [Warped Tour founder] Kevin Lyman really did a great job of establishing that from the beginning, with no tolerance for any behavior that makes one band seem bigger or more powerful than any others on the tour. To me, Warped Tour was definitely punk-rock summer camp — and a huge part of how New Found Glory got to where we are today.

THE INTERRUPTERS

Aimee Interrupter (vocals): Between the four of us, it would be hard to count how many times we went to the Warped Tour growing up. We were so inspired by all of the punk-rock bands that would go out on the tour every year that it’s safe to say there would be no Interrupters if there was no Warped Tour. 

Warped Tour can make or break an artist. After we did the whole thing in 2016, I felt like we could do anything. You find out your set time the morning of, you have to constantly be on your toes, there is dramatic weather conditions you need to adapt to — it really made us a lot stronger as a band. 

At the Columbia, Maryland show in 2016, Kevin Lyman asked us to play at the nightly BBQ after the show. We ended up learning a bunch of punk rock covers and had members of all the other bands come up, sing, and play karaoke-style. The whole night ended with us playing “Bro Hymn” by Pennywise, and Kevin Lyman was crowd surfing and hanging from the rafters of the place. It was wild! We just feel lucky to be invited on to a tour that has played such a vital role in the music that shaped us. There’s no tour harder, but there’s no tour better. Warped Tour’s legacy will live on forever.

BOWLING FOR SOUP

Jaret Reddick (vocals/guitar): We have always been hustlers, but Warped makes you hustle. We’ve done a lot — we did almost all of [the shows] in 2003 and 2004, then we have been back every few years. The biggest change is that it all started with punk-rock icons like Bad Religion and Pennywise, then Fall Out Boy and My Chemical romance blew up. In 2010 it was almost all nu-metal. It has changed a lot over the years and almost come full circle in my experience. I also learned that staying up until 9 a.m. drinking isn’t the smartest thing to do when your time slot changes daily! 

Pat Kirch (drums): Warped Tour feels like you’re in Disneyland, but for bands. As a band, it’s an opportunity to play in front of so many people, and those kinds of opportunities just don’t exist outside of this. As a fan, it’s a place to learn about new bands you’ve never heard of and see so many of your favorite bands in one show. The first time we played Warped was in 2008. That will always stick out to me, going from being a kid in the audience to then only four or five years later playing it. I was only 17 when we first played Warped Tour, and I was on the same stage as Katy Perry. It just felt like my dreams coming true.

[Warped Tour] means having a chance, you know? Kevin has given just so many bands an honest chance at trying to be heard by people, and it really built something great for us. Now I have a life where music is my career and the only thing I’ve done for the past decade, and I think a large part of that is because of this tour.

WE THE KINGS

Travis Clark (vocals/guitars/keyboards): I snuck into my first one. I didn’t have enough money to get in, so I made a fake tour pass at my middle school and laminated it with a lanyard and snuck right pass security. I don’t recommend people do that, but I got on my cell phone and I was like, “The speakers need to be on stage. The speakers need to be on stage!” I walked right past security with this fake laminate dangling from my pocket and I got to see all my favorite bands.

Coley O’Toole (keyboards/guitar): In 2008 I watched Kevin Lyman himself help people sneak over the fence. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.

Clark: When he asked us to join the tour, I felt like I just had this monkey on my back. So I talked to him and was like, “I think that you should know that I snuck into my very first Warped Tour,” and he thought it was amazing. I was like, “I think I owe you 34 dollars or something,” and he was just like, “That’s the best story ever!”

Clark: Do you remember the year that Paramore came? They had come up from Mexico and had this hot sauce. Bands had to sign a waiver for this hot sauce. People were taking the end of a toothpick and just dabbing it very lightly and putting it on their tongue and dying. And this band from Mexico was like, “We are Mexican, we can handle this.” This band chugged it and…

O’Toole: Pardon my French, but if you’ve ever seen anyone shit and puke at the same time, it’s quite a mess. I have it on VHS — I was VHSing the whole thing with one of those big camcorders.

Clark: [ Laughs ] That tells you how long We The Kings has been around. But we saw that and we were just like “This is crazy.” And it wasn’t any special night, it was just another night at Warped Tour.

O’Toole: Every night, you never know what you’re going to get. It’s a crapshoot.

SILVERSTEIN

Josh Bradford (guitar): Warped Tour definitely expanded my horizons. As a young concert-goer, this is maybe one of the first concerts you’ve been to — it just gives you a real taste of the sides [of life] that are out there, and I think it’s inspiring to see people being brave enough to live whatever their truth is. Tattoos, piercings, colored hair. You just get introduced to a lot of alternative lifestyles. 

They had this tour water — it looks like a can of Monster Energy but it’s just canned water. In the earlier years, they did a specific branded can for each year, so it was like “Warped Tour 2005” and it would have a cool graphic and a little story. I’ve collected those over the years, so I have one of those from every year. And when they stopped doing that and just started doing generic branded tour water, I still kept one from every year and just wrote the date on the bottom. With Warped Tour going away I don’t know how often I will get the opportunity to drink water from a can — one thing I’m going to strangely miss. 

Cassadee Pope (vocals/guitar): Warped Tour means hard work to me. You really have to love what you do to get through Warped. It’s not easy, and if you’re not careful, you could run out of steam real quick. It really puts you through tour boot camp. It also gives you a good look at how hard the crew members work, day in and day out. Everyone’s parked in the same lot, so you see merch people, guitar techs, drum techs lugging gear from one side of the tour to the complete opposite. It makes you appreciate what keeps the whole thing running. Everyone’s on the same playing field — everyone has to wait in the catering line, you’ve gotta wait your turn to shower. It’s a very humbling experience that I’m so grateful I got to have. 

I also learned how important connecting with your fans is on Warped. Those were some of the best signings because those fans are truly dedicated. They stand out in the blistering sun to see their favorite bands play. And they don’t just stand around — they rock out.

SENSES FAIL

Buddy Nielsen (vocals): Warped Tour is my childhood and my adulthood. It’s a coming of age. I met my wife on it, so it has been a really integral part of my life. Our daughter’s first time watching me play was at Warped Tour in Philly a couple weeks ago. She’s 14 months old, so she’s never been able to stay up late enough.

Senses Fail is in a bunch of weird Warped Tour time capsules — one of them is buried at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that’s going to be opened in 2025, I think. We owe a lot to Kevin and to all the fans who have come out. It’s sort of the end of a generation. It’s cool to be a part of. I wanted to be a part of the last one.

TONIGHT ALIVE

Jenna McDougall (vocals): Warped was like the gateway to a lot of other opportunities for us. I have always described it as an incubator, because for a band like us, we started on the Kevin Says stage — which actually doesn’t exist anymore — but that stage was the upcoming “heavens giving us a chance” stage. We’ve played the main stage for two years now, so it’s the type of tour that can take you from a teenage rookie to a world-renowned internationally touring professional performer.

Whoever we met and toured with on Warped Tour that summer, we would often go out with the next fall or the next spring. This year Simple Plan is on the tour, and it’s not the first time that we’ve toured together. They’re really beautiful people, and it’s just this really amazing experience to ride the same wavelength as the people who’ve influenced your musical career. We used to watch Simple Plan DVDs when we had band practice when I was 15 years old. These bands seeped into our bloodstreams, and now we are out here touring with them. We’re still on completely different levels, but it is cool to be on the same lineup, eat together, and sit out on the back of the trailers every night.

It’s almost like being back in high school — the difference is that everyone’s got the same goal. Everyone here has the same interest, everyone here is at some level able to relate to being an outcast, a rebel, and a black sheep — but put rebels, outcasts and black sheep all in the same place and it’s a really interesting energy.

Rob Damiani (vocals): Being from England, we had never been to Warped Tour. But from watching videos of it as kids and hearing about legendary bands doing it, we very much felt a part of it despite being so far away. As soon as we started the band, this was the tour we wanted to do. It’s just been the most magical few weeks, and the best way to spend the summer.

There’s a lot of party bands on Warped Tour. The band Issues, they’ve got the reputation of having the best party bus. They’ve got these lights in their bus where it’s just normal, ambient yellow lighting, then there’s one button you press and it turns neon blue. You can all just be chilling, feeling tired, and then you press this one button and the blue lights come on and the music starts. There’s been a few nights where we just had the bus jumping. The suspension is probably fucked by now, but it’s a lot of fun. 

It all just reconfirmed our love of just going hard at shows. That energy that comes from the music that we grew up on, that is what creates an awesome live show for me. Seeing that everywhere on Warped Tour kind of gives me faith in what we do.

Tyler Carter (vocals): I had only attended one Warped as a fan prior to playing — I could never afford it growing up. But I have played it five times including this year. I’ve seen the tour fluctuate, but I’ve definitely seen some of the most magical moments in the tour’s history, including a surprise performance with Linkin Park that I was blessed with the opportunity of joining on stage. Warped has given us opportunities of growth that I don’t think anyone outside of this world could understand. There aren’t really any other festival-style tours out there aside from this that would go extensively around the country. I also have had very many important life experiences out here. I found myself several times. 

ALL TIME LOW

Alex Gaskarth (vocals/guitar): There have been a lot of bands who came up on the Warped Tour that tried to distance themselves from it for whatever reason, and we never looked at it that way. It’s something that we’ve always and respected and cherished just because it was a staple in the punk and alternative world. Warped Tour was such a big part of our band coming up — it really taught us a lot about how to be on the road and coexist with other bands, how to carry ourselves and put on a great show learning from all the other bands that were veterans there.

Warped Tour brings out the craziness a little bit. It inspires us to capture that energy and take that with us on the road whenever we’re separate of Warped Tour. And I think that’s something we’ve maintained from the first time we did it. The crowds, the energy, the moments we’re creating here — we need to translate that live everywhere else. There’s no excuse. Warped is a reminder that the energy never dies.

Cody Carson (vocals/piano/guitar): In school there wasn’t really a clique that I fell into. I was never really a cool kid, I felt like an outcast. This is where all the outcasts go to feel at home. Everyone’s a weirdo, everyone’s having a good time, and that’s how so many friendships form from shows. Everyone is so similar because obviously they have the thing in common: They love music. 

The first mosh pit I was ever in was at Warped Tour. My guitarist, Dan, we went together when we were in high school. I think it was during Avenged Sevenfold’s song “Chapter Four” — he just looks at me, grins, and pushes me in, and I was like “Alright, whatever!” There was guy in there with a lightsaber, not even kidding.

In 2004 or 2005, when Fall Out Boy was playing, I didn’t have any money for merch, so I brought a white T-shirt and a sharpie and I wrote “FOB” on it in my terrible handwriting. I brought it up to them and they signed it. I was very thankful and grateful that they were willing to sign my shirt, I still have it. They didn’t really say much about it, but they signed it and I kept it. It’s cool to look back at that and be like, “I was the kid in that line, and now these kids are in line for us.”

STATE CHAMPS

Derek DiScanio (vocals): As a fan in 2005 I had no idea who the band The Starting Line was, but they eventually became one of my favorite bands of all time [because of Warped Tour]. They were the last band I saw, and I rolled up to their last song, and I’ll just never forget it. It was the “Best of Me” and it just kind of implanted in me that this  was Warped Tour — I love this band, and I need to know everything about them and everything about this scene.

The small bands look up to larger bands, but those larger bands will do everything they can to help the smaller ones. Everyone is here for the right reasons. Simple Plan, who I have loved forever, on the first day of the tour [this year] came right up to us saying, “Hey, we love your band, will you guys come on stage and sing with us tomorrow?” So now I’m singing “I’m Just A Kid” with Simple Plan during shows, and I’m like a kid in a candy store up there. There is no room for egos on this tour, and that’s why it’s going to be sad to see it go. 

REAL FRIENDS

Dan Lambton (vocals):  The first year we played, Motion City Soundtrack also played, and I remember I was waiting to watch them on the stage, and Jesse the keyboard player was like, “Do you guys wanna come up here, like have a beer, come chill with us?” And I was like “Whoa, damn. Okay sure.” I think a lot of it is about community, because it’s one of the places you can see a lot of these bands together. Whether or not there are cliques or people that don’t like each other, everyone’s still under one roof with one common goal — just get out there and play and hopefully have a good time. That’s really all it’s about.

TAKING BACK SUNDAY

Shaun Cooper (bass): I attended in 1995 as a fan. My old band Straylight Run played two weeks in 2007. Taking Back Sunday played the whole thing in 2012. We played our final Warped show in Ventura, California, a few weeks ago. Warped Tour offered us an opportunity to play in front of tens of thousands of people every day. Early, on we had to prove the hype behind our band was real. In 2012 we got to remind people who we are. We credit the tour with the resurgence our band has been enjoying to this very day. It means the world to us.

[My favorite memory is] hanging out with Bad Religion, specifically Brian Baker, in 2007. He was very kind when he didn’t have to be. We were a little Long Island piano-rock band. and he was a punk rock legend. He offered advice and great conversation simply because our busses were parked near each other.

Ryan Key (vocals/guitar): So much of Yellowcard’s success was due to the support we received from Kevin Lyman and the tour. If he believes in you, he really gets behind you and provides you with this incredible platform to play your music for thousands of people everyday, summer after summer. I truly believe that Warped Tour will be connected to everything I do as a musician going forward on my own because it was such an integral part of my development as an artist.   In 2004, I became an honorary member of Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Their guitarist, Chris Shiflet, had to leave the tour for a few days to tend to Foo Fighters duties, so they gathered up friends on the tour to fill in on different songs. Being in a band made up of some of my childhood musical heroes and sharing the stage with them playing guitar was just insane. I still have my official Gimmes Hawaiian shirt.

MAYDAY PARADE

Jeremy Lenzo (bass/vocals): One memory that stands out was going to my first Warped Tour as a fan and seeing Davey Havok from AFI walk out into the middle of the crowd on top of people’s hands holding him up. He made it look so easy and never stopped singing — lots of respect to him. Everyone is equal on Warped Tour. It doesn’t matter how old your band is, or how popular, we are all in the same boat out here. And most of the intimidating bands are actually softies.

Warped Tour is something that we have always loved playing, and I honestly don’t know if we would have had the same success without Warped Tour. Selling CDs in line back in 2005 helped kickstart our career. We owe so much to the Warped Tour and everyone involved. We are very sad to see it go, and grateful that we were asked to play the last one.

Sean Foreman: The first time I ever went, we played. They just threw us on a stage because we were kind of bubbling in Denver, and they took a recommendation from a radio station. It’s the lifeblood of our career. I literally have scars on my body — I have a gash on my leg from falling on a drum riser. But I look down fondly at that scar because it’s the hard work that we’ve put in and everyone puts in here.

Nat Motte: It’s really been an amazing tour because it really breaks down the walls between fans and bands, literally. It’s an incredible opportunity for us to see who’s allowing us to do what we want to do. Our music has always been geared and conducive to rocking a party, and I think it’s great to be able to do that out here and see a bunch of smiling faces. 

Foreman: There was one special [show] for us, just because it was pretty surreal — when we toured that first full time, Katy Perry was on the same stage as us. She dove off the stage when we were playing “Don’t Trust Me” and got carried through the crowd. 

Motte: I think a bunch of teenagers got handfuls of something that they shouldn’t.

Foreman: I don’t think she stage dove after that again.

MOTIONLESS IN WHITE

Chris Cerulli (vocals/keyboards/guitar): Warped Tour has always been known for being a tour that has had a wide array of genres, but as the years have gone on, the heavier music has gotten even heavier, and there’s a lot more dance and pop and hip-hop now than I ever remember there being. I like that there’s no fear of taking risks and putting bands out here. Warped Tour has always been a place that we can feel accepted and call home for an entire summer. Warped Tour represents an open arms, open-mind mentality, and I have always felt welcomed into this world. Getting to see that there are so many like-minded people made me feel a lot more comfortable and confident in with myself.    

We’ve played about nine different Warped Tours in 13 years, and every year we’ve played in our hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. We just played it for the last time two days ago and got to say goodbye to Warped Tour in our hometown, where we got our start. We played our song that is dedicated to our area last, to all these hometown fans — that was probably one of the most powerful experiences of my entire life.

THE STORY UNTOLD

Jessy Bergy (lead guitar): I’ve become a better person in general just because the platform it gives you. You can be anywhere in the world and have the chance to play on stage, and you get to be yourself. The best thing I learned through Warped Tour was how to be myself. Going out there and sticking to your guns. You can be anyone and still have a chance to play and express yourself. So thank you, Kevin Lyman, for this. This is one of the best things in the world.

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All 25 Warped Tour Lineups, Ranked

Warped Tour is one of the biggest names in the concert canon. Those who haven't gone want to and those who have gone wait for the day they can go again. For a majority of its run, it was the largest traveling music festival in the United States. A number of past Warped Tour lineups have been impressive, but which year was the best? Help decide below! 

Starting as an eclectic alternative rock festival in 1995 and gradually morphing into a punk rock festival by the next year, the tour gained momentum when Vans, the wildly popular shoe manufacturer, was signed on as the tour's main sponsor in 1996. As Warped Tour became increasingly popular with each passing year, more sponsors signed on, slowly growing the tour's scope of influence. Sadly, 2018 proved to be the final year of the famous tour as announced by Warped Tour's founder, Kevin Lyman. 

You'll find every Warped Tour lineup here! Vote below on the best Warped Tour lineups, keeping in mind factors like the bands performing, production value, and overall spectacle. If you're an avid concert-goer, you can also check out this list of the best Coachella lineups ! (Disclaimer - some years certain dates had slightly different lineups). 

Warped Tour 2005

• Warped Tour

Notable Peformers: My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Thrice, Billy Idol, The All-American Rejects, Bowling for Soup, Dropkick Murphys, Hawthorne Heights

Dates: June 18 to August 14

Warped Tour 2004

Notable Performers: NOFX, My Chemical Romance, The Used, Fall Out Boy, Billy Talent, Yellowcard, Motion City Soundtrack, New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, Anti-Flag, Bowling for Soup 

Dates:  June 25 to August 19

Warped Tour 1998

Notable Performers:  Bad Religion, Godsmack, Rancid, Less Than Jake, Blink-182, Beck (some dates), Unwritten Law, Reverend Horton Heat, Incubus 

Date:  July 4 to August 9

Warped Tour 1997

Notable Performers:  Blink-182, Reel Big Fish, Descendants, Less Than Jake, Sugar Ray, Pennywise, Social Distortion, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones 

Dates:  July 2 to August 5

Warped Tour 1999

Notable Performers: Cypress Hill, Blink-182, Dropkick Murphys, Pennywise, Black Eyed Peas, Suicidal Tendencies, Less Than Jake, Bouncing Souls

Dates:  June 25 to July 31

Warped Tour 2000

Notable Performers:  Weezer, Flogging Molly, Green Day, Anti-Flag, No Doubt, Papa Roach, The Muffs, Suicide Machines, NOFX, Good Riddance

Dates: June 23 to August 6

Warped Tour 2006

Notable Performers: Joan Jett and the Blackhearts,   Less Than Jake, The Academy Is..., Anti-Flag, Billy Talent, Motion City Soundtrack, Paramore, Rise Against, NOFX

Dates:  June 15 to August 13

Warped Tour 2001

Notable Performers:  Pennywise, New Found Glory, Dropkick Murphys, The Vandals, Sum 41, Rancid, Less Than Jake, The All-American Rejects, Good Charlotte 

Dates:  June 29 to August 12

Warped Tour 1995

Notable Performers:  Sublime, No Doubt, Quicksand, Fluf, Deftones, No Use for a Name, Supernova, CIV, Deftones

Dates: August 4 to September 5

Warped Tour 2007

Notable Performers:  Bad Religion, Pennywise, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Killswitch Engage, Yellowcard, Ambelin, Flogging Molly, Hawthorne Heights

Dates:  June 28 to August 25

Warped Tour 2003

Notable Performers:  The Ataris, Dropkick Murphys, Rancid, The Used, Pennywise, Less than Jake, Suicide Machines, Andrew W.K., Yellowcard, Glassjaw 

Dates: June 19 to August 10

Warped Tour 2018

Notable Performers:  Korn, Prophets of Rage, Limp Bizkit, Reel Big Fish, Pennywise, All Time Low, Taking Back Sunday, We The Kings

Dates:  June 21 to August 5

Warped Tour 2011

Notable Performers:  Paramore, Jack's Mannequin, Bowling for Soup, Relient K, MC Lars, Less Than Jake, Anti-Flag, Simple Plan 

Dates:  June 24 to August 14

Warped Tour 2008

Notable Performers:  Katy Perry, Amberlin, Jack's Mannequin, Angels and Airwaves, Reel Big Fish, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Broadway Calls, The Devil Wears Prada 

Dates:  June 20 to August 17

Warped Tour 2002

Notable Performers: New Found Glory, Simple Plan, Flogging Molly, Anti-Flag, Reel Big Fish, Yellowcard, Goldfinger, NOFX, Jimmy Eat World, Bad Religion, Good Charlotte

Dates:  June 21 to August 18

Warped Tour 1996

Notable Performers:  Fishbone, Pennywise, CIV, Rocket From The Crypt, Dance Hall Crashers, Down By Law, The Figgs, Guttermouth, Blink-182, Fluf, Red 5, Sensefield, Far 

Date:  July 4 to August 8

Warped Tour 2016

Notable Performers:  Falling In Reverse, Less Than Jake, Good Charlotte, Sleeping With Sirens, New Found Glory, Yellowcard, Ghost Town, Bad Seed Rising, We The Kings

Dates:  June 24 to August 13

Warped Tour 2013

Notable Performers: Chiodos, New Beat Fund, Gin Wigmore, MC Lars, Craig Owens, Dia Frampton, Charlotte Sometimes, Big Chocolate, Echosmith, Motion City Soundtrack, Reel Big Fish 

Dates:  July 15 to August 4

Warped Tour 2019

Warped Tour 2010

Notable Performers:  Alkaline Trio, Motion City Soundtrack, Anti-Flag, Dropkick Murphys, Andrew W.K., Penny Wise, Reel Big Fish, The All-American Rejects, Suicide Silence, We The Kings

Dates:  June 25 to August 15

Warped Tour 2012

Notable Performers:  Falling in Reverse, The Used, Yellowcard, Dead Sara, Rise Against, Yellowcard, MC Laws, Machine Gun Kelly, Anti-Flag

Date:  June 16 to August 5

Warped Tour 2009

Notable Performers:  Less Than Jake, Underoath, Bad Religion,  T.S.O.L., The Adolescents, Sing it Loud, TAT

Dates:  June 26 to August 23

Warped Tour 2014

Notable Performers:  Breathe Carolina, Falling in Reverse, Mayday Parade, Less Than Jake, We The Kings, Yellowcard, The Ghost Inside, The Mighty, Finch

Dates:  June 13 to August 3

Warped Tour 2017

Notable Performers:   Andy Black, Beartooth, Dance Gavin Dance, I Prevail, New Years Day, Falling In Reverse, Streetlight Manifesto, Neck Deep

Date: May 27 to November 1

Warped Tour 2015

Notable Performers:  As It Is, Bebe Rexha, New Years Day, Knuckle Puck, Metro Station, Candy Hearts, Motion City Soundtrack, Memphis May Fire 

Dates:  June 19 to October 18

Lists about the phenomena of the summer music festival - who to see, how to dress, and what to expect beyond heat, crowds, and bigger crowds.

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Photo: Gabriel Olsen/Getty Images

Vans Warped Tour 25th Anniversary Details Announced

Also, in partnership with the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, the traveling tour will curate a special exhibit called "Forever Warped: 25 Years of Vans Warped Tour"

As the 25 th anniversary of Vans Warped Tour gets closer, the famed punk-rock festival has announced two additional cities to hit this summer, plus new details about what fans can expect to see once they’re on site. In addition to the previously announced June 8 date in Cleveland, Ohio, Warped Tour 2019 is due to hit Atlantic City, N.J. on June 29 and 30 and Mountain View, Calif. on July 20 and 21.  

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">25 YEARS OF THE VANS WARPED TOUR<br>Feb 25 • Pre-Sale Tickets On Sale<br>March 1 • Lineups Announced<br> March 1 • Tickets On Sale<br> <a href="https://t.co/rSuGQJH0ta">https://t.co/rSuGQJH0ta</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/vanswarpedtour?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#vanswarpedtour</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/warpedtour?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#warpedtour</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/foreverwarped?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#foreverwarped</a> <a href="https://t.co/YZ4OUv50Xj">pic.twitter.com/YZ4OUv50Xj</a></p>&mdash; Vans Warped Tour (@VansWarpedTour) <a href="https://twitter.com/VansWarpedTour/status/1089885986493026312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 28, 2019</a></blockquote>

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Also, in honor of the tour’s 25th anniversary (and final traveling tour setup), fans can expect to enjoy an exhibit in partnership with the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. Titled “Forever Warped: 25 Years of Vans Warped Tour,” the exhibit will showcase the tour’s history since it began in 1995. Instruments and other artifacts will be on display from essential Warped Tour bands including No Doubt , Rancid and Fall Out Boy . Joan Jett 's stage clothing will also be on display.

"With the [Vans Warped Tour] 25th Anniversary events, we want to bring the atmosphere of a classic Warped Tour show, but on a scale that our fans simply could not get with a national tour," Lyman said in a statement . "The bands, the special attractions, everything – we want to bring back elements that have made the Warped Tour, Warped Tour, over the past 25 years."

The lineup, which will be announced on March 1, will feature more than 50 bands over various stages. The tour will also feature skateboarding, motocross and other extreme sports.

The tour will end in the Bay Area, which "probably close to half the bands on the first Warped Tour had some tie to," Lyman said.

The Vans Warped Tour is known to be the longest-running touring music festival in North America. Presale tickets will go on sale Feb. 25. For more information, visit the Vans Warped Tour website .

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Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016

Upon winning the GRAMMY for Best Rap Album for 'To Pimp a Butterfly,' Kendrick Lamar thanked those that helped him get to the stage, and the artists that blazed the trail for him.

Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly . Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

Looking for more GRAMMYs news? The 2024 GRAMMY nominations are here!

He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly .

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube . This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg , Doggystyle . This is for Illmatic , this is for Nas . We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal , Anna Wise and Thundercat ). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift 's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN ., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers .

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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Photo:  Rachel Kupfer  

A Guide To Modern Funk For The Dance Floor: L'Imperatrice, Shiro Schwarz, Franc Moody, Say She She & Moniquea

James Brown changed the sound of popular music when he found the power of the one and unleashed the funk with "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag." Today, funk lives on in many forms, including these exciting bands from across the world.

It's rare that a genre can be traced back to a single artist or group, but for funk, that was James Brown . The Godfather of Soul coined the phrase and style of playing known as "on the one," where the first downbeat is emphasized, instead of the typical second and fourth beats in pop, soul and other styles. As David Cheal eloquently explains, playing on the one "left space for phrases and riffs, often syncopated around the beat, creating an intricate, interlocking grid which could go on and on." You know a funky bassline when you hear it; its fat chords beg your body to get up and groove.

Brown's 1965 classic, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," became one of the first funk hits, and has been endlessly sampled and covered over the years, along with his other groovy tracks. Of course, many other funk acts followed in the '60s, and the genre thrived in the '70s and '80s as the disco craze came and went, and the originators of hip-hop and house music created new music from funk and disco's strong, flexible bones built for dancing.

Legendary funk bassist Bootsy Collins learned the power of the one from playing in Brown's band, and brought it to George Clinton , who created P-funk, an expansive, Afrofuturistic , psychedelic exploration of funk with his various bands and projects, including Parliament-Funkadelic . Both Collins and Clinton remain active and funkin', and have offered their timeless grooves to collabs with younger artists, including Kali Uchis , Silk Sonic , and Omar Apollo; and Kendrick Lamar , Flying Lotus , and Thundercat , respectively.

In the 1980s, electro-funk was born when artists like Afrika Bambaataa, Man Parrish, and Egyptian Lover began making futuristic beats with the Roland TR-808 drum machine — often with robotic vocals distorted through a talk box. A key distinguishing factor of electro-funk is a de-emphasis on vocals, with more phrases than choruses and verses. The sound influenced contemporaneous hip-hop, funk and electronica, along with acts around the globe, while current acts like Chromeo, DJ Stingray, and even Egyptian Lover himself keep electro-funk alive and well.

Today, funk lives in many places, with its heavy bass and syncopated grooves finding way into many nooks and crannies of music. There's nu-disco and boogie funk, nodding back to disco bands with soaring vocals and dance floor-designed instrumentation. G-funk continues to influence Los Angeles hip-hop, with innovative artists like Dam-Funk and Channel Tres bringing the funk and G-funk, into electro territory. Funk and disco-centered '70s revival is definitely having a moment, with acts like Ghost Funk Orchestra and Parcels , while its sparkly sprinklings can be heard in pop from Dua Lipa , Doja Cat , and, in full "Soul Train" character, Silk Sonic . There are also acts making dreamy, atmospheric music with a solid dose of funk, such as Khruangbin ’s global sonic collage.

There are many bands that play heavily with funk, creating lush grooves designed to get you moving. Read on for a taste of five current modern funk and nu-disco artists making band-led uptempo funk built for the dance floor. Be sure to press play on the Spotify playlist above, and check out GRAMMY.com's playlist on Apple Music , Amazon Music and Pandora .

Say She She

Aptly self-described as "discodelic soul," Brooklyn-based seven-piece Say She She make dreamy, operatic funk, led by singer-songwriters Nya Gazelle Brown, Piya Malik and Sabrina Mileo Cunningham. Their '70s girl group-inspired vocal harmonies echo, sooth and enchant as they cover poignant topics with feminist flair.

While they’ve been active in the New York scene for a few years, they’ve gained wider acclaim for the irresistible music they began releasing this year, including their debut album, Prism . Their 2022 debut single "Forget Me Not" is an ode to ground-breaking New York art collective Guerilla Girls, and " Norma " is their protest anthem in response to the news that Roe vs. Wade could be (and was) overturned. The band name is a nod to funk legend Nile Rodgers , from the "Le freak, c'est chi" exclamation in Chic's legendary tune "Le Freak."

Moniquea 's unique voice oozes confidence, yet invites you in to dance with her to the super funky boogie rhythms. The Pasadena, California artist was raised on funk music; her mom was in a cover band that would play classics like Aretha Franklin’ s "Get It Right" and Gladys Knight ’s "Love Overboard." Moniquea released her first boogie funk track at 20 and, in 2011, met local producer XL Middelton — a bonafide purveyor of funk. She's been a star artist on his MoFunk Records ever since, and they've collabed on countless tracks, channeling West Coast energy with a heavy dose of G-funk, sunny lyrics and upbeat, roller disco-ready rhythms.

Her latest release is an upbeat nod to classic West Coast funk, produced by Middleton, and follows her February 2022 groovy, collab-filled album, On Repeat .

Shiro Schwarz

Shiro Schwarz is a Mexico City-based duo, consisting of Pammela Rojas and Rafael Marfil, who helped establish a modern funk scene in the richly creative Mexican metropolis. On "Electrify" — originally released in 2016 on Fat Beats Records and reissued in 2021 by MoFunk — Shiro Schwarz's vocals playfully contrast each other, floating over an insistent, upbeat bassline and an '80s throwback electro-funk rhythm with synth flourishes.

Their music manages to be both nostalgic and futuristic — and impossible to sit still to. 2021 single "Be Kind" is sweet, mellow and groovy, perfect chic lounge funk. Shiro Schwarz’s latest track, the joyfully nostalgic "Hey DJ," is a collab with funkstress Saucy Lady and U-Key.

L'Impératrice

L'Impératrice (the empress in French) are a six-piece Parisian group serving an infectiously joyful blend of French pop, nu-disco, funk and psychedelia. Flore Benguigui's vocals are light and dreamy, yet commanding of your attention, while lyrics have a feminist touch.

During their energetic live sets, L'Impératrice members Charles de Boisseguin and Hagni Gwon (keys), David Gaugué (bass), Achille Trocellier (guitar), and Tom Daveau (drums) deliver extended instrumental jam sessions to expand and connect their music. Gaugué emphasizes the thick funky bass, and Benguigui jumps around the stage while sounding like an angel. L’Impératrice’s latest album, 2021’s Tako Tsubo , is a sunny, playful French disco journey.

Franc Moody

Franc Moody 's bio fittingly describes their music as "a soul funk and cosmic disco sound." The London outfit was birthed by friends Ned Franc and Jon Moody in the early 2010s, when they were living together and throwing parties in North London's warehouse scene. In 2017, the group grew to six members, including singer and multi-instrumentalist Amber-Simone.

Their music feels at home with other electro-pop bands like fellow Londoners Jungle and Aussie act Parcels. While much of it is upbeat and euphoric, Franc Moody also dips into the more chilled, dreamy realm, such as the vibey, sultry title track from their recently released Into the Ether .

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Photo: Steven Sebring

Living Legends: Billy Idol On Survival, Revival & Breaking Out Of The Cage

"One foot in the past and one foot into the future," Billy Idol says, describing his decade-spanning career in rock. "We’ve got the best of all possible worlds because that has been the modus operandi of Billy Idol."

Living Legends is a series that spotlights icons in music still going strong today. This week, GRAMMY.com spoke with Billy Idol about his latest EP,   Cage , and continuing to rock through decades of changing tastes.

Billy Idol is a true rock 'n' roll survivor who has persevered through cultural shifts and personal struggles. While some may think of Idol solely for "Rebel Yell" and "White Wedding," the singer's musical influences span genres and many of his tunes are less turbo-charged than his '80s hits would belie.  

Idol first made a splash in the latter half of the '70s with the British punk band Generation X. In the '80s, he went on to a solo career combining rock, pop, and punk into a distinct sound that transformed him and his musical partner, guitarist Steve Stevens, into icons. They have racked up multiple GRAMMY nominations, in addition to one gold, one double platinum, and four platinum albums thanks to hits like "Cradle Of Love," "Flesh For Fantasy," and "Eyes Without A Face." 

But, unlike many legacy artists, Idol is anything but a relic. Billy continues to produce vital Idol music by collaborating with producers and songwriters — including Miley Cyrus — who share his forward-thinking vision. He will play a five-show Vegas residency in November, and filmmaker Jonas Akerlund is working on a documentary about Idol’s life. 

His latest release is Cage , the second in a trilogy of annual four-song EPs. The title track is a classic Billy Idol banger expressing the desire to free himself from personal constraints and live a better life. Other tracks on Cage incorporate metallic riffing and funky R&B grooves. 

Idol continues to reckon with his demons — they both grappled with addiction during the '80s — and the singer is open about those struggles on the record and the page. (Idol's 2014 memoir Dancing With Myself , details a 1990 motorcycle accident that nearly claimed a leg, and how becoming a father steered him to reject hard drugs. "Bitter Taste," from his last EP, The Roadside , reflects on surviving the accident.)

Although Idol and Stevens split in the late '80s — the skilled guitarist fronted Steve Stevens & The Atomic Playboys, and collaborated with Michael Jackson, Rick Ocasek, Vince Neil, and Harold Faltermeyer (on the GRAMMY-winning "Top Gun Anthem") —  their common history and shared musical bond has been undeniable. The duo reunited in 2001 for an episode of " VH1 Storytellers " and have been back in the saddle for two decades. Their union remains one of the strongest collaborations in rock 'n roll history.

While there is recognizable personnel and a distinguishable sound throughout a lot of his work, Billy Idol has always pushed himself to try different things. Idol discusses his musical journey, his desire to constantly move forward, and the strong connection that he shares with Stevens. 

Steve has said that you like to mix up a variety of styles, yet everyone assumes you're the "Rebel Yell"/"White Wedding" guy. But if they really listen to your catalog, it's vastly different.

Yeah, that's right. With someone like Steve Stevens, and then back in the day Keith Forsey producing... [Before that] Generation X actually did move around inside punk rock. We didn't stay doing just the Ramones two-minute music. We actually did a seven-minute song. [ Laughs ]. We did always mix things up. 

Then when I got into my solo career, that was the fun of it. With someone like Steve, I knew what he could do. I could see whatever we needed to do, we could nail it. The world was my oyster musically. 

"Cage" is a classic-sounding Billy Idol rocker, then "Running From The Ghost" is almost metal, like what the Devil's Playground album was like back in the mid-2000s. "Miss Nobody" comes out of nowhere with this pop/R&B flavor. What inspired that?

We really hadn't done anything like that since something like "Flesh For Fantasy" [which] had a bit of an R&B thing about it. Back in the early days of Billy Idol, "Hot In The City" and "Mony Mony" had girls [singing] on the backgrounds. 

We always had a bit of R&B really, so it was actually fun to revisit that. We just hadn't done anything really quite like that for a long time. That was one of the reasons to work with someone like Sam Hollander [for the song "Rita Hayworth"] on The Roadside . We knew we could go [with him] into an R&B world, and he's a great songwriter and producer. That's the fun of music really, trying out these things and seeing if you can make them stick. 

I listen to new music by veteran artists and debate that with some people. I'm sure you have those fans that want their nostalgia, and then there are some people who will embrace the newer stuff. Do you find it’s a challenge to reach people with new songs?

Obviously, what we're looking for is, how do we somehow have one foot in the past and one foot into the future? We’ve got the best of all possible worlds because that has been the modus operandi of Billy Idol. 

You want to do things that are true to you, and you don't just want to try and do things that you're seeing there in the charts today. I think that we're achieving it with things like "Running From The Ghost" and "Cage" on this new EP. I think we’re managing to do both in a way. 

** Obviously, "Running From The Ghost" is about addiction, all the stuff that you went through, and in "Cage" you’re talking about  freeing yourself from a lot of personal shackles. Was there any one moment in your life that made you really thought I have to not let this weigh me down anymore ? **

I mean, things like the motorcycle accident I had, that was a bit of a wake up call way back. It was 32 years ago. But there were things like that, years ago, that gradually made me think about what I was doing with my life. I didn't want to ruin it, really. I didn't want to throw it away, and it made [me] be less cavalier. 

I had to say to myself, about the drugs and stuff, that I've been there and I've done it. There’s no point in carrying on doing it. You couldn't get any higher. You didn't want to throw your life away casually, and I was close to doing that. It took me a bit of time, but then gradually I was able to get control of myself to a certain extent [with] drugs and everything. And I think Steve's done the same thing. We're on a similar path really, which has been great because we're in the same boat in terms of lyrics and stuff. 

So a lot of things like that were wake up calls. Even having grandchildren and just watching my daughter enlarging her family and everything; it just makes you really positive about things and want to show a positive side to how you're feeling, about where you're going. We've lived with the demons so long, we've found a way to live with them. We found a way to be at peace with our demons, in a way. Maybe not completely, but certainly to where we’re enjoying what we do and excited about it.

[When writing] "Running From The Ghost" it was easy to go, what was the ghost for us? At one point, we were very drug addicted in the '80s. And Steve in particular is super sober [now]. I mean, I still vape pot and stuff. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but it’s incredible. All I want to be able to do is have a couple of glasses of wine at a restaurant or something. I can do that now.

I think working with people that are super talented, you just feel confident. That is a big reason why you open up and express yourself more because you feel comfortable with what's around you.

Did you watch Danny Boyle's recent Sex Pistols mini-series?

I did, yes.

You had a couple of cameos; well, an actor who portrayed you did. How did you react to it? How accurate do you think it was in portraying that particular time period?

I love Jonesy’s book, I thought his book was incredible. It's probably one of the best bio books really. It was incredible and so open. I was looking forward to that a lot.

It was as if [the show] kind of stayed with Steve [Jones’ memoir] about halfway through, and then departed from it. [John] Lydon, for instance, was never someone I ever saw acting out; he's more like that today. I never saw him do something like jump up in the room and run around going crazy. The only time I saw him ever do that was when they signed the recording deal with Virgin in front of Buckingham Palace. Whereas Sid Vicious was always acting out; he was always doing something in a horrible way or shouting at someone. I don't remember John being like that. I remember him being much more introverted.

But then I watched interviews with some of the actors about coming to grips with the parts they were playing. And they were saying, we knew punk rock happened but just didn't know any of the details. So I thought well, there you go . If ["Pistol" is]  informing a lot of people who wouldn't know anything about punk rock, maybe that's what's good about it.

Maybe down the road John Lydon will get the chance to do John's version of the Pistols story. Maybe someone will go a lot deeper into it and it won't be so surface. But maybe you needed this just to get people back in the flow.

We had punk and metal over here in the States, but it feels like England it was legitimately more dangerous. British society was much more rigid.

It never went [as] mega in America. It went big in England. It exploded when the Pistols did that interview with [TV host Bill] Grundy, that lorry truck driver put his boot through his own TV, and all the national papers had "the filth and the fury" [headlines].

We went from being unknown to being known overnight. We waited a year, Generation X. We even told them [record labels] no for nine months to a year. Every record company wanted their own punk rock group. So it went really mega in England, and it affected the whole country – the style, the fashions, everything. I mean, the Ramones were massive in England. Devo had a No. 1 song [in England] with "Satisfaction" in '77. Actually, Devo was as big as or bigger than the Pistols.

You were ahead of the pop-punk thing that happened in the late '90s, and a lot of it became tongue-in-cheek by then. It didn't have the same sense of rebelliousness as the original movement. It was more pop.

It had become a style. There was a famous book in England called Revolt Into Style — and that's what had happened, a revolt that turned into style which then they were able to duplicate in their own way. Even recently, Billie Joe [Armstrong] did his own version of "Gimme Some Truth," the Lennon song we covered way back in 1977.

When we initially were making [punk] music, it hadn't become accepted yet. It was still dangerous and turned into a style that people were used to. We were still breaking barriers.

You have a band called Generation Sex with Steve Jones and Paul Cook. I assume you all have an easier time playing Pistols and Gen X songs together now and not worrying about getting spit on like back in the '70s?

Yeah, definitely. When I got to America I told the group I was putting it together, "No one spits at the audience."

We had five years of being spat on [in the UK], and it was revolting. And they spat at you if they liked you. If they didn't like it they smashed your gear up. One night, I remember I saw blood on my T-shirt, and I think Joe Strummer got meningitis when spit went in his mouth.

You had to go through a lot to become successful, it wasn't like you just kind of got up there and did a couple of gigs. I don't think some young rock bands really get that today.

With punk going so mega in England, we definitely got a leg up. We still had a lot of work to get where we got to, and rightly so because you find out that you need to do that. A lot of groups in the old days would be together three to five years before they ever made a record, and that time is really important. In a way, what was great about punk rock for me was it was very much a learning period. I really learned a lot [about] recording music and being in a group and even writing songs.

Then when I came to America, it was a flow, really. I also really started to know what I wanted Billy Idol to be. It took me a little bit, but I kind of knew what I wanted Billy Idol to be. And even that took a while to let it marinate.

You and Miley Cyrus have developed a good working relationship in the last several years. How do you think her fans have responded to you, and your fans have responded to her?

I think they're into it. It's more the record company that she had didn't really get "Night Crawling"— it was one of the best songs on Plastic Hearts , and I don't think they understood that. They wanted to go with Dua Lipa, they wanted to go with the modern, young acts, and I don't think they realized that that song was resonating with her fans. Which is a shame really because, with Andrew Watt producing, it's a hit song.

But at the same time, I enjoyed doing it. It came out really good and it's very Billy Idol. In fact, I think it’s more Billy Idol than Miley Cyrus. I think it shows you where Andrew Watt was. He was excited about doing a Billy Idol track. She's fun to work with. She’s a really great person and she works at her singing — I watched her rehearsing for the Super Bowl performance she gave. She rehearsed all Saturday morning, all Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning and it was that afternoon. I have to admire her fortitude. She really cares.

I remember when you went on " Viva La Bam "  back in 2005 and decided to give Bam Margera’s Lamborghini a new sunroof by taking a power saw to it. Did he own that car? Was that a rental?

I think it was his car.

Did he get over it later on?

He loved it. [ Laughs ] He’s got a wacky sense of humor. He’s fantastic, actually. I’m really sorry to see what he's been going through just lately. He's going through a lot, and I wish him the best. He's a fantastic person, and it's a shame that he's struggling so much with his addictions. I know what it's like. It's not easy.

Musically, what is the synergy like with you guys during the past 10 years, doing Kings and Queens of the Underground and this new stuff? What is your working relationship like now in this more sober, older, mature version of you two as opposed to what it was like back in the '80s?

In lots of ways it’s not so different because we always wrote the songs together, we always talked about what we're going to do together. It was just that we were getting high at the same time.We're just not getting [that way now] but we're doing all the same things.

We're still talking about things, still [planning] things:What are we going to do next? How are we going to find new people to work with? We want to find new producers. Let's be a little bit more timely about putting stuff out.That part of our relationship is the same, you know what I mean? That never got affected. We just happened to be overloading in the '80s.

The relationship’s… matured and it's carrying on being fruitful, and I think that's pretty amazing. Really, most people don't get to this place. Usually, they hate each other by now. [ Laughs ] We also give each other space. We're not stopping each other doing things outside of what we’re working on together. All of that enables us to carry on working together. I love and admire him. I respect him. He's been fantastic. I mean, just standing there on stage with him is always a treat. And he’s got an immensely great sense of humor. I think that's another reason why we can hang together after all this time because we've got the sense of humor to enable us to go forward.

There's a lot of fan reaction videos online, and I noticed a lot of younger women like "Rebel Yell" because, unlike a lot of other '80s alpha male rock tunes, you're talking about satisfying your lover.

It was about my girlfriend at the time, Perri Lister. It was about how great I thought she was, how much I was in love with her, and how great women are, how powerful they are.

It was a bit of a feminist anthem in a weird way. It was all about how relationships can free you and add a lot to your life. It was a cry of love, nothing to do with the Civil War or anything like that. Perri was a big part of my life, a big part of being Billy Idol. I wanted to write about it. I'm glad that's the effect.

Is there something you hope people get out of the songs you've been doing over the last 10 years? Do you find yourself putting out a message that keeps repeating?

Well, I suppose, if anything, is that you can come to terms with your life, you can keep a hold of it. You can work your dreams into reality in a way and, look, a million years later, still be enjoying it.

The only reason I'm singing about getting out of the cage is because I kicked out of the cage years ago. I joined Generation X when I said to my parents, "I'm leaving university, and I'm joining a punk rock group." And they didn't even know what a punk rock group was. Years ago, I’d write things for myself that put me on this path, so that maybe in 2022 I could sing something like "Cage" and be owning this territory and really having a good time. This is the life I wanted.

The original UK punk movement challenged societal norms. Despite all the craziness going on throughout the world, it seems like a lot of modern rock bands are afraid to do what you guys were doing. Do you think we'll see a shift in that?

Yeah.  Art usually reacts to things, so I would think eventually there will be a massive reaction to the pop music that’s taken over — the middle of the road music, and then this kind of right wing politics. There will be a massive reaction if there's not already one. I don’t know where it will come from exactly. You never know who's gonna do [it].

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Graphic: The Recording Academy

Hear All Of The Best Country Solo Performance Nominees For The 2023 GRAMMY Awards

The 2023 GRAMMY Award nominees for Best Country Solo Performance highlight country music's newcomers and veterans, featuring hits from Kelsea Ballerini, Zach Bryan, Miranda Lambert, Maren Morris and Willie Nelson.

Country music's evolution is well represented in the 2023 GRAMMY nominees for Best Country Solo Performance. From crossover pop hooks to red-dirt outlaw roots, the genre's most celebrated elements are on full display — thanks to rising stars, leading ladies and country icons.

Longtime hitmaker Miranda Lambert delivered a soulful performance on the rootsy ballad "In His Arms," an arrangement as sparing as the windswept west Texas highlands where she co-wrote the song. Viral newcomer Zach Bryan dug into similar organic territory on the Oklahoma side of the Red River for "Something in the Orange," his voice accompanied with little more than an acoustic guitar.

Two of country's 2010s breakout stars are clearly still shining, too, as Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini both received Best Country Solo Performance GRAMMY nods. Morris channeled the determination that drove her leap-of-faith move from Texas to Nashville for the playful clap-along "Circles Around This Town," while Ballerini brought poppy hooks with a country edge on the infectiously upbeat "HEARTFIRST."

Rounding out the category is the one and only Willie Nelson, who paid tribute to his late friend Billy Joe Shaver with a cover of "Live Forever" — a fitting sentiment for the 89-year-old legend, who is approaching his eighth decade in the business. 

As the excitement builds for the 2023 GRAMMYs on Feb. 5, 2023, let's take a closer look at this year's nominees for Best Country Solo Performance.

Kelsea Ballerini — "HEARTFIRST"

In the tradition of Shania Twain , Faith Hill and Carrie Underwood , Kelsea Ballerini represents Nashville's sunnier side — and her single "HEARTFIRST" is a slice of bright, uptempo, confectionary country-pop for the ages.

Ballerini sings about leaning into a carefree crush with her heart on her sleeve, pushing aside her reservations and taking a risk on love at first sight. The scene plays out in a bar room and a back seat, as she sweeps nimbly through the verses and into a shimmering chorus, when the narrator decides she's ready to "wake up in your T-shirt." 

There are enough steel guitar licks to let you know you're listening to a country song, but the story and melody are universal. "HEARTFIRST" is Ballerini's third GRAMMY nod, but first in the Best Country Solo Performance category.

Zach Bryan — "Something In The Orange"

Zach Bryan blew into Music City seemingly from nowhere in 2017, when his original song "Heading South" — recorded on an iPhone — went viral. Then an active officer in the U.S. Navy, the Oklahoma native chased his muse through music during his downtime, striking a chord with country music fans on stark songs led by his acoustic guitar and affecting vocals.

After his honorable discharge in 2021, Bryan began his music career in earnest, and in 2022 released "Something in the Orange," a haunting ballad that stakes a convincing claim to the territory between Tyler Childers and Jason Isbell in both sonics and songwriting. Slashing slide guitar drives home the song's heartbreak, as Bryan pines for a lover whose tail lights have long since vanished over the horizon. 

"Something In The Orange" marks Bryan's first-ever GRAMMY nomination.

Miranda Lambert — "In His Arms"

Miranda Lambert is the rare, chart-topping contemporary country artist who does more than pay lip service to the genre's rural American roots. "In His Arms" originally surfaced on 2021's The Marfa Tapes , a casual recording Lambert made with Jack Ingram and Jon Randall in Marfa, Texas — a tiny arts enclave in the middle of the west Texas high desert.

In this proper studio version — recorded for her 2022 album, Palomino — Lambert retains the structure and organic feel of the mostly acoustic song; light percussion and soothing atmospherics keep her emotive vocals front and center. A native Texan herself, Lambert sounds fully at home on "In His Arms."

Lambert is the only Best Country Solo Performance nominee who is nominated in all four Country Field categories in 2023. To date, Miranda Lambert has won 3 GRAMMYs and received 27 nominations overall. 

Maren Morris — "Circles Around This Town"

When Maren Morris found herself uninspired and dealing with writer's block, she went back to what inspired her to move to Nashville nearly a decade ago — and out came "Circles Around This Town," the lead single from her 2022 album Humble Quest .

Written in one of her first in-person songwriting sessions since the pandemic, Morris has called "Circles Around This Town" her "most autobiographical song" to date; she even recreated her own teenage bedroom for the song's video. As she looks back to her Texas beginnings and the life she left for Nashville, Morris' voice soars over anthemic, yet easygoing production. 

Morris last won a GRAMMY for Best Country Solo Performance in 2017, when her song "My Church" earned the singer her first GRAMMY. To date, Maren Morris has won one GRAMMY and received 17 nominations overall.

Willie Nelson — "Live Forever"

Country music icon Willie Nelson is no stranger to the GRAMMYs, and this year he aims to add to his collection of 10 gramophones. He earned another three nominations for 2023 — bringing his career total to 56 — including a Best Country Solo Performance nod for "Live Forever."

Nelson's performance of "Live Forever," the lead track of the 2022 tribute album Live Forever: A Tribute to Billy Joe Shaver , is a faithful rendition of Shaver's signature song. Still, Nelson puts his own twist on the tune, recruiting Lucinda Williams for backing vocals and echoing the melody with the inimitable tone of his nylon-string Martin guitar. 

Shaver, an outlaw country pioneer who passed in 2020 at 81 years old, never had any hits of his own during his lifetime. But plenty of his songs were still heard, thanks to stars like Elvis Presley , Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings . Nelson was a longtime friend and frequent collaborator of Shaver's — and now has a GRAMMY nom to show for it.

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30 years later, Sarah McLachlan looks back at the album that ‘felt to me like freedom’

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Sarah McLachlan thinks of her first trip to Los Angeles as a cautionary tale.

Signed to Clive Davis’ Arista Records when she was all of 20, the Canadian singer and songwriter from Halifax ventured south in 1989 to shoot a couple of music videos as part of Arista’s plans for an American edition of her debut album, “Touch.” The LP had introduced McLachlan as an ethereal art-pop dreamer in the thrall of Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel. Yet Davis and his partners had different ideas about how to present the singer to a U.S. audience.

“I remember a fitting with this stylist, who’d shown up with all these Jean Paul Gaultier suits with the huge shoulder pads,” McLachlan recalls. “Before, I’d just wear whatever, so I was like, ‘Umm…’ But I tried them all on because I was a good little Canadian girl and I did what I was told.” She laughs. “I’d come down not even thinking about my body shape or what my face looked like, and after six days in L.A., there was this sense of ‘Maybe you could lose 10 pounds,’ and ‘We’ll have to do something with this hair’ — this undercurrent that I wasn’t OK the way I was.

“I thought: If I stay here, I’m f—ed.”

McLachlan didn’t stay, returning instead to Canada, where she continued honing her style until she became a star on her own terms: a sensitive but muscular balladeer known for her pristine vocals and for the searching, philosophical tone of hit songs like “ Adia ,” “Possession,” “Angel” and “ Building a Mystery .”

“The game you’re expected to play to be in this world — I just knew I’d like to have as little as possible to do with it,” McLachlan, 56, says with a smile during a recent trip to L.A. to play the late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” ahead of a tour marking the 30th anniversary of her third album, “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy.” Released in October 1993, just as grunge was about to give way to other sounds on radio and MTV, the LP was McLachlan’s pop breakout, selling 3 million copies in the U.S. and setting up the massive success of 1997’s eight-times-platinum “Surfacing,” which spun off a pair of top 5 singles on Billboard’s Hot 100 and won a Grammy Award for female pop vocal performance.

Hanging out under the late-morning sun at the Hollywood Bowl, where she’ll perform “Fumbling” in full (along with a set of hits) on Friday night, McLachlan remembers the 1993 album as a feat of cloistered introspection: She and her longtime producer, Pierre Marchand, made the record largely by themselves in a remote studio in Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains.

“I think that’s when I discovered that I’m actually an introvert,” she says of the yearlong recording process. “I need to go away and be by myself.”

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Yet the current tour provides an opportunity to assess the long reach of McLachlan’s music, which laid crucial groundwork for the deep-feeling likes of Brandi Carlile and Florence + the Machine and did much to bring the now-ubiquitous language and rituals of self care into the realm of pop songwriting. Consider a tune like “ Good Enough ,” a meditation on empathy set to a gently undulating groove, or the hymnlike “ Elsewhere ,” in which McLachlan yearns for a “space where I can breathe.”

“It would be difficult to overstate the influence of Sarah McLachlan on my work and ethos,” says Allison Russell, the Montreal-born singer-songwriter who’s serving as one of McLachlan’s opening acts on the road.

Russell, whose first public performance was singing McLachlan’s “Mary” at a high-school talent show, sees McLachlan’s music as “amplifying and connecting to the greater community of seekers, singers and lovers of equality and harm reduction.” (In 2016, Run-DMC’s Darryl McDaniels wrote in his memoir that hearing “Angel” pulled him back from the brink of suicide as he experienced depression in the late ’90s.)

Leslie Feist, another Canadian artist due to appear with McLachlan at the Hollywood Bowl, says that, for all the soothing textures in McLachlan’s work, “There’s nothing soft about her — there’s a strength at the core of her delivery of these messages and stories. It’s like a firm hug from a friend.”

In the age of Ozzfest and the Warped Tour, McLachlan drew on that fortitude in creating Lilith Fair, the traveling female-led music festival that many were reminded of last year, decades after the its debut in 1997, when Carlile convened an all-star crew (including McLachlan) to accompany Joni Mitchell in a concert at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington state.

Says Russell, who also performed that night: “Lilith Fair taught me about the power and necessity of circle work. I couldn’t be the artist, activist or mother I am today had Sarah not shown the way.”

McLachlan discovered music as an awkward kid in an unhappy home; she fell in with a ragtag group of musicians as a teenager and moved to Vancouver, where she still lives with the younger of her two daughters from a former marriage.

The warm reception of her second album, 1991’s “Solace,” persuaded those once-dubious record execs to allow her and Marchand to take their time with “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy.”

“I’d toured and toured and toured and built up a really solid fan base, and it’s not like they were spending a whole lot of money on me,” she says. “So ‘Fumbling’ really felt to me like freedom. I was single for the first time in my adult life” — she and Marchand had dated earlier but had broken up — “and I was living by myself in this little house in the woods. I don’t even remember having a hard deadline, though I’m sure we had one. But getting to fully immerse myself in music — I mean, having kids and everything now, I can’t even really imagine it anymore.”

“It was definitely a deep dive,” says Marchand, who reckons the length of the sessions for “Fumbling” enabled them to tune out what was going on around them — this was the era of Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots — and craft a richly detailed sound of their own. “If we’d done it in a month, you might’ve felt some of the influences from that time. But after a year, you’re really only plagiarizing yourself.”

The album opens on perhaps its darkest note with “Possession,” which McLachlan wrote from the perspective of an obsessed fan — a point of view she inhabited with such chilling acuity that a man from Ottawa later sued the singer, saying she’d used words from letters he’d sent her without giving him credit. (The man died before the case went to court.) But “Fumbling” is also home to one of McLachlan’s lightest tunes in “ Ice Cream ,” a flirty come-on that compares a lover to that frozen dessert.

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McLachlan says “Ice Cream” almost didn’t make it onto the album. “At that age, I was still very concerned with how I was perceived — I wanted to be taken seriously as an artist — and that song seemed very glib to me,” she says. What changed her mind was enlisting jazz drummer Guy Nadon, who “kind of brought it to a different place. He gave it some rub.”

The song has become a fan favorite: Just a couple nights before flying to L.A., McLachlan accompanied her daughter to a Justin Timberlake concert in Vancouver, where the guy sitting next to her happily informed her that he’d lost his virginity to “Ice Cream.”

“I was like, ‘Wow, OK — I just met you, but thanks.’”

For all the latitude he and McLachlan enjoyed in the studio, Marchand remembers “people from the record company saying, ‘We don’t know what radio stations to put this on.’” In fact, “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” turned out to be a hit at the so-called hot AC format then bridging the gap between Top 40 and adult contemporary; “Angel,” from “Surfacing,” would eventually top Billboard’s adult pop airplay chart.

Asked whether she can see elements of her legacy in modern music, she winces. “That sounds really f—ing egotistical,” she says. “I love the idea of getting to be one of the aunties. But I don’t spend much time thinking about it.”

At the moment, she’s more concerned with what comes next. With her daughter due to move away soon for college, McLachlan has been chipping away at a new album, her first set of original songs since 2014, in L.A. with producer Tony Berg, who’s known for his work with Phoebe Bridgers and Beck.

“Lyrically, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m trying to say,” she says, though she notes that she’s written songs about her relationship with her daughter and their experience in family systems counseling. (“I’ve asked her if it’s OK for me to speak about this, and she’s like, ‘Oh God, it’s fine,’” she says.)

One conundrum of getting back into songwriting, she says, is the seeming disconnect between her mood these days and what comes out when she sits down at the piano.

“We’re in the studio making the saddest music ever and we’re just laughing our asses off the whole time,” she says. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my entire life, which I struggle with as an artist — like, am I representing myself?” She shrugs.

“We’ll see if I get it right.”

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Sarah McLachlan Is Resurfacing

The Canadian songwriter became a superstar through a series of defiant decisions. After slowing down to be a single mother, she has returned to the stage and studio.

Sarah McLachlan is on tour celebrating “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy,” the 1993 album that turned her into an avatar for the sensitive, mysterious singer-songwriters of ’90s radio. Credit... Alana Paterson for The New York Times

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By Grayson Haver Currin

Reporting from Vancouver, British Columbia

• Published May 30, 2024 Updated May 31, 2024

Sarah McLachlan was just 30 hours from beginning her first full-band tour in a decade, and she could not sing.

She was in the final heave of preparation for eight weeks of shows stretching through late November that commemorate “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy,” the sophisticated 1993 album that turned her into an avatar for the sensitive, mysterious singer-songwriters of ’90s radio. But three days into a string of seven-hour rehearsals, her voice collapsed, the high notes so long her hallmark dissolving into a pitchy wheeze.

So onstage in a decommissioned Vancouver hockey arena, a day before a sold-out benefit for her three nonprofit music schools, McLachlan only mouthed along to her songs, shaking her head but smiling whenever she reached for a note and missed.

“It only goes away when I project, push out,” she said backstage in a near-whisper following the first of the day’s mostly mute run-throughs. She slipped a badge that read “Vocal Rest” around her neck and winked. “Luckily, that’s only a third of what I do.”

For the last two decades, McLachlan, 56, has contentedly receded from the spotlight and the music industry she helped reimagine with the women-led festival Lilith Fair . Since 2008, she has been a single mother to India and Taja, two daughters from her former marriage. With rippling muscles that suggest a lean triathlete, she is now a devoted surfer, hiker and skier who talks about pushing her body until it breaks. Though she writes every morning, waking up with a double espresso at the piano in her home outside Vancouver, she has focused on motherhood and the Sarah McLachlan School of Music , offering free instruction to thousands of Canadian children since 2002.

A few years ago, she finished a set of songs about a pernicious breakup but reckoned the world didn’t need them; she hasn’t released an album of original material since 2014. “What do I want to talk about?” she said months earlier during a video interview from her home, swaying in a hammock chair. “I’m just another wealthy, middle-aged white woman.”

McLachlan, though, now may be on the verge of a renaissance. She is amassing a $20 million endowment for her schools, and exhaustive interviews for a Lilith Fair documentary just wrapped. In a year, her youngest, Taja, will head to college. For the second time, McLachlan’s life is opening toward music.

While revisiting her catalog to build this two-hour concert, which begins with a clutch of personal favorites before pivoting into a muscular interpretation of “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy,” she flew to Los Angeles for multiple sessions with the producer Tony Berg, who has worked with Phoebe Bridgers and Aimee Mann. She has cut at least a dozen songs there, including a gently psychedelic cover of Judee Sill’ s “The Kiss.” She has more to write. “I’m so energized by music, now that I’m living and breathing it every moment,” she said. “It’s a very different feeling.”

During the day’s second rehearsal, however, she tempered her enthusiasm with tacit worry about her voice. She told her tour manager that Taja would soon be backstage, probably with a prednisone prescription. “Mom, I’m already here,” the 16-year-old screamed, 20 rows back in an otherwise empty arena. “I have your medicine! Do you want it?”

McLachlan couldn’t hear her. She nodded to her band and started a song called “Fallen,” humming to herself.

DURING SUMMER BREAK between sixth and seventh grades, McLachlan’s friends in Nova Scotia labeled her a lesbian. She had indeed kissed another girl, practicing for a boy. She instantly became a pariah, a middle-class kid from a conservative family surrounded by wealthy bullies.

“I became poison. Then they started calling me ‘Medusa,’ because I had long, curly hair,” she said. “There was physical abuse, too. I thought, ‘I am on my own.’”

There was little quarter at home. McLachlan was the youngest of three adopted children that she said her father never wanted. Since he tormented her older brothers, her mother — unhappy with marriage, depressed by circumstance — responded to her daughter with equal disdain, ensuring everyone was miserable. “I didn’t have a relationship with my father, because my mother wouldn’t allow it. If I showed him any attention, she wouldn’t speak to me for a week,” McLachlan said, lips pursed.

Music, however, became her refuge. She graduated from ukulele at 4 to classical guitar at 7 after the family moved to the provincial capital. She struggled in school, skipping class to hide in the empty gymnasium and play piano there. Though she despised the hard stares and high expectations of recitals, she begged to join a band. Her parents relented to a few hours of Sunday practice. The group’s first show, for several hundred dancing kids in a student union, was transformational.

“I was being seen, and I was being accepted,” she said. “It was the first time I felt that way.”

That night’s headlining act included Mark Jowett, who was then running a small label, Nettwerk, in Vancouver. Stunned by McLachlan’s voice and verve, Jowett urged her to move west and start writing songs. Her parents insisted she finish high school and college. Soon after meeting the label’s co-founder Terry McBride, she defied them, anyway. They barely spoke for two years. “She was green but really disarming,” said McBride, McLachlan’s manager until 2011, in an interview. “Her ambition was to get out.”

McLachlan soon cut a ponderous debut informed by the folk of her youth — Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel, Joan Baez. Jowett and McBride wanted a producer to push her. When they asked Pierre Marchand, who had worked with the Canadian folk royalty of Kate and Anna McGarrigle, what he’d do with McLachlan’s music, he seemed flippant, saying he’d find out in the studio. “My manager was like, ‘I don’t like this guy.’ But I’m like, ‘I love this guy,’” she recalled. “It was all about exploration.”

The pair decamped to the New Orleans studio of the iconoclastic producer Daniel Lanois, where their professional relationship turned physical. (“We wrote a lot of songs naked,” Marchand admitted, laughing.) That intimate bond proved critical when an ascot-sporting representative from McLachlan’s American label, Arista, stopped by to listen. When he didn’t hear a marketable single, they didn’t capitulate. They told him to leave.

“It was a defining moment for me in deciding how I wanted to control my future,” McLachlan said. “I thought, if this is what being famous and successful means, to compromise this thing that feels so important, I don’t want it.”

They gambled correctly. The success of “Solace,” McLachlan’s second album, drifted from Canada into the United States, where it was released in 1992, buying her and Marchand good will. They spent a year and a half in a studio in the Quebec countryside, McLachlan often walking home by moonlight while Marchand built late-night loops and atmospheres. The result, “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy,” remains an uncanny singer-songwriter record, her frank observations on betrayal, friendship and lust warped by his outré sensibilities. “I like it when it’s complex, when there’s not one feeling,” Marchand said. “It’s like a person.”

Marchand and McLachlan added the layered grandeur of U2 and the supple strength of Depeche Mode to these testimonials of yearning and loss. Critics lauded it as smart and sensual. Sales were stronger still: It went quintuple-platinum in Canada and sold more than three million copies stateside.

“I was in a punk band listening to a lot of hardcore — and, strangely, Sarah McLachlan,” said Leslie Feist , the Canadian songwriter who will open the U.S. leg of McLachlan’s tour. “I could hear her power, but it was being expressed more fluidly. It wasn’t about aggression. It was about conviction.”

As McLachlan’s profile grew, letters from stalkers mounted at Nettwerk’s offices, especially from an Ottawa programmer named Uwe Vandrei. They met once, and he slipped her a scarf. But after she read one of his pleas, she asked not to see more. Still, in the album’s opener, “Possession,” where bass pulses and guitars radiate above droning gothic organs, she worked to mirror his mind, to articulate his misplaced passions. When it became a hit, he sued, alleging McLachlan had lifted his words. Vandrei died before trial.

“I felt a strange sense of relief,” McLachlan said haltingly. “But then I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is somebody’s son. Should I have tried to reach out? Tried to talk some sense into him?’”

The success of “Fumbling” — and the draining circus that followed, including conspiracy theories about label involvement in Vandrei’s death — helped spur McLachlan’s most historic defiance. She demanded to not headline every show, to be partnered with acts who could share celebrity’s weight. Promoters balked at the idea that women could carry such a docket, rankling McLachlan. She named a genre-jumping touring festival for Lilith, a woman repeatedly lambasted in sacred texts. Lilith Fair not only dominated the summer concert scene of the late ’90s but showed onlookers and executives that women were not music’s second-class citizens.

“I busked outside of Lilith and applied when I was 16,” said the singer-songwriter Allison Russell , who made her onstage debut by performing McLachlan’s “Mary” alongside high school friends in Montreal. “She changed the landscape for women. She resisted what everyone told her she had to do.”

When McLachlan was the kid being bullied at school or alienated at home, music made her feel valuable. After her hit-laden 1997 album “Surfacing” (“Building a Mystery,” “Adia”) and Lilith Fair, it had also made her wealthy and famous, affording her a family and an activist legacy. She no longer needed the spotlight’s validation, getting it instead from her daughters and dogs, her music school and morning music practice. Her career steadily slowed, with more years passing between albums and her experimental ardor fading. She didn’t mind.

“I’m a middle-aged woman. You kind of became invisible,” she said, leaning in with a wide grin. She whispered: “And I really like that.”

THE ENCORE BREAK on McLachlan’s new tour is brief, maybe 40 seconds. At her benefit show in Vancouver, soon after the band faded from the title finale of “Fumbling,” McLachlan slipped through a black curtain and rushed to her polished Yamaha grand. She’s making a new record, she told the crowd, and she wanted to try a song alone: “Gravity,” her balletic ode to perseverance, to letting others lift you. If McLachlan discarded an album of breakup songs, this is a hymn for what comes after.

It is also a fitting prelude for “Angel,” the poignant 1997 ballad that became a maudlin punchline after scoring a commercial for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

“I see it at the end of the day, and it’s like, ‘Hi, I’m Sarah McLachlan, and I’m about to ruin your day,’” she said of filming the commercial as a favor. “But that’s just not me.”

Before “Adia,” McLachlan told the audience she never explained that song, because it immortalized her taboo transgression — ruining a relationship by dating her best friend’s ex. “We needed to part ways for a while,” she said. “And I swear it was the hardest breakup I’ve ever been through.”

But they fixed the friendship, which has since endured divorces, children and new love. For years, that friend, Crystal Heald, urged McLachlan to take “Fumbling” on tour. “Thank goodness she forgave me,” McLachlan continued.

McLachlan is candid about her prospects. Relevance, she admitted, is a young person’s game that she has long resisted. She’ll be at least 57 by the time she releases new music, and she knows most people only like the old stuff. Still, when she told her forgiveness tale, the arena erupted with a wave of recognition for bygone mistakes and second chances, for comebacks. Her audience has aged with her; stepping back into the spotlight, she is ready to have that conversation.

“I didn’t talk for the first 10 years of my shows. When the music was happening, I knew what I was doing. Take the music and my voice, and I’m 12 again,” she said two months before stepping onstage. “But in the last 10 years, I say whatever comes to mind. I feel more freedom daily to be who I am.”

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Can AI-generated content be a threat to democracy?

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The wider use of AI in everyday life may lead to a crisis in public awareness and knowledge, a Northeastern researcher warns, which can put democracy in danger.

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In the not-too-distant future, most of the information people consume on the internet will be influenced by artificial intelligence, a Northeastern expert says.

And while it is impossible to slow the use of AI, it is crucial to understand AI’s limits — both what it cannot and should not do — and to adopt ethical norms for its development and deployment, says John Wihbey, an associate professor of media innovation and technology.

If not, democracy is in jeopardy, Wihbey says.

Democracy today, he says, is a complex system of people collectively processing information to resolve problems. Knowledge and information that the public consumes play a key role in supporting democratic life.

Chatbots can simulate human conversation and perform routine tasks effectively, and AI agents are autonomous intelligent systems that resolve customer requests by performing tasks without human intervention. They might soon replace humans, Wihbey says, in such information fields as journalism, social media moderation and polling.

“As AI systems begin to create public narratives and begin to moderate and control public knowledge,” Wihbey says, “there could be a kind of lock-in in terms of the understanding of the world.”

AI and large language models are trained on and generate content based on past data about people’s values and interests. They will continuously reinforce past ideas and preferences, Wihbey says, creating feedback loops and echo chambers. 

This risk of feedback loops, he says, will remain recurrent. 

In journalism, Wihbey says, AI might be further incorporated into newsrooms to discover and verify information, categorize content, conduct large-scale analysis of social media and even generate automated coverage of events, including civic and government meetings. 

Entire municipalities or larger regions, so-called news deserts, might end up being covered by AI agents, he says.

On social media, AI moderators whose judgment is conditioned by outdated data and doesn’t align with latest human preferences, Wihbey says, might overmoderate and erase users’ posts and commentary — a vital space for modern human deliberation. 

If they can’t keep up with the fast-changing environment of human contexts, chatmods may also be subject to feedback loops. Their actions will affect what becomes public knowledge, or what humans believe to be true and worthy of attention.

AI-driven simulations in polling could distort results, affecting citizens’ conclusions. Such warped knowledge will repeatedly influence human preferences and decisions in democratic space — for example, what people believe in or who they may vote for — creating recursive spirals.

AI models, Wihbey says, intrinsically will never be able to accurately predict the public’s reaction to something or an election outcome.

“Some of the research about how AI can serve to simulate human opinion polls show that this is true where data is not well established in the model yet,” he says. “In political and social life, so much of what is important is fundamentally emergent. 

“We don’t yet know what human beings will think or do until, as individuals and as groups, we come into areas of challenge, concern or anxiety, and then we start to make individual and collective decisions.”

Further research could be extended to online search and discovery, Wihbey says. For example, Google’s new AI Overview function that consolidates a query into a single response might lead to users bypassing traditional processes of browsing, discovery, deliberation and reasoning.

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Due to these limitations and incompleteness of AI models, humans should differentiate between areas where AI can facilitate collective awareness and what areas they may want to preserve as human-centered zones for independent thinking.

“At this deep level, it’s about human freedom and agency,” Wihbey says. “But I also think it’s just about humans being able to legitimately express new kinds of ideas and preferences that don’t conform to the past.”

Humans need to find ways, he says, where AI doesn’t shape choices they make or preferences they express.

“If we’re going to respect humans truly,” Wihbey says, “We have to make sure that these models are extremely modest.”

AI chatbots are already mimicking expert authority, he says, and giving answers with a significant degree of confidence, even though the answers are often not correct. 

“I just think that the models need to not pretend to be human experts in their voicing, phrasing, framing and the ways that they go about doing things,” Wihbey says. “AI should not look, feel and behave like human intelligence.”

These are just probabilistic models, Wihbey says, that pull together the data that they have been trained on. 

Governments and large institutions have a role to play, Wihbey says, in preserving democratic values by helping to address the risks of AI. At the same time, there is a danger that governments will also use AI-driven systems for their own objectives.

“Any discussion of AI, public knowledge and democracy must grapple with the wide variation in information environments across the world,” Wihbey says.

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