is the warped tour ending

• Album Release Calendar
• Festival Guide
• Heavy History

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.

50 Greatest Pop-Punk Albums of All-Time

Gallery Credit: Loudwire Staff

More From Loudwire

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.

@media(max-width: 73.75rem){.css-1ktbcds:before{margin-right:0.4375rem;color:#FF3A30;content:'_';display:inline-block;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-1ktbcds:before{margin-right:0.5625rem;color:#FF3A30;content:'_';display:inline-block;}} Music

With ‘TTPD,’ Taylor Swift Makes One for Herself

‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Lyrics Are Wild

The Best Music Documentaries

‘Cowboy Carter’ Features 12 Collaborators

The Best Sad Songs of 2024 (So Far)

What I've Learned: Sheryl Crow

The Best Albums of 2024 (So Far)

The 35 Best Shows on Hulu

Scott Stapp Is Ready to Go Higher

The Black Crowes Are Ready to Fly Again

Meet the Guy Behind the World's Biggest Playlists

• Cover Story

"I Cried When I First Heard About Warped Tour Ending"

We head to Warped to find out how the fans feel about it being over...

As the Vans Warped Tour rolls to a close, we've seen a plethora of bands talk about how sad they are, and what Warped Tour meant to them. But, there's another set of people who'll miss it dearly: the fans.

The unique thing about Warped was how it gave music lovers the opportunity to connect with their favourite artists through intimate meet and greets and workshops.

So, with that in mind, we asked those attending the Holmdel, NJ and Scranton, PA dates how they felt about the festival's demise and the impact it's had on their lives.

Check it out...

Katie (left)

“I’m sad, but this was also the best Warped Tour yet! It’s kind of nostalgic that I’ve been coming here for years and it’s ending. There were a lot of great bands playing that I listened to growing up, which was exciting; I loved seeing Simple Plan. One of the best things about Warped Tour is that you come and discover so many new bands. It also sucks that most of the festivals in New Jersey, with this type of music, are basically over. Bamboozle and Skate And Surf ended... and now this."

Sam (right)

“Oh yeah, it definitely makes me sad! Especially since now that I’ve gotten older, it’s a lot more fun. It’s not fair! It’s so hard to see individual bands throughout the year and it’s so nice to be able to come here and see everyone. Broadside blew me out of the park. I like that smaller bands have more of a chance at Warped, but you’re also able to see the bigger ones, too.”

“I’ve been coming since 2014! I cried when I first heard about Warped Tour ending. It has a lot of sentimental value to me. A lot of the memories I experienced were quite personal and nothing could compare to them, so I’m pretty bummed. I’m glad that I got to go to it when I was younger.”

Gabby (left)

“It’s really sad because this is my first and my last. I always went to Bamboozle and the same kind of music played here, and it makes me sad that I never really came to Warped. I love this place.”

“It’s sad to see it end, but I’m really happy that it is, which is also kind of sad - I think they had a good run! A lot of bands got a lot of good exposure that they deserve, a lot of people have learned from this and I love coming and being able to see all of my friends. I think it’s really super-sweet that whole families are coming here. So whether it was the first Warped Tour or the last, it’s so cool to see little babies running around with their parents."

A.J. Khah (Bassist, Sleep On It)

“I’m bummed it’s the last ever Warped Tour! I grew up going to this, I went to '05 Warped Tour, which was the craziest one ever, because I love Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance. My band has played one-off shows and battle of the bands here, so it feels like a part of me is dying with this. On the other hand, it’s such an honour to be a part of the the last one, and for it to be the first Warped Tour that we’re a part of. I just couldn’t ask for a better way to be a part of it, especially being on the last date of the last one - it’s such an honour.”

Words and photos: Abby Clare

Header image: Jordan Mizrahi

Now read these

The Kerrang! Chart

The Kerrang! Chart: The best new music this week

The ultimate new music countdown – every Friday!

The Home Team announce new album, The Crucible Of Life

The Crucible Of Life will arrive in July – meanwhile The Home Team have also shared a new double-single, Roommates and Overtime.

Hear YUNGBLUD cover KISS classic I Was Made For Lovin’ You

Taken from the new soundtrack to The Fall Guy, YUNGBLUD has tackled KISS’ 1979 Dynasty hit – a version that Paul Stanley himself has called “really terrific”.

Yours Truly drop emphatic single, Sour, from new album TOXIC

Hear Yours Truly demonstrate that “this is our f*cking band!” on their defiant new single, Sour.

Watch the video for LØLØ’s catchy new single kill the girl

LØLØ has released a new single, kill the girl, in which she bids farewell to a part of herself that she says was a “pathetic loser”.

Listen to Unto Others’ new goth-metal banger, Butterfly

“It’s about being put down, putting others down, and putting yourself down,” Unto Others explain of the first cut from their forthcoming third album…

twenty one pilots are playing a London show in less than a week’s time

After kicking off their Clancy era live in New York last night (May 2), twenty one pilots will be heading to London this coming Thursday!

SOFT PLAY confirm first new album in six years, HEAVY JELLY

SOFT PLAY have just announced their new album HEAVY JELLY, and released a single about “almost getting hit by a lunatically out-of-control e-scooter”…

The best of Kerrang! delivered straight to your inbox three times a week. What are you waiting for?

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."

Entertainment

RIP: The Vans Warped Tour Will End Next Year

The founder is pulling the plug on the festival

After a 22-year run, traveling punk-rock summer camp, Vans Warped Tour, is saying goodbye next year.

Festival founder, Kevin Lyman, made the announcement today on Twitter. “Today, with many mixed feelings, I am here to announce that next year will be the final, full cross-country run of the Vans Warped Tour,” he wrote. He further explained his decision in an interview with Billboard , listing “an evolving summer festival industry, a shrinking pool of bands, and declining ticket sales amongst its teenage demographic” as factors that led to the festival’s demise. After touring for 26 summers in a row, he adds that, well, he’s also “just tired.”

Warped has gotten into some heat in the past couple of years after they let an anti-abortion organization set up a tent on its grounds and allowed artists accused of sexual misconduct to perform. Some called for its end , while others for a revamping. Controversy aside, since its arrival in 1995, The Tour has hosted acts like Paramore, blink-182, No Doubt, Eminem, Limp Bizkit, Katy Perry, Yelawolf, and Deftones before they were “somebodies.” It also provided a stage for thousands of other punk, rock, and metal bands, was one of the few spaces where rap and rock collided, and retained one of the more diverse lineups throughout its two-decade reign—even given the rise and oversaturation of festivals.

With that said, expect the final run to be a memorable one. No artists have been confirmed yet, but Lyman is hoping to go back to Warped’s roots and bring on more under-the-radar artists. “You’re gonna see a big mix of bands I felt really embraced the Warped Tour lifestyle,” he told Billboard . “I don’t want to say a ‘mature’ lineup, but bands that I think could use one more big push of Warped Tour to help further their careers."

You can check out the final tour dates, here .

End of the Warped Tour: What the loss of rock’s ‘cheap, scruffy’ roadshow means for the concert biz

• Show more sharing options
• Copy Link URL Copied!

Days before Andy Biersack joined his first Vans Warped Tour as an artist, the singer for the L.A. glam-metal band Black Veil Brides got a little overexuberant onstage. His band was playing a pre-Warped warm-up show in 2011 when, in a fugue state over finally making it on the bill, he stage dived off a piece of rigging.

He missed the landing. Biersack fractured several bones and had to spend the rest of his first Warped Tour wrapped in a protective body brace. But he wouldn’t have missed those dates for anything.

“When I was a kid, there was no greater dream than to be on the other side of that fence as an artist,” Biersack said. “It’s next to impossible to describe the importance of Warped Tour in my life.”

A lot of bands, fans and music-industry pros are thinking the same thing this summer. Warped Tour, the traveling punk and skate-culture festival, a teenage summertime fixture since 1995, is finally hanging up its Vans sneakers for good. This summer’s edition — with Black Veil Brides co-headlining among dozens of acts — will be its last as an annual traveling festival.

Festival pioneer

Warped arguably laid the groundwork for modern U.S. festival culture. Its influence trickled up into mainstream pop, inspiring a hit Blink-182 lyric (“I couldn’t wait for the summer at the Warped Tour…”) and landing some of Beck, No Doubt and Katy Perry’s major early tour dates. They were even among the first fests to mix hard rock and hip-hop: Eminem, Ice-T, Joan Jett and the Black Eyed Peas are all Warped alumni.

But as tastes, values and the music economy changed, Warped’s model of cheap tickets, scruffy amenities and a genre mix that waxed and waned in fashion seemed to run its natural course. Evolving standards around diversity and #MeToo led to some soul-searching behind the scenes, especially after an artist was accused of misconduct while on Warped Tour.

Founder Kevin Lyman’s legacy as a pioneer of American festival culture is indisputable, however. As preparations were underway for Warped’s final run, which begins June 21 in Pomona and concludes Aug. 5 in West Palm Beach, Fla., he was seeming relieved, melancholy and hopeful.

“I’m getting notes from people in the business saying, ‘You inspired me and showed me it was OK to be me,’ or that ‘I went to Warped where there were only 2,000 people there but I’ve never felt more energy at a show,’” he said. “We developed a way to reach youth and it’s been a groundbreaking platform. Warped inspired kids to pick up instruments and start bands, and If you look at Coachella, so many of their department heads started on Warped Tour. The spirit will live on.”

I created this fest for the other 90%. We made it close and accessible. Sweat, crowds, down and dirty.

— Kevin Lyman, founder of the Vans Warped Tour

Lyman’s vision for the show proved more durable than even he imagined: it’s closing up as the longest-running touring music festival in America. For generations of hard rockers, now with their own kids in tow at the parent chill-out zone, Warped Tour was often their first music festival or live concert (this Times reporter included).

“When Warped began, there just wasn’t a festival culture in the U.S.,” said Epitaph Records founder (and Bad Religion founding member) Brett Gurewitz. Epitaph bands like Pennywise and Bad Religion were fixtures on Warped for its entire life as a festival, and defined the sound it’s known for. “Kevin brought it to the country,” Gurewitz said. “He gave Epitaph bands a chance that they otherwise never would have had.”

For Lyman, who worked at Goldenvoice during its pre-Coachella days as an underground punk promoter, his model for the show was unheard of at the time: pack as many punk, metal and other rabble-rousing acts as he could on the bill, pay them just enough to pencil out with a notably low ticket price, and put them in front of markets (often rural or suburban) that major acts ignored. No VIP ‘influencers’ or glamping packages. Bands ate from the same backstage BBQ pit.

Lollapalooza came first, but Lyman saw something few other promoters did: that there were tons of underserved young rock fans in America, and if you brought the show to them, they’d become loyal. Festival culture would later shift toward luxury destination packages. But Warped’s unlikely success with a neglected audience was a genuine revolution in American live music.

“I created this fest for the other 90%. We made it close and accessible. Sweat, crowds, down and dirty,” Lyman said. “But festivals are like society as a whole now: it’s all changing toward that top 10%. Bands would play Warped because they knew they were replenishing their audience. Now you make all your money on touring and no one can give that up. When you look at the box office, Warped always had the lowest ticket prices. Today we judge on money in music, and Warped was never about that.”

Fast reckoning

For as much as Warped pioneered festival culture in the U.S., any concert that lasts this long will see change around it. The last few years of reckonings have come especially fast at Warped Tour.

As with many music scenes, punk had longstanding issues around sexual harassment and misconduct — most recently with Brand New’s Jesse Lacey apologizing after allegations that he’d solicited nude pictures from underage fans. In 2015, Warped Tour had its own pre-MeToo reckoning when Jake McElfresh, who performs as the folk-punk act Front Porch Step, played the festival after being accused of online sexual misconduct with fans (prompting one disappointed Warped veteran, Paramore’s Hayley Williams, to ask “What happened to our scene?”).

“I learned a lot during that period,” said Lyman. “I wasn’t an expert on all this. But I took expert advice and now I’m more educated. Even before #MeToo, Warped was run by women. But I realized it’s an issue that we can’t handle the way we used to.”

Last year, Warped gave the politically outspoken group War On Women a major slot, and incorporated singer Shawna Potter’s organization Safer Scenes into its activism programming. The gesture was well-received, but some of the dark streaks in punk emerged when the singer from the Dickies erupted with a violent, misogynist onstage rant toward a woman from Safer Spaces who held up a sign during the band’s set that read, “Teen girls deserve respect, not gross jokes from disgusting old men!”

“They were brave enough to bring an outspoken band like ours out with them and not everyone is,” Potter said. “I want people to know they can ask for advice on how to make their shows safer, what proactive measures they can take, as well as how to handle specific incidents. Because we take an overtly political stance, people that are searching for that in music, or even just wanting to feel secure that a band they like has their back, they’d seek us out and express gratitude for us being there.”

For a variety of reasons, Warped Tour may not be the ideal format for reaching those young fans anymore. Even Lyman himself says that he’s seen changes in the reasons people go to festivals, and how social media has turned a nominally freewheeling staple of teenage life into an occasional viper pit — a cultural shift that other promoters should worry about too.

As tastes, values and the music economy changed, Warped’s model of cheap tickets, scruffy amenities and [an idiosyncratic] genre mix ... [has] run its course.

“Before, you’d show up and stand in line and you’d judge a band face-to-face. Now you decide you don’t like someone just based on social media,” Lyman said. “Like, acts will say, ‘I don’t wanna be a ‘Warped Tour band.’ But there are bands that have been around 25 years who are ‘Warped Tour Bands.’”

“When you’re 14 to 17, you used to come to festivals to explore, and that’s pretty much disappeared from festivals now,” Lyman added. “Now kids want to stay home, and we’re headed for dark clouds as an industry when those 15-year-olds become 18-year-olds.”

Yet for those former teens who passed through Warped’s gates every summer for nearly 25 years, Lyman’s big idea reshaped their lives and ambitions for music, which in turn transformed the entire U.S. concert industry in its influence.

“Yeah, bittersweet is apt,” Black Veil Brides’ Biersack said. “If you’re 19 to 35 today, I don’t know of anything else that’s had a similar impact. What he created will always be the best thing that could have happened to this genre and culture. I met my wife on Warped Tour, so Kevin Lyman has had a bigger impact on my life than just about anyone.”

As for Lyman himself, he’s far from retiring. He’s taken a new position as an associate professor at USC’s Thornton School of Music, where he’ll teach a new generation of promoters and artists about building a lasting concert brand in an ever-faster-evolving industry. He’s also using Warped’s platform to start a new initiative around fighting opioid addiction in youth.

He doesn’t believe that any one thing will rise to fill the void left by Warped (or even that something should). Fans have different expectations and demands for concerts today, and the music business may well not be interested in supporting a similar vision for a dusty, low-cost madcap punk festival again.

But as he prepares to wind down Warped, Lyman is confident someone will think of something brand-new instead.

“Any time anything feels too formulaic, there will always be young people who create it for themselves,” Lyman said. “Like me in 1995, I know there’s a kid out there right now thinking about how to kick Lyman’s ass.”

1999: Warped Tour charms fans with punk, hip-hop extremes

2000: Warped Tour brings music, not mayhem to rock fans

2002: Rebellion pays off for Warped Tour

2015: Warped Tour giving away free tickets to parents of under-18 attendees as the festival turns 21

2007: A Warped Tour photo gallery the year Pennywise, Bad Religion, Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks, New Found Glory and Yellowcard played

1997: Sunchild is on rise with Warped Tour

For breaking music news, follow @augustbrown on Twitter.

More to Read

Find your ‘Love Shack’ in the Mojave Desert. The B-52s singer’s Airstream park is for sale

May 3, 2024

Morgan Wallen, the Beach Boys and the best, worst and weirdest of Stagecoach Day 3

April 29, 2024

The 15 best things we saw at Coachella 2024

April 15, 2024

The biggest entertainment stories

Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

August Brown covers pop music, the music industry and nightlife policy at the Los Angeles Times.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Mick Jagger sounds off at New Orleans Jazz Fest, starting a feud with Gov. Jeff Landry

Willow Smith, Will and Jada’s daughter, says nepo baby ‘insecurity has driven me harder’

Country singer Sara Evans reveals struggles with body dysmorphia, eating disorder

Entertainment & Arts

Britney Spears twisted her ankle but is safe at home after Chateau Marmont 911 call

Warped Tour Is Over; Long Live Warped Tour

Warped Tour was flawed, but no more flawed than the many homes I chose for myself outside of it.

BuzzFeed Contributor

Warped Tour is over for good and I am bummed about it, even though my days of stomping around the grounds of some amphitheater are long gone. To be at Warped was to continually have the question of What disaffection carried you here? asked and answered. It started in 1995, founded by music promoter Kevin Lyman with just 19 bands, mostly hailing from some iteration of the punk genre, spread out over 25 shows across 25 cities. No Doubt and Sublime were the biggest names on the bill, and L7, and a young Deftones. In the following year, Vans became the tour’s main sponsor and by 2001 — my first year attending — there were over 100 bands, sprawled out over five different stages. Back then, I hadn’t been to a festival, and I'd hardly been to any concerts. I hitched a ride up to Cleveland with some friends because it was summer, and the thought of growing up and going to college terrified me, and I wanted to place two hands at the edge of summer and stretch it out for as long as I could. It seemed like a way to do that was to walk around listening to music I liked but hadn’t fallen in love with yet.

There is a particular moment in the grand story of music discovery, where a person, no longer moved by what they’re currently listening to, has a tape slid across a school bus aisle by an older kid, or blows the dust off a record jacket unearthed in the catacombs of their childhood home. In that moment, the music found on that tape, or on that record, or in the glow of the television screen past bedtime is always transcendent, and it alters the musical direction of the person who discovers it. For me, this moment happened under a tree in 10th grade, when the kind of punk kid who wears a leather jacket in 90% humidity handed me a CD-R. “Sex Pistols” was scrawled across the CD’s silver face in a thin Sharpie so that the edges of every letter appeared dangerous, or violent. The songs were loud and fast and short, a departure from the narrative-driven rap and soul songs I’d attached myself to, or the silent, more meditative rock music I’d grown to enjoy.

The Sex Pistols aren’t the greatest musical introduction to the genre of punk, but the performance of rallying against something, anything — was appealing, and allowed me to chart a map toward more punk, and then its many offshoots: post-punk, garage punk, hardcore, and pop punk. I liked what this music awakened in me, but I didn’t yet have a landscape where I felt like I could fall in love with it. So much of the music and its messaging relied on communal measures as a vehicle to get out both joy and rage, and until my first Warped Tour, I didn’t see, up close, what the music was capable of pulling out of people who I imagined to be like me.

Outsiders are sometimes born out of an unfulfilled desire for inclusion, or sometimes from a desire for exclusion from whatever the mainstream represents, and Warped Tour offered a vision for both of those groups in almost equal measure. Few of the bands who were on Warped, beyond its headliners, could reasonably be considered mainstream, and many of the bands with their names in the small- to medium-sized font on the promotional posters were upstarts or local underground stalwarts. This fostered a sense of intimacy. You could plausibly end up in line to get a shitty slice of pizza behind a person you just saw onstage, or strike up a conversation with band members while waiting to use the same scattered bathroom stalls. There was a draw to this — a commingling out of sounds and groups and experiences that made it impossible for you to not be able to find your people somewhere among the masses.

Mosh pit action during the Vans Warped Tour in 2000.

And so I went to Warped Tour again in 2002. I was there when it touched down in Columbus, Ohio, for the first time, and again in the middle of Noblesville, Indiana, where Glassjaw played on a violently humid day and the crowd was so tight that it was hard to tell where my sweat ended and my neighbor’s sweat began, even as I sat underneath a fan in the Uptown Cafe late that night in front of a plate of cheese fries. I was there in Darien, New York, and in Camden, New Jersey , in 2003, for the first taste of Taking Back Sunday and the theatrics of Adam Lazzara, who would twirl a long microphone cord around like a yo-yo, in a manner which seemed both reckless and romantic, the mic swinging but always returning to his body. I was there in Columbus in 2004 to see Fall Out Boy make their Warped Tour debut after following them around Midwest dives and basements for the past two years. In that moment, it felt like watching one of your friends make it as far as they ever would, with everyone who didn’t know your friends there right as they were falling in love with them.

I was there in 2005 for one of the most memorable Warped lineups of all time. The newest emo boom really took off in the time between Warped 2004 and Warped 2005, and so 2005 meant that one could not just peep sets from MxPx and the Transplants, but also see bands like My Chemical Romance play Warped for one last time before they went mainstream. That year also offered new bands to love, like Paramore, who made their Warped debut in 2005. I was at four stops in 2006, dancing alone in the grass at one and sleeping in the car of a stranger while some band played a forgettable set at another. I was there when a storm came in Cleveland in 2007, and I was there in Illinois that same year, when the clouds were white and puffed themselves harmlessly along the deep blue of the sky.

Katy Perry performs at Warped Tour on Aug. 17, 2008, in Carson, California.

I went in 2008, when a young Katy Perry was added to the lineup, an exhausting moment which made the festival feel cheaper, a little more desperate. It is a cop-out to say that Katy Perry ruined the spirit of Warped for me, but it’s a cop-out I cling to because the truth is a bit harder to come to terms with. I was getting older. I had, in the seven summers I had devoted to Warped, accumulated more responsibilities. I was a teenager when I attended my first Warped, and by 2008, I was approaching my mid-twenties. This is by no means old, but the festival felt more like an obligation than a place of excitement.

I began to consider time differently. There are countless rock ‘n’ roll mantras about wanting to die before growing old, or before you are separated permanently from whatever ideas of youth you once held, and I get it. But for all the waxing poetic about how the soul and spirit can stay young forever, some of us have to survive in a manner that simply won’t allow for it. Some of us have to go to a job where we punch a timecard and then come home too exhausted to drive three hours on a weekend. Time makes fools of the people who plant flags in the ground of their imagined, immovable youth. I sulked through Warped Tour in 2009, went once more in 2010 out of some imagined obligation, and then finally gave in and retired my Warped Tour Road Trip streak.

I didn’t go this final year, though I told myself I should have. I remembered the way my crew and I would look at the early to mid-thirtysomethings who would roam the grounds of Warped somewhat aimlessly. We either assumed they were in a band or, if they weren’t, they were someone trying to relive glory days that were long gone, like the old high school quarterback who pops back into high school parties because no one cares who he is in college. It is an imagined anxiety, sure — but one strong enough for me to wave a dismissing hand and say Let the kids have their fun . I couldn’t have found the time in my calendar if I wanted to, I told myself. The summer is too hot and the bands aren’t good enough and I ain’t getting in anyone’s pit so to hell with it anyway.

The crowd at the Vans Warped Tour's stop in San Diego, California during the first week of the festival's final summer run.

Thinking about Warped Tour’s end, I posed a question on Twitter, asking people to share their favorite Warped Tour memories. A quilt of nostalgia emerged, each square detailed with someone’s mosh pit, or someone else’s scream into a microphone handed down from on high by a singer, or someone else’s time seeing one band bring out guests from another band, and so on and so on. A surprising number of people responded to the tweet saying that they remember a time in 2007 when the rain came from a few threatening clouds over the Tower City Amphitheater in Cleveland and didn’t stop.

They remembered the moments after the storm really picked up, when the bands all ran to their trailers or buses while the winds blew apart stages and the crowd chanted along to a jukebox of their own making, as the water pooled at our feet and grew seemingly higher by the minute. We were no longer running from the rain; we were giving into it entirely.

I knew then that I would miss Warped Tour a lot, though I had found myself ambivalent about its winding down. There was something beautiful about those people who reached across the divide of a timeline to say I was there with you. It was all real.

Fans throw devil horns in the air.

Many festivals, by nature, are at least a little bit predatory. They function in part by cashing in on the grand desire for a communal experience, and the fact that that desire can overshadow the need for all other elements. I can speak beauty into the communal moments of a storm overtaking a festival and soaking its participants while a stage collapsed. And if I speak enough beauty into those moments, you don’t have to ask why there wasn’t adequate cover for a day with a storm in the forecast, or why a stage was not built to safely withstand wind.

This is the gift of a festival, particularly a festival in the open air. There is more room for romanticism, and the margin for error is wider than a concert. If one band at Warped Tour put on a memorable enough set, an attendee could forgive the sets they walked away from displeased. But this, too, is a function of Warped catering to a very specific scene. Many bigger festivals can balance the amount of music with the quality, but with Warped, packing a bunch of bands into a single day over a tight schedule means that you might not see any exciting bands beyond the ones that drove you to buy a ticket in the first place. To gorge oneself on mediocrity is another path to fulfillment, and in the moment, the feeling of fullness outweighs the journey it took to get there.

Warped Tour is over and I say good night and good riddance. It was a festival, after all, and festivals are beholden to their own bottom line first, and the fan experience is a far distant second. Even for those deeply immersed in the nuances of its best moments, Warped was sometimes the poorest reflections of the scenes in the cities where it took place. This wasn’t surprising, but in my times attending, there were few protocols for violence enacted against attendees, and even fewer protocols for the lack of safety felt by women or queer folks. Warped isn’t unique in this way — many festivals fail their attendees in this manner — but for a festival catering to an audience of people who might not feel safe and/or comfortable in their own home communities, actually creating a safe space should be a priority.

At Warped 2015, festival producer Kevin Lyman allowed Jake McElfresh (who performed under the name Front Porch Step) to join the tour in Nashville after being accused of sexual misconduct with minors earlier in the year. Lyman insisted the move was to grant McElfresh a “second chance,” while seemingly ignoring that giving McElfresh access and power to the young women he was accused of preying on wasn’t a great idea.

As a result, many bands who would have shared a stage with McElfresh canceled their performances, and bands who weren’t sharing a stage with him called on festivalgoers to boycott his performance. (A performance that included McElfresh taunting an audience member who heckled him.) This was just the latest misstep for Lyman, who often claimed to be listening to conversations about sexual safety at Warped, but remained confident that Warped was doing a good job policing itself, capable of dealing with sexual harassment only on its own terms, in a manner that largely served its artists first.

But the festival reflects the scene that reflects the music, which was largely born out of the emotional turmoil of men who imagined themselves to be tortured without considering how they might be capable of torture.

Concertgoers front row at the Vans Warped Tour.

Warped Tour is over and I will miss it as much as you might miss it, friends. Warped Tour is over and I hated it as much as you hated it sometimes. Warped Tour crawled off into the dark gray sky last week and I hung art in an apartment and shopped for winter clothes before summer was even ending and researched retirement accounts while mumbling about how none of us are going to be alive to spend the money we’ve saved. There is no more Warped Tour as I type this now, and I don’t desire the sweat of another person pressed into my back while my ears ring, but I do desire a memory of it, kept in a box where the moment looks more beautiful than it actually was. I don’t miss the 36-hour romances with girls met on the same road to the same show or in line for the same band T-shirt. I don’t miss the false promises to call and stay in touch with the people I deemed family over the howl of some lyrics we both knew, but then never spoke to again. Warped Tour was always going to fail because it was loved as a concept first, and loved by too many people who came to it vulnerable and looking for more answers than it could provide. But it served enough moments. Warped Tour was a flawed home, but no more flawed than the many homes I chose for myself outside of it. Long live the parts of Warped Tour that still echo beautifully in the hearts and minds of those who need it most. ●

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His first collection of poems, The Crown Ain't Worth Much was released in 2016 and was nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us , was released in fall 2017 by Two Dollar Radio.

• Manage Account

The Summer Punk Went Pop: Oral History of the 2005 Warped Tour

On the first day of Warped’s final run, we present the firsthand story of its watershed year - when Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Paramore, and others became stars.

By Chris Payne

Chris Payne

• Share this article on Facebook
• Share this article on Twitter
• Share this article on Flipboard
• Share this article on Pinit
• + additional share options added
• Share this article on Reddit
• Share this article on Linkedin
• Share this article on Whatsapp
• Share this article on Email
• Print this article
• Share this article on Comment
• Share this article on Tumblr

This summer, the Vans Warped Tour — music’s last major traveling festival — is  calling it quits , citing fatigue, disinterested teens, and a marketplace shift towards blowout weekends over season-long treks. But 13 years ago, Warped nearly collapsed beneath the weight of its own success.

See latest videos, charts and news

Hayley Williams

The storm had been brewing for some time. Warped was 11 years old in 2005, and it’d played an integral role in bringing the likes of Green Day, Blink-182, No Doubt, Sublime, and even Eminem to suburban superstardom during the ’90s and early ’00s. An annual Warped trip had become a summertime staple for teens raised on bratty skate punk and ska, but by the middle of the aughts, it had morphed into something completely new. And bigger.

In 2005, a more sensitive, precocious, fashion-focused brand of punk exploded into popular culture. Its eventual poster kids spent the decade’s early years grinding it out in America’s VFW halls, the venerable ethos of Thursday, Saves the Day, and Jimmy Eat World their guiding light. Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance played Warped in ‘04 and after drawing fervent crowds, were signed on for the next year early; by the time June ‘05 rolled around, “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” and “Helena” were MTV staples, improbably climbing the Hot 100. 700,000 kids came out that summer, more than any Warped before or since (for context, last year pulled 300,000). Individual bands regularly sold over $30,000 of merch  per day . Bodyguards were needed for the first time. At summer’s end, the tour’s profits hit seven figures. But Warped’s summer-long slog paid another price; across 48 shows in 59 days, musicians and personnel grappled with oversized egos, volatile — if not occasionally hostile — environments, and a sideshow’s worth of distractions far from home, with a massive mainstream audience suddenly watching.

Trending on Billboard

On the first day of Warped’s final trek, we present the firsthand story of its watershed year.

I. “This Was Like the Moon Landing For This Type of Music”

Tyson Ritter, All-American Rejects vocalist-bassist:  2005 Warped Tour was everything people think about when they want to make Warped something of folklore. It was the real thing.

Kevin Lyman, Warped Tour founder & producer:  The Warped Tour’s only made money on tickets once, and 2005 was the year. If we turn a profit, it’s from sponsorships and merchandise.

Buddy Nielsen, Senses Fail vocalist:  It had everything to do with the scene’s success. This was like the moon landing for this type of music.

Lyman:  We’d done some early bookings. The year before, I had Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance on the smaller stage. The audiences weren’t huge at this point, but they were so engaged, so I said, “Gotta bring them on the main [stage].”

Pete Wentz, Fall Out Boy bassist:  That was a surreal moment for us. That was when us and My Chemical Romance were both getting on  TRL  at the same time. It was wild because we’d never experienced that.  (Note: all Fall Out Boy quotes in this piece come from a  previous Billboard interview ).

Lyman:  TRL  was so popular… everyone was watching. They grabbed onto these bands, and radio was playing them.

Nielsen:  Senses Fail did Warped the year before. My Chem wasn’t My Chem yet, as we know them. Senses Fail wasn’t Senses Fail yet. On Warped Tour 2005, everybody was everybody. Fall Out Boy was Fall Out Boy. You had the most bands that were not only successful but, like,  pop music  successful.

Matt Watts, The Starting Line guitarist:  The whole scene started as a left-of-center, DIY thing. Lots of these bands started at VFW or Knights of Columbus Halls. It was such a personal connection with fans. In 2005, it hit a critical mass.

Nielsen:  It was the first time bands had security guards. Pete Wentz and Gerard Way couldn’t get around without them.

Ritter:  The difference between those bands and All-American Rejects? Fall Out Boy, three bodyguards. My Chem had a bodyguard.

Lyman:  The audience coming to Warped Tour transformed from that hardcore person who was out skating or going to the beach to a crowd that was watching TV all summer. We managed to get them off their couches for one day! But they weren’t ready to be in the sun for nine hours. They would stand in front of the stages all day long waiting for those hit songs. It wasn’t like you could just come, watch those bands and leave; you were there the whole day. By the time the band went on stage, these people hadn’t eaten, hadn’t drank water, hadn’t put sunscreen on, so many of them just collapsed. Our medical tents were full.

Lisa Brownlee, Warped Tour tour manager:  I often think of Kevin Lyman as a mad scientist, crossing boundaries that ought not to be crossed when putting together a lineup.

Al Barr, Dropkick Murphys vocalist:  Fall Out Turds and My Chemical Shit Pants — that’s what we called them — were both blowing up, and I kept going around Warped Tour the whole day going, “Jesus Christ, this singer must be so tired because he sings for every band!” Because it all sounded the same to an old timer like me. But that’s when I realized I sound like my dad! Those bands? Not my cup of tea at all. But they were working their asses off, just like we did, and nothing was handed to them. They worked for everything they got.

Lyman:  The core audience was pretty pissed. We talk about punk rock being all-accepting, but a lot of times, it’s still very niche and very “who’s in their club.” This was before Twitter, so they verbalized it to me on message boards. Well, the club got a lot bigger.

II. “They Were Connecting on a Much Deeper Level Than Most of the Other Bands”

Watts:  In the VFW halls, Fall Out Boy put in their 10,000 hours and beyond.

Nielsen:   From Under the Cork Tree  had just come out. Fall Out Boy was huge.

Watts:  They put out the right record at the right time.

Wentz:  It was like, Warped Tour happening at the same time [and hearing], “You guys are super famous, but maybe just on Warped Tour!”

Watts:  Pete Wentz is a captivating dude. Patrick Stump is a great writer.

Justin Pierre, Motion City Soundtrack vocalist-guitarist:  I thought Patrick Stump had an amazing voice. I was very upset at how effortless it seemed. I would have to work 10 times as hard just to pull it off. He was kind of a weirdo, kind of a nerd. I really liked that. There was an unspoken nerd quality we kind of shared. I [recently] found a  picture online  of us coming back from a Target run… I really dug Patrick a lot.

Watts:  Once “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” caught on, it opened up the floodgates.

Andy Hurley, Fall Out Boy drummer:  I remember going to a water park right after we’d gotten to number one on  TRL  that day. I was like, “Yeah, we’re number one!” going down the slides and no one in the park knew at all who we were.

Wentz:  They were like, fucking losers!

Lyman:  Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance, I put them on at three or four in the afternoon. All the kids would be in the venue by then, but I knew their fans couldn’t hold up til the end of the day.

Watts:  My Chemical Romance was connecting on a much deeper level than most of the other bands.

Lyman:  A lot of merchandise was being sold. This is where Kate Truscott — who [now] helps run my company — was recognized because she was the merchandise person for My Chemical Romance. They were selling half a semi-truck of merchandise a day at that point. It was crazy.

Kate Truscott, My Chemical Romance merch manager:  I was out on the road with Chevelle, working for a company called BandMerch. I got a call that this new band needed somebody because they were suddenly doing way bigger numbers than anybody expected. They had some guy doing their merch and frankly, he was blowing it. Heather Hannoura [now Heather Gabel] did some shirts for us. Some of the stuff I was selling then is still for sale at Hot Topic. There were gloves with bones on them. They had fingers and no one bought them, so I would cut the fingertips off and then kids loved them!

Watts:  There were tons of kids coming out dressed in My Chem-appropriate attire. I use the term “goth vibes” responsibly: dark hair, black or red t-shirt, eye makeup.

Truscott:  One part of the summer, [guitarist] Frank Iero thought he was having some sort of brain bleed; He was blowing his nose and this red stuff was coming out. A doctor looked at it and was like, “Dude, that’s makeup.”

Lyman:  Some days, I heard they were doing $30,000 to $50,000 in merchandise.

Truscott:  Our highest day was $60,000, which to my knowledge, is a record that’s yet to be beaten by any band on Warped. It was in Detroit, a 30,000-person show at the Silverdome. Headed to banks on days off, our tour manager would be like, “What’s in your backpack? You can’t walk to the bank with $250,000 on you!”

Watts:  When you see bands changing pop culture, you see fans embracing their style.

Truscott:  The only band that had more items for sale than us was the Murphys. They used Warped as a warehouse sale every summer [ Laughs ].

Lyman:  Dropkick Murphys were probably the highest paid band on that year’s tour. Them and the Offspring were probably both making $15,000 to $17,000 [per show]. I had to book Fall Out Boy, $1,500. Atreyu, $1,500. Story of the Year, probably $750. I was delivering this whole package of bands. I don’t have the exact price, but I could probably tell you it was about $125,000 a show, talent-wise. You had to try to be right on the edge.

Nielsen:  Everybody was literally printing money. Everybody was stoked.

Lyman:  Fall Out Boy tended to go out, hang around the parties a little more… My Chemical Romance, I don’t think anyone in the band was really a partier.

Truscott:  There was nothing salacious. Frank is still married to the girl he was dating back then. [Guitarist] Ray [Toro] is still with the same girl. Gerard’s had a couple different girlfriends, but it was like, three in the 20 years I’ve known him, and now he’s married.

Lyman:  They were always nice to the women on our tour, the girls working with these bands.

Truscott:  I had a boxset of the  Charmed  DVDs. Gerard came by asking what they were about. I’m like, “It’s about witches that own a bar,” and he was like, “I can get behind that.”

Ritter:  You’d stroll this alley of buses and see Gerard doing a sketch in front of the headlights on the ground in front of his bus. He was too shy to talk to the group, but he could still sit out in front of his bus drawing a piece of art, which I thought was so fun. He would get in front of the headlights and show off his talent.

Truscott:  Gerard was always doing art. He hung out by himself a lot, drank coffee. A lot of coffee.

Pierre:  I think someone was like, “Oh he’s sober, too! You should hang out!”

Truscott:  We all lived on the same bus together. They turned the back lounge of our bus into a studio. My bunk was right up against it. I remember when they were writing “I Don’t Love You” [from 2006’s  Welcome to the Black Parade ]. Bob [Bryar] put a drum kit in the back and Gerard was doing vocals. It was four in the morning and I remember hearing the lyrics and opening the door like, “That’s a fucking brutal song!”

III. “Rockstar Shit Was Going On”

Lyman:  We were at the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit and 30,000 people showed up. That might’ve been the second biggest Warped show of all time. We had this massive show at the sports arena at Long Beach State, outside of L.A.. That was probably the biggest show.

Truscott:  I was selling merch out of a 10 foot by 10 foot tent. The crowd would push into it, start crushing into us. I had to get up on the table a couple times and say nobody was getting anything until everybody calmed down. There was a day in Camden, NJ — the site was too small for the crowd there — I had to stand on my table and wave down security because kids were moshing and throwing themselves inside our tent.

Watts:  There’d be signings all day. There was no barrier between the artists and the fans.

Ritter:  All-American Rejects, Fall Out Boy, and My Chem — we’d do signings all day, every day. You’d try to get through 400 people in two hours. It became a chore, literally sitting for 400 people that walked by you asking, “Hi, how are ya?”

Pierre:  I always liked hanging out, signing things, meeting the people that liked our music. That was my favorite thing I did, next to performing.

Watts:  I bought a Metro scooter —  basically a fake Vespa — for like $500. I would cruise around after shows to find hotel swimming pools and go swimming a bunch. Because the shower situation at Warped is sometimes less than ideal.

Brownlee:  I couldn’t get from stage to stage fast enough to see the bands I wanted to see. The bill was so stacked.

Ritter:  When you play Warped, you get thirty minutes. These were thirty-minute sets.

Watts:  There are no “set” set times. It’s sort of drawn from a lottery in the morning.

Nielsen:  How did our sets sound? Fucking terrible [ Laughs ]. Back then we were still figuring it out. Generally nobody really sounds that great at Warped Tour. It’s windy and hot.

Lyman:  We had a massive storm July 15 at Race City Motorsport Park in Calgary, Alberta. We had a lot of storms through the years, but that one was crazy. It looked like just clouds coming, but it was actually clouds of dust and wind. It blew tents 25 feet in the air. When it hit, the Transplants were onstage. I’ll never forget them playing while I was trying to hold all the tents down.

Barr: Transplants were on that tour. I spent a ton of time with my friend [Transplants vocalist] Skinhead Rob [Aston].

Nielsen: You had [Transplants drummer] Travis Barker walking around with his television show Meet the Barkers .

Barr: One day I was going over to see Skinhead Rob, and this guy from MTV was getting thrown out of their bus because he had asked Travis and Rob if they got dressed up in monkey suits for fun. Rob just lost his shit on the guy.

Lyman:  Billy Idol was trying to make a reconnection with fans, so they wanted him to play some Warped dates in between his own tour routing.

Nielsen:  Billy Idol! Billy Idol was fucking hilarious. He did not know what Warped Tour was. You never wanted to be playing near him because you had to deal with him starting late and his set going over 10 minutes. He didn’t give a shit.

Lyman:  You don’t start the stage next door until the other band is done. In Minnesota, it was a nightmare. My stage managers weren’t communicating and there was a meltdown onstage and they started both stages, so you had Billy Idol singing “Rebel Yell” and then Fall Out Boy singing something. It was merging into this mashup by my tour bus.

Nielsen:  He’d come out of the bus shirtless talking to himself like, “WHITE WEDDING!”, practicing his vocals. Billy Idol was fucking wild, just on another planet.

Barr:  I remember walking around thinking, who is this heavy, ferocious punk band playing? And I’m like, oh my god, it’s the Offspring. Now the Offspring are a great band but they’re not a ferocious punk band. But on the backdrop of all these pop-punk and emo bands…

Nielsen:  [Frontman]   Dexter [Holland] was flying in a plane from show to show. One time he took our tour manager: “Come fly to the next show!”

Lyman:  He didn’t know these bands but he’d invite them to go to the next city with him. If you were sitting here in Cincinnati and he would say, “Hey Kevin, I want to take so-and-so to Chicago with me. Can you put them on by 6 so we can be at the airport by 8?” He would fly the band, pick up a couple hotel rooms for them, and go party in the city.

Nielsen:  Rockstar shit was going on.

Lyman:  Then you had Avenged Sevenfold. You knew they were gonna be big because they were the first band that ever showed up on Warped Tour with a smoke machine.

Nielsen:  You’d look up in the sky and see a cloud of smoke and be like, “Avenged Sevenfold must be on!” Broad daylight, it looks like the stage is on fire.

Lyman:  Avenged Sevenfold always liked to gamble — dice and poker. The Offspring, too, but not Dexter. Cee-lo, I’m sure the Murphys were in the middle of that.

Barr:  I myself wasn’t, but our crew were big into poker. They’d play with Avenged Sevenfold almost every night.

Watts:  The first night of tour, I remember our drummer, Tom Gryskewicz cleaning up against… I think it was one of the Transplants dudes. Tom came back to the bus with money and we were all like, “What did you do?” I think he probably ended up losing it back to those dudes at some point.

Spencer Chamberlain, Underoath vocalist:  A band — who we won’t name — needed money. We let them borrow money and they all came back with new clothes and tattoos.

Aaron Gillespie, Underoath drummer-vocalist:  Oh my god, that’s right! They were struggling on the tour…

Chamberlain:  They were struggling with something else. But we can’t say, because people might know. They went to the Christian band, knowing we’d be giving.

Gillespie:  Did we give them a bunch of money or a little bit?

Chamberlain:  A bunch.

IV. “I’ve Got These Girl Bands, Can I Set Up?” 

Lyman:  Shira? My God. How do these people come into your life, you know?

Shira Yevin, Shiragirl vocalist; Shiragirl Stage founder and producer:  I was on the tour in 2003, working for the Truth campaign as an emcee. I noticed there were very few, if any, females onstage. I didn’t understand why. I lived in Brooklyn at the time, and was friends with all sorts of all-girl punk and hardcore bands. My band approached Kevin in 2004.

Lyman:  Shira just showed up with her stage. Just showed up. In Englishtown, NJ, with this pink truck: “I’ve got these girl bands, can I set up?”

Yevin:  He said, “Okay, great idea, maybe next year. It’s the tour’s tenth anniversary, we got a lot going on.” I said, “Next year?!”

Lyman:  She’s from New Jersey, so you know how progressive people from New Jersey won’t take no for an answer.

Yevin:  We ended up crashing the tour. I drove in with my pink RV and just set up — super scrappy punk rock. Kevin walked by and loved it: “Shira, this is great. So are you on for the whole tour now?”

Lyman:  Next thing you know, she’s hanging over by my bus, hitting me up about how she’s going to do the Shiragirl Stage in 2005.

Shiragirl Talks Hitting the Road For Final Warped Tour, Shares Punk Pop Anthem 'Summers Comin'…

Yevin:  2005 was the year we made it legit. His team helped us get sponsorships for the stage. MySpace was our media partner. We hand-painted their logo on our truck. We did the whole application process for the Shiragirl Stage through MySpace. In the 2005 music scene, MySpace was a big platform for how new artists came up. The Dollyrots played that year and were amazing. L7’s bassist Jennifer Finch had this side project called The Shocker — it was really cool to have them on Shiragirl. They repped old-school Warped.

Truscott:  We were a pretty strong bunch of babes, the other women on Warped Tour. We stuck together and the guys were really supportive of us. It was probably the opposite of what everybody would expect me to say — that it was really hard and that I had to really earn my stripes. But that wasn’t a big issue. They saw me work hard and we all respected each other. I remember there was a day some kid stole from me at My Chem’s merch table. A bunch of the other guys saw it and chased him down and brought him back to me.

Yevin:  We were not taken seriously. At first, especially. We showed up in this beat-up truck and there were bets against how long we would last. By the end, they respected us a lot more.

V. “I Know a Lot of Real Hard Motherfuckers”

Watts:  The cookouts were probably the highlight of Warped Tour. The sun goes down and it’s not 100 degrees anymore!

Pierre:  Everybody had to come to lunch and dinner, if you wanted to eat. It made me kind of nervous, like high school in a way. If I’m by myself, shit, where do I sit? I kind of know these people, but I kind of don’t. I heard that people thought I was a huge asshole because I didn’t talk to anyone, but I was too nervous.

Watts:  Justin was a little bit more introverted, but he was always incredibly welcoming to us. I remember Motion City Soundtrack hitting their stride that year.  Commit This to Memory  had just come out. They were one of the few indie-alternative, left-of-center-leaning bands. They came from a different world, but still hit all the boxes for a fan going to Warped Tour.

Pierre:  I bonded with Gerard over Coke Zero, which had just come out. I was in their bus for some reason: “Oh my god, you got Coke Zero?” If I’m drinking Coke Zero in ’05, I think I was sober then, because that’s when I basically went from alcohol to caffeine. I would drink four or five Monster Energy Drinks a day. It was really bad. I’d reward myself after playing a show with two Monster Energy Drinks [ Laughs ].

Watts:  This was before people were on their cell phones 24/7. So it was one of the last times in my life I remember just hanging out with a bunch of people and not having a phone, not being interrupted by anything like that. Just shared experiences, shared connections.

Senses Fail's Buddy Nielsen Fights to Survive a Chaotic Present & His Band's Toxic Past

Nielsen:  There used to be huge parties afterwards, sort of a teen movie set thing.

Ritter:  It was like  Grease  on the road. Everybody was looking for their Sandra Dee.

Nielsen:  There’d be 20,000 people at each show and afterwards, two or three thousand would wind up getting backstage. It was a different time. You weren’t as worried about five thousand people partying at the end of the night — epic bonfire parties with every band and also people that found a way to stay. If you stayed long enough, security left, so…

Ritter:  I was 20. I’m 34 now. So think I remember my M-O was, okay the show’s over, who’s gonna get me stoned?

? Lyman:  Warped kind of self-regulates on drugs and alcohol because it’s such a hard-working tour and you don’t know when you’re gonna play. I was out every night; if someone goes a little hard at a party, what’s the best cure for that? Put them on 11:30 the next morning. Be the first band up. That’ll cure people.

Gillespie:  We drank, but we weren’t like, partying hard.

Watts:  There was definitely drinking, but there weren’t a lot of drugs. We were never a drug band, so if there was, it didn’t hit our orbit.

Nielsen:  I was pretty much YOLO-ing every moment of every day. I was 21 running around smoking weed, drinking beer, hanging out.

Lyman:  During this period, there were maybe some pills going around Warped, but I don’t know.

Ritter:  It was all about the nomadic journey of the night. You’d bounce from bus to bus, picking up a beer, hitting on a girl, hitting on whoever you were hitting on.

Barr:  I’ll omit their name, but there was a band that got drunk and decided to disrespect Steve O’Sullivan, who was head of Warped Tour’s security at the time. We were in Phoenix, his wife was pregnant with their first kid, and he was riding in the car with her and this band was drunk and standing in the way. They asked him to move and got in his face, in his wife’s face. The next day I assembled a group of characters you’d look at and say, “I don’t want to fight one of these guys, let alone have one of them come into my tent.” I know a lot of real hard motherfuckers. [We confronted the band and] said, “So you’re the band that decided to disrespect Steve O’Sullivan and his pregnant wife? Shut your little tent down, you’re gonna find Steve, and you’re gonna throw yourself down at his knees and apologize to him. If we don’t hear you’ve done this in the next twenty minutes, we’re gonna be back.” Five minutes later, Steve pulls up on his golf cart like, “What did you do? They were so apologetic and so polite!”

Nielsen:  People would throw water. It was like, dude, it’s 90 degrees out — don’t throw it. Every day, you’re getting nailed with water being thrown from the crowd.

Lyman:  Buddy from Senses Fail, to be honest, was a shithead mostly. He hadn’t grown up yet.

Nielsen:  We were playing Phoenix and someone threw a fucking jug of water. I caught it by the handle and whipped it back into the crowd as hard as I could and literally watched it bee-line a hundred yards and slam this girl right in the face. This poor young girl, I think she was like 16 years old. I ended up knocking out one of her teeth, totally by accident. I wound up corresponding with her father and her afterwards. I remember we invited her to a show, gave her some merch and were really sorry.

Lyman:  Buddy was one of those kids that we knew we had redeeming qualities. So we kept working with Buddy. You don’t want to write him off, you know? Another member of Senses Fail [now ex-member] got taken behind the bus, because he wore a shirt that had the C-word on it. I know the Dropkick Murphys and the Transplants were involved. He got taken behind the bus and they said, “Look, you’re going to either get rid of that shirt because you see all the women running this, or you’re going to eat the shirt. If you ever wear it again you’re going to lose option one.”

VI. “This Was Paramore ’s First Tour”

Lyman:  We had [the traveling punk and hardcore tour] Taste of Chaos [in early 2005] and Livia Tortella [of Atlantic Records] goes, “Hey, Kevin you’ve got to check out this girl Hayley Williams and Paramore.”

Gillespie:  We were friends with Paramore. We met Hayley when she was 16 and [drummer] Zac [Farro] was 14. Hayley opened up acoustic for us on Taste of Chaos.

Lyman:  I put her on right before Killswitch Engage. She held her own. I was like, “Okay, we have to figure this out for Warped.” But I didn’t have anywhere to put them because I already booked the tour…  So I turned Shira on to her and she figured it out for the Shiragirl Stage.

Yevin:  The label flew me down to see the band in Orlando, and once I saw it, I got it. They were amazing — 16 years old! Hayley’s dad was the tour manager.

Lyman:  I remember the station wagon… Dad was still driving them around at that point.

Yevin:  This was Paramore’s first tour.

Chamberlain:  Paramore were like our little brothers. We hung out with them. They had similar viewpoints on life and we just got along with those kids. I think we all knew they were gonna be big.

Yevin:  They were actually signed to Atlantic, but their music was put out by Fueled By Ramen. So they had label support, but they were a new band. They were doing a lot of the Christian rock festivals. They came out on Warped right when their first album was coming out. The kids just loved it. The early crowds were huge.

Chamberlain:  Zac was like a little mini-Aaron. He would hit [the drums] so hard that the drum riser broke once.

Yevin:  Hayley was just one of the guys. That was sort of her thing. She wore the same t-shirt every day, the red and blue striped shirt  she wears in the “All We Know” video . She was very sweet, polite, very reserved. No makeup. Just came on, did her set, went back in the van, read her book. It was a little bit of a culture shock for us. We were these radical feminist punk rock riot grrrls. They were a very reserved band. They prayed before they went onstage. They kinda kept to themselves, but they killed it onstage.

Gillespie:  Hayley’s the real fucking deal. Deserves everything she’s got.

VII. “Sonny Moore’s Halo Name Was Skrillex”

Chamberlain:  ’05 was the first Warped Tour with [Tampa/L.A.-based post-hardcore band] From First to Last. We’d taken them on their first tour with [vocalist] Sonny Moore, so we were already buddies.

Nielsen:  This was when Wes Borland was in From First to Last. That blew my mind. Why the hell is a guy from Limp Bizkit here? I remember hanging out with Sonny and giving him a hard time, as a joke. And then he fucking turns into Skrillex [ Laughs ]. Ridiculous.

Chamberlain:  They used to come to our tour bus to play  Halo . Sonny Moore’s Halo name was Skrillex.

Gillespie:  He was having trouble with his voice back then.

Chamberlain:  He was such a sweetheart, and he had a lil’ personality on him, too. He would ask me, “How do you guys sing every night?”

Lyman:  The following year, he kind of changed to a kid named Skrillex. He came to Pomona, Cali. and played one of his first shows… Then I tried to book him that following summer and I think I could have got him for $1,500. I said, “He’s just sitting playing music on a computer, who the hell’s gonna care about this?” But I liked him a lot. Then by that next year, he was making $100,000 a gig or something.

VIII. “Equal Parts Relief and Sadness”

Ritter:  I think we played 19, 20 days in a row. By the end of it I wasn’t even talking. I was just giving sign language to people, clicks and whistles!

Truscott:  It ended in Boston: pouring rain, muddy, muggy New England summer day. Everybody was just done.

Pierre:  When it ended? Equal parts relief and sadness.

Yevin:  We were just grateful to have survived on our end. And we knew we were gonna do it the next year. There were bets against us saying we weren’t gonna make it. But we did. We got an MTV Warpie Award — “most punk rock way to win a place in the family.”

Lyman:  What were our profits that year? That year was seven figures.

Warped Tour 2018 Lineup: All Time Low, Simple Plan & 3OH!3 Return for Final Run

Watts:  The Starting Line toured with Fall Out Boy again in the fall, on the Nintendo Fusion Tour alongside Motion City Soundtrack, Boys Night Out, and Panic! At the Disco. I wonder what venues that tour would get if it happened in 2018; Panic! is bigger than they ever were. Same thing with Fall Out Boy. We’d be happy to be along for the ride. We’d play outdoors if we had to!

Chamberlain:  I think a lot of the younger bands now are kind of why Warped Tour’s ending. Warped Tour was a place where kids went to see bands they loved and discover new bands. Somehow over the last couple years it changed to bands on their first record with two busses, bodyguards, personal assistants. I think kids weren’t feeling as connected.

Gillespie:  It was so about discovery.

Chamberlain:  It got to be about how big of a rockstar you are.

Gillespie:  And that’s not why Kevin started it.

Lyman:  Relationships in this business were a lot different then. You could talk to someone and plan on working with them for a few years, you know? And they would understand that the first couple years, they weren’t helping you sell tickets. But hopefully that third year, they were actually helping to pull other bands like them along. A Day To Remember played one show in 2005, on the Ernie Ball battle of the Bands Stage. And then they fell into that same cycle, playing four more years… Now, that doesn’t exist in this world. Bands say, “Oh, we need Warped Tour to get to an audience” and then they decide to change their direction as a band.

Brownlee:  If you have been on Warped Tour as long as I have (and you’re as old as I am), it’s very difficult to have recall memory on specifics, including years. I wish I had the foresight to keep a journal for times like these… Our memories are a series of embellished half-truths. But in terms of the Vans Warped Tour, truth has always been stranger than fiction.

Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox

Want to know what everyone in the music business is talking about?

Get in the know on.

Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Billboard Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

optional screen reader

Charts expand charts menu.

• Billboard Hot 100™
• Billboard 200™
• Hits Of The World™
• TikTok Billboard Top 50
• Song Breaker
• Year-End Charts
• Decade-End Charts

Music Expand music menu

• R&B/Hip-Hop

Culture Expand culture menu

Media expand media menu, business expand business menu.

• Business News
• Record Labels
• View All Pro

Pro Tools Expand pro-tools menu

• Songwriters & Producers
• Artist Index
• Royalty Calculator
• Market Watch
• Industry Events Calendar

Billboard Español Expand billboard-espanol menu

• Cultura y Entretenimiento

Get Up Anthems by Tres Expand get-up-anthems-by-tres menu

Honda music expand honda-music menu.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

R.I.P. Warped Tour. At Least We Still Have Vans.

The skater company says goodbye to the music festival that made it cool.

By Medea Giordano

The Vans Warped Tour — the music festival that has crossed the country each year since 1995, and is frequently called a “punk rock summer camp” — is on its last run.

For 24 years, the Warped Tour created spaces for metal, punk and ska fans to meet their idols and mosh together under the hot sun: Each summer, about 70 bands and artists would play in some 40 locations, welcoming hundreds of thousands of tattooed concertgoers clad in band tees and Vans checkered slip-ons. Many musical acts that helped define the late 1990s and early 2000s graced Warped Tour’s stages, including Blink-182, Reel Big Fish and Eminem .

But recently, the show’s popularity has declined, among both bands and attendees. Some music festivals are bigger than ever — Coachella drew more than 200,000 people to the California desert for two days in April — but the Warped Tour doesn’t have the same cultural cache it once had.

“The die-hard Warped fan was still coming, but the ones for the future seemed to drop off,” said the festival’s founder and longtime producer Kevin Lyman in an email.

He said there is the possibility for other Warped Tour events down the line — including for the 25th anniversary next summer — but 2018 will be the final cross-country blowout. “I’ve done everything I can in this format,” he said. “I’m just tired. It’s time for someone else to continue or start something new.”

The final tour not only marks the end of an era in music, but of a particularly intimate brand collaboration. Vans has sponsored the Warped Tour since its second year and credits the festival with burnishing its countercultural image.

“Until we got involved with the Warped Tour, we didn’t have a national footprint to talk about who we are,” said Doug Palladini, the skate apparel company’s global brand president. “Vans is a brand that really embraces individuality, and Warped Tour is very much the same.”

Vans representatives said that the Warped Tour — which the company has a 75 percent stake in — isn’t ending because of a decline in ticket sales, and that its retirement shouldn’t be seen as divestment in music or skater culture. House of Vans, an indoor skate park and music venue with locations in Brooklyn, Chicago and London, and pop-ups around the world, will continue to host famous musicians and local, unsigned performers, and admission is free.

But the collaboration between Vans and the Warped Tour has run its course.

“We’re going to make this a part of Vans history and always hold it up as a really, really important part of who we are,” Mr. Palladini said. “It’s just the right time to put a bow on it and say thank you to all the bands and all the fans that made Warped Tour was it is.”

“One Big Family”

Vans was already synonymous with southern California skateboard culture in the 1990s when the Warped Tour started, thanks to the sneakers’ sticky soles. (They have good grip.) But the tour’s national popularity helped establish Vans as a punk brand, and that image has made the company incredibly appealing, especially to shoppers ages 16 to 34 .

In 2004, when Vans was acquired by VF Corporation — which owns JanSport, Timberland and the North Face — it was making about $325 million in sales a year. This year, Mr. Palladini said, Vans is on track to surpass $3 billion.

The first Vans store, which was known at the time as the Van Doren Rubber Company and opened its doors in Anaheim, Calif., in March 1966, was a much humbler affair. It was founded by Paul and Jim Van Doren, brothers who would take custom orders and manufacture shoes on site. Eventually the shoes’ waffle soles attracted skateboarders, and in 1976, Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta — pro-skaters who were immortalized by Victor Rasuk and John Robinson in the 2005 film “Lords of Dogtown” — designed the Era , a low-top sneaker that became a Vans classic.

There were other moments in which Vans shoes were in the countercultural spotlight, including a 1982 cameo courtesy of Sean Penn’s Jeff Spicoli character in the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High .” But the company’s punk identity wasn’t forged until Mr. Lyman met Steve Van Doren.

A former Lollapalooza stage manager, Mr. Lyman had put together the first Warped Tour in 1995, with bands like Sublime and No Doubt on the original lineup. But he needed financial support to keep it going and was seeking sponsorship.

Steve Van Doren, the son of the Vans co-founder Paul Van Doren, was on a different mission. Separately, he was searching for someone to help him plan an amateur skate contest that would tour across the U.S. and the world. He met with Mr. Lyman, who said Vans would draw more people to skate events if live music were on the lineup.

In “Vans: Off the Wall,” a book about the company, Mr. Van Doren said that a deal was forged between the two men within 15 minutes of their meeting. Thus, the Vans Warped Tour was born.

“ Steve Van Doren. He always got it and was the driving force early in this relationship,” Mr. Lyman said. “After our first year with Vans, Airwalk approached me and offered a bunch of money to leave and go with them. I said hell no, and it was all because of Steve. Steve Van Doren continues to be the soul of Vans in my mind.”

“The Vans Warped Tour is one big family,” Mr. Van Doren said in an interview. He recalled his first summer, in which he drove from stop to stop on the tour in a van with his daughter. Though he opted to take the relatively cushy bus after that, he said he went to every Warped Tour show for 15 years.

The People’s Music Festival

Today’s popular music festivals often charge a steep price for big-name performers. A three-day general admission pass to Coachella, for example, can run $500, or close to $1,000 for a V.I.P. ticket. The Warped Tour, by comparison, costs about $45, and there is no hierarchy to the ticketing system. Even the bigger bands are never given special treatment, Mr. Van Doren said. The whole point is accessibility: There are no extra fees to meet artists, and fans can visit bands at their tents or run into them in the crowd during another performance.

“When you monetize a handshake, it changes the whole relationship,” Mr. Lyman said.

The Warped founder guessed that, of all the tour’s performers, Andrew W.K. probably spent the most time with fans. He would “sign for six hours and then go outside and sign some more. I would have to ask him to move since we needed to load the trucks to get to the next city,” Mr. Lyman said.

“Warped is a festival for the music and for the organizations that travel with it,” said Victoria Hudgins, a 23-year-old Warped Tour fan who has attended twice before. “I feel as though the younger crowd these days are more interested in putting their picture from Coachella on Instagram than they are actually going to and enjoying the festival itself. You don’t go to Warped for an Instagram picture, you go to Warped to be a part of something so big and so crazy.”

Ms. Hudgins had planned to buy tickets for two stops on the Warped Tour this summer — one in her home state of Michigan and the tour’s final show in Florida — before she got the opportunity to work on the tour full-time. (She is working for Support Tattoos and Piercings at Work, which sets up a tent at each city the tour visits, after volunteering for the organization last year.)

“To me this is going to be a summer where I feel like I’m going to fit in everywhere I am,” she said. “This is going to be a summer meeting an entire country of people. I can be a part of something so much bigger than just myself.”

Loyalty, Loyalty, Loyalty

While the Warped Tour has declined in popularity, Vans has become a global phenomenon. Between 2010 and 2014, it saw double-digit growth every year, and in 2017, the company surpassed the North Face as the VF Corporation’s top-selling brand. The shoes are just as visible in high fashion as they are in the skate park, and they have gotten musical shout-outs from young artists like Travis Mills and Ty Dolla $ign . (In 2011, the actress Kristen Stewart literally cemented the shoes into pop culture history when she wore a pair to her Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony .)

“All of a sudden, everywhere I looked, it was Vans,” said Samantha Brown , a stylist and video director who has worked with Nylon magazine, Marc Jacobs and Oscar de la Renta. “They kind of make everything look cooler.”

But just as the Warped Tour kept its ticket prices down out of loyalty to its fan base — and even let parents in for free — Vans has no plans to charge more for their increasingly popular apparel. (Shoes run from about $60 to $100.) The company’s prevailing wisdom, Mr. Palladini said, is around inclusivity. “And a part of inclusivity is accessible price points.”

For Steve Van Doren, who is now the vice president of events and promotions, it’s important that the company not forget its roots. “Skaters in the mid ’70s adopted us, and I thank them still four decades later because they gave us meaning,” he said. “They gave us purpose.”

Find the Right Soundtrack for You

Trying to expand your musical horizons take a listen to something new..

What is a song ? According to the law, the answer is complicated.

Jessica Pratt’s timeless folk music  is evolving. Slowly.

12 new songs  you need to hear, including unearthed Johnny Cash.

On Popcast , we’re answering your questions about Taylor Swift’s new album.

5 minutes that will make you love  jazz bass .

The End of an Era: Why Warped Tour’s Closing Is a Good Thing

A viewpoint on how the music tour has lost its charm.

I was 14 years old, wandering around Charlotte’s PNC Amphitheater in 100 degree weather, desperately hoping that none of the older kids had noticed that I’d shown up with my parents. Proudly donning a Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt that I’d purchased at Hot Topic (you know, to show my appreciation for the classics), I moved from stage to stage as my mom followed at least 50-yards away at all times, making sure I was staying hydrated and avoiding boys with questionable lip piercings.

For me, the 2012 Warped Tour was a culmination of the Tumblr pages I’d gazed at for hours in my room and the bands that got me through the awkward mundanities of middle school. I was in absolute heaven, front row and clinging to the gates at The Story So Far’s first ever Warped run, counting down the hours until Christofer Drew took the mainstage with the OG Never Shout Never lineup.

Six years later, the once-proclaimed “punk rock summer camp” is shutting down for good. The traveling circus that represented the safest of spaces for the outcasts, the ska-lovers, the lost parents whose kids blared Black Veil Brides at ear splitting volumes in their rooms, and the awkward music fans like me, is coming to a sad and nostalgic end. 

But perhaps this ending is actually a good thing. According to Kevin Lyman, founder of the festival, “ [he’s] just tired. ” And considering the festival’s decline of good music and sexual harassment allegations against artists, he should be absolutely exhausted .

It’s no secret that over the years, eyes were wandering further and further from the classic bands that had once made the festival such an institution and closer to the louder, hardcore trends that were burning up capitalist phase-pushers like Hot Topic or Zumiez. I recall sadly watching an uninterested crowd barely pay attention to ska-legends Reel Big Fish; people were more willing to watch The Wonder Years as their singer hollered in angst about stale beer, basements and small towns to the masses, and then immediately beeline to their merch table for overprices t-shirts and bracelets. Although I was caught up in my own era of high school trends and passings, looking back, it’s clearer to me now that the Warped Tour I’d witnessed was nothing like the classic Warped Tour of the 90s. This was the festival that had once given leeway to bands like No Doubt, Sublime and even Katy Perry, for Christ’s sake.

But there’s a much darker side to the punk festival than meets the eye.

While many solely point to the dwindling number of good musicians on the lineups, perhaps the largest factor possibly going into the festival’s closing is the horrendous amount of underage sexual harassment. As acts started to take advantage of the number of young girls making the pilgrimage to the festival to witness their favorite musicians take the stage, the pop punk scene no longer seemed like a safe place. However terrible of an issue this was, it didn’t seem to bother Kevin Lyman. He was responsible for allowing the act Front Porch Step back on the tour after allegations of sexual harassment through texts, after having met underage fans at Warped Tour , was made public after one fan in particular had written a lengthy Tumblr post about her relationship with the artist. While at first he was taken off the bill and was dropped from Pure Noise Records, his name mysteriously appeared back on the lineup a few months ahead of the festival. Similar situations also kept occurring with other artists, such as Ronnie Radke and Dahvie Vanity , allowed to continue on the tour. The question was becoming clearer: if Lyman had advocated for the end of crowd surfing and moshing in such a vehement manner, why wasn’t he pushing just as hard for the end of underage assaults on young women?

In 2017, multiple women came out with allegations accusing Mike Fuentes, the drummer of Pierce the Veil, of sexual misconduct with a minor that had taken place at Warped Tour. One woman, the now-23-year-old Shannon Bray, detailed an account of meeting Fuentes at a band signing. When he asked her to hang out, she obliged and the two began a back and forth texting relationship that would eventually lead to Fuentes asking Bray for nude pictures. She was 14 years old. I was also 14 years old when I saw Pierce the Veil at Warped Tour. When I missed out on getting to meet the band members at a similar autograph signing, I left the venue feeling devastated; I’d wandered around the heat and dust for an hour, killing time, and when I finally made it to the signing table, so many fans had shown up that they’d already established a cut off point in the snaking line.

Reading those allegations, years later, was chilling. But it was the horrific side of the emo and pop-punk scene of the 2000’s, which was specifically marketed towards young and impressionable teenage girls — an article from Flavorwire describes the scene as one that is manufactured “ by boys, for girls ,” which is an incredibly accurate way to put it. Similar to the excesses of rock groupies in the 70’s, male performers began preying on the young females praising them in the crowd. Only this time, it was happening to girls that would grow into the strong women behind the Me Too movement.

Last March, I saw Mike Fuentes at a bar in New Orleans. I sat back quietly, sipping my Corona while he and his girlfriend talked amongst themselves. I wondered if she knew about the allegations, or if Pierce the Veil was even touring anymore, or if Mike could tell that I’d been staring directly at him for the entire duration that he’d been sitting on his barstool. When he eventually got up to leave, we made eye contact, and that was that. I watched him exit into the neon glow of Bourbon Street with an empty feeling in my stomach, because what I’d really wanted to do was to approach him and say something along the lines of, “Hey, at one point in my life you meant a lot to me. But now, you’re incredibly disappointing.”

Warped Tour wrapped up this past Sunday to mixed feelings from its former fans. Many who watched the livestreams and snapchats of the festival found themselves wondering, “What the hell did I ever see in this place to begin with?” Many of the former scenes are no longer existent; even Black Veil Brides don’t sound like they once did back in 2012. What began as a teenage rite of passage went down in the Internet era as a cesspool of capitalism, thanks to overpriced merch and sponsor tents at every twist and turn. The lineups weren’t good anymore. And worst of all, fans didn’t even feel safe anymore.

I watched the livestream of the first day of the final tour, just for the nostalgia, and barely made it through 15 minutes. The other reviews were telling the truth; the entire festival really had gone downhill. It was similar to the feeling of seeing Mike Fuentes in a dive bar; “Hey, at one point in my life this scene meant a lot to me. But now, it’s incredibly disappointing.”

If you obsess over singers and bands, and are one of those people who make a playlist for every occasion, join CMN’s Music Journalism Course and get real-time experience, intense feedback on your writing, exposure to music industry insiders, and a great place to display build your portfolio. Get all the details on the Music Journalism Course here.

What We’re Writing

Exclusive Q & A: Ilan Rubin

The Nine Inch Nails, Angels and Airwaves and New Regime musician speaks.

Viewpoint: An Alternate Take on the Death of Juice WRLD

America does not have a drug problem, we have a mental health problem.

CMN Exclusive Interview: softcoresoft

CMN gets on the same "ravelength" with the DJ, producer and radio host.

Viewpoint: Year-End (or Decade-End) Lists are Healthy for Music Fans

At least we're having the discussion about what makes our favorite music so fantastic.

Album Review: Tamino – ‘Amir (Deluxe)’

An expanded edition that offers poetic drama from beginning to end.

Improve Your College Search With CampusReel

Deciding where to go to college may arguably be one of the biggest decisions of your life.

• Cover Story
• Special Sections
• Metroactive
• Silicon Valley Beer Week
• Silicon Valley Winemakers
• Best of 2023
• Best of 2022
• Best of 2021
• Best of 2020
• Best of 2019
• Best of 2018
• Best of 2017
• Best of 2016
• Best of 2015
• Best of 2014
• Best of 2013
• Best of 2012
• Best of 2011
• Best of 2010
• Submit an Obituary
• Writing Your Silicon Valley Obituary
• Upcoming Events
• Submit an Event
• Promote Your Event
• MetroActive Photo Archives

LATEST ARTICLES

Racist’s reckoning: montalvo and..., medmen’s demise: harbinger of..., beyond bars: sjma show..., riley green is ‘way..., jun bistro explores yunnan..., goodtime bar raises a..., racist’s reckoning: montalvo and ica confront the past, jun bistro explores yunnan cuisine in milpitas, beyond bars: sjma show illuminates prison industrial complex, riley green is ‘way out here’ for san jose civic show, medmen’s demise: harbinger of valuing cash over flash, . the warped tour: is this the end.

The last best summer ever is nearly here. The 2018 edition of the Vans Warped Tour marks the final round for the longest-running touring music festival in North America. The tour’s founder, Kevin Lyman, has announced that he’s hanging it up—citing, among other things, the increasingly cluttered summer music festival industry, a shrinking pool of bands and declining ticket sales, for his decision to make 2018 the final year that the tour will run from coast to coast, though it seems a smaller-scale tour is still planned for 2019. Worse yet, in the wake of Hollywood’s sexual misconduct cases, the Warped Tour has a bevy of allegations of their own against performers, such as Blood on the Dance Floor lead singer Dahvie Vanity and Front Porch Step singer Jake McElfresh. This leaves fans of the Warped Tour wondering if the event is still the safe space it once was. Lyman created the Vans Warped Tour in 1995 with the hope of catching on the energy of the Chicago-based alternative music festival Lollapalooza . A fan of multiple disjointed subgenres of punk—from hardcore, to pop-punk, to ska—Lyman saw an opportunity in bringing the entire punk party together under one, massive touring circus tent. The Warped Tour has been making the trip to the Bay Area since 2000—inspiring mosh pits, crowd surfers and epic on-stage acrobatics at AT&T Park and piers 30 and 32 in San Francisco and at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View. A Warped Tour gig has meant so many things to so many bands. Since its inception, the tour has been a champion for punk scene staples like Green Day, Fall Out Boy, No Doubt and Blink-182 as well as emerging pop acts, such as Katy Perry, the Black Eyed Peas and rapper Eminem. Many bands started out on local bands stages and climbed their way to the top of the ticket over consecutive summers. This may not be a goodbye forever—2019 marks the 25th anniversary of the tour and Lyman continues to tease his loyal following about welcoming back marquee names to end the beloved festival with a proper goodbye. Until we know for sure, here’s a look at several local Warped Tour alumni who benefitted from the Warped Tour’s draw. No Use For A Name When Lyman was putting together the bill for the Warped Tour’s inaugural year, he thought these San Jose punks would fit right in. “Back then it was wild,” No Use founding member and drummer Rory Koff says, fondly looking back at the chaos. “When I heard the news [of the tour’s ending] I was disappointed, but I’m glad I was able to be a part of it.” No Use became a mainstay at Warped Tour for a decade and recorded a trio of classics, including Making Friends , More Betterness! and Hard Rock Bottom that recently went collectively platinum. “All the props to Kevin [Lyman],” Koff says. “He’s one the hardest working guys I’ve been around.”

Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards Campbell’s Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards, a Rancid side project, arrived at Warped Tour in 2004 at a critical point in the festival’s history. The tour had recently started booking artists outside punk—like hip-hop duo Atmosphere, speed metal heads Avenged Sevenfold and the proggy Coheed and Cambria. Lyman’s initial goal of bringing the punk community together evolved into bringing the subversive music community together, creating a three-headed Cerberus of metal, mohawks and hip-hop. The Bastards rode this tour with the summer release of their second album, Viking , which helped peak the record at No. 17 on the Billboard independent albums chart.

Wallpaper Warped Tour gave East Bay songwriter and producer Ricky Reed a chance to shine with his satirically forthright band Wallpaper. Reed, who had played in the proggy Oakland band Facing New York for years, first began using exaggerated Auto-Tune and simple, truck-rattling beats as a way to prove to himself and friends that he could write a radio hit. He eventually caught the production bug and began writing ridiculously catchy tunes that were almost indistinguishable from the artists he was aping. Since lighting up the 2013 tour with music from his major-label debut, Ricky Reed Is Real , he has gone on to co-write legitimate pop hits, like Halsey’s “Bad at Love,” Jason Derulo’s “Swalla” and produced a number of the singles on Twenty One Pilots’ Blurryface LP.

K Flay The cerebral Kristine Flaherty, better known as K. Flay , first got a hold of a mic as a student at Stanford. When Flaherty’s not singing songs like “The President Has a Sex Tape,” she spends her time raising awareness as a political activist. Warped Tour 2013 put Flaherty in the spotlight just three years ago and she’s been trending upward ever since. Her sound is especially expansive. Too bold to be deemed an indie-rapper and too hip to be your run-of-the-mill pop talent, she’s caught between both as a post-genre chanteuse.

I The Mighty Born in a garage in Fremont, alt-punk quartet I The Mighty got a serious boost from their stint on the Warped Tour. Their run-in with Sacramento favorites Dance Gavin Dance on Warped Tour 2014 led DGD’s singer Tilian Pearson to collab on the band’s single, “Silver Tongues.” ITM’s distinctive wailing and technical, energetic spark is making an impression on the West Coast Alternative Press -reading scene.

LEAVE A REPLY Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

-PAID ADVERTISEMENT-

Featured Local Savings

Latest Giveaways

Tickets to new ballet’s cinderella, $50 to capers eat & drink.

Copyright © Weeklys All rights reserved.

OUR PUBLICATIONS Cannabis Chronicle East Bay East Bay Express Gilroy Dispatch Good Times Santa Cruz Healdsburg Tribune Hollister Free Lance King City Rustler Marin Pacific Sun Morgan Hill Times North Bay Bohemian Press Banner Salinas Valley Tribune South Valley Watsonville Pajaronian

ADVERTISING Advertise Obituaries Writing An Obituary Submit an Obituary

COMPANY INFO Job Opportunities Privacy Policy Terms of Service

How Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s Relationship Has Changed After Spending Tour Break Together

As Taylor Swift gets ready for the next leg of her international Eras Tour, she is also preparing to part ways with boyfriend Travis Kelce again. The pair have been dating since 2023, and have had to manage very different and distant obligations. Luckily, a source says that “all the time they’ve spent together recently” in between tour dates has “deepened their bond.”

The source added that the couple took “a trip up the California coast” after Swift’s new album release of The Tortured Poets Department to “celebrate privately,” saying, “They’re making the most of the time they have together.”

The pair were not entirely alone—they were seen in Carmel-by-the-Sea with friends Gigi Hadid and Bradley Cooper, as well as Kelce’s mom, Donna.

Another source previously said that during this break from work, the pair were “focused on rest and recuperation and relaxing at home and having low-key and chill time together.”

“They are enjoying movie nights in her home theater, catching up on films and shows they’ve missed,” they continued, explaining that the couple is working on “scheduling” the upcoming long distance and their various projects so that they can “see each other as much as possible” because they “don’t want to spend too much time apart.”

Kelce is spending the NFL offseason in Los Angeles after the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win in February, taking time to see Swift in both Singapore and Australia when she was performing. He is currently filming a new game show called Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity.

Celebrity News 2024

Dua Lipa’s Complete Dating History

All About Zendaya's Parents, Claire and Kazembe

Bad Bunny’s Complete Dating History

Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky’s Timeline

Megan Fox and MGK Are Dating ‘One Day at a Time'

Zendaya & Tom Holland’s Romance Through the Years

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s Love Timeline

Harry Styles and Taylor Russell Are 'Serious'

All About Marcus Mumford, Carey Mulligan’s Husband

Selena and Benny Have Discussed Marriage

Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco’s Timeline

Sum 41 goes out on top at sold-out Milwaukee stop of farewell tour at the Rave

Is anyone actually buying the “farewell” that Sum 41 is selling?

OK, sure, a lot of people are literally buying it. The Canadian pop-punk veterans’ “Tour of the Setting Sum” farewell run came to the Rave’s Eagles Ballroom Saturday for one of the first stops, and the 3,500-person capacity venue was a sellout.

But let’s do the math. No one in Sum 41 is over 50. The Mötley Crüe guys are headlining Summerfest this June after bringing a “farewell tour” to the Big Gig a decade ago, and an 81-year-old Barry Manilow will play a final Milwaukee show at Fiserv Forum in August nine years after he seemingly played a final Milwaukee show.

It's hard to accept that Sum 41 is really leaving all of this behind, especially right now. Pop-punk is fueling a new generation of rising stars. Blink-182's classic lineup is back (and playing Fiserv Forum August 7), Green Day is headlining stadiums (including American Family Field Aug. 24), and Milwaukee will host not one but two Warped Tour-style festivals this summer: Sad Summer Festival at the Rave, and the Not Just a Phase Fest at Franklin Field.

But if the Eagles Ballroom show was really Milwaukee's last chance to see Sum 41, they showed they're going out at the top of their game.

This amped-up capacity crowd hardly needed any motivation, but Sum 41 kicked off their hour-and-45-minute set with "Motivation" anyway, the first song off first album "All Killer No Filler" from 2001, with wired frontman Deryck Whibley cruising the stage while lasers and lighting worked overtime. In a delightful detour from the recording, guitarists Dave Baksh and Tom Thacker, drummer Frank Zummo and bassist Jason McCaslin offered a dense and tense instrumental thrash break, the band's distinctive, metal-flexing tendencies later getting a full workout for 2004's "We're All To Blame."

From "Motivation" Sum 41 segued into "The Hell Song" from 2002 sophomore album "Does This Look Infected?," with Whibley heating up the crowd with a breathless, 15-second vocal note, followed by Baksh's gnarly guitar solo, adding gas to the flames. The momentum continued with another "Infected" track, "Over My Head (Better Off Dead)" — the crowdsurfing and circle pits intensifying as smoke and confetti were added to the effects arsenal — followed by 2004's "No Reason," where Zummo really let his drum assaults rip.

The 2007 anthem "Underclass Hero" came right after, with oversized balloons bouncing atop jumping bodies in the pit — and Whibley popping a few with the tail end of his handheld mic. The band's cacophonous sound silenced so the fans could triumphantly belt out the final chorus alone: "'Cause we won't give you control/And we don't need anything from you."

During "Hero" Whibley rightly suggested this night wasn't just a celebration of Sum 41's nearly 30-year run but also "a celebration of yourselves." The crowd's passion matched the band's Saturday and was more powerful than all of the production's bells and whistles.

When the band started 2007's "Walking Disaster," the lights on the phones were so bright, the stage lights stayed off and the band was still fully illuminated. Even after Whibley suggested everyone needed to take a breather after an intense first 23 minutes, followed by the comparatively slower 2004 song "Some Say," some fans still couldn't resist moshing before the end. And "Dopamine," "Landmines" and "Rise Up" from the four-week-old "Heaven :x: Hell" album received boisterous singalongs typically reserved for longtime setlist standards. (It helps that those tracks are as invigorating as anything from across Sum 41's catalogue.)

When the most prized setlist standards did actually come near the end — "Fat Lip" accompanied by a storm of confetti, an equally electric "Still Waiting" initially sans any fancy stage enhancements — the crowd really went wild. Their biggest hit "In Too Deep" was a deeply satisfying finale — except it turned out it really wasn't the end.

Two minutes after the house lights came on, the outro music played on the speakers and about half of the crowd had left, Whibley and Thacker came back on stage — prompting fans at the staircases to sprint back to the ballroom floor. And as Thacker gently played keys, Whibley offered a sweet and calm farewell in the form of 2007's "So Long Goodbye" — with Baksh, McCaslin and Zummo coming out after a few minutes to give the song an adrenaline-pumping speed punk finish.

It was probably the best moment from a night full of memorable ones. But there was one moment fans definitely didn’t like: when Whibley referred to “Heaven :x: Hell” as the band’s final album, prompting a roar of booing.

“Ladies and gentlemen," Whibley replied cooly, "I can’t get enough of your boos."

Call it denial if you want, but a comment like that, combined with a show like this one, makes me firmly believe that Sum 41's "farewell" isn't going to stick. And the fans, clearly, would be just fine with that.

5 takeaways from Sum 41's Milwaukee concert, including openers the Interrupters and Joey Valence & Brae

• As people walked into the show they were given yellow pieces of paper that read “No Moshing.” Naturally this crowd didn’t comply, especially with Whibley demanding a mosh circle open up just two songs into the set. But shortly after that he also told people to be safe and look after each other, and by the look of things from the balcony, the crowd complied in that regard.
• At one point Whibley said he was bringing out a special guest, which turned out to be a guitar he's named "White Gold." It's a guitar that recently joined his collection, but it was actually used in the recording of one of his favorite albums by one of his favorite bands, 1996's "White Light, White Heat, White Trash" by Social Distortion. In their honor, Whibley played White Gold for a cover of "Ring of Fire" in the mode of Social Distortion's signature cover. (Social Distortion, by the way, is heading to the Rave's Eagles Ballroom with Bad Religion on May 14.)
• Sum 41 offered one other cover Saturday, of Queen's "We Will Rock You," initially distinguished by Thacker's speedy showboating on guitar — until Whibley guided the crowd to get quiet and crouch down before the climax, with the band's sound and fans (literally) rising up together for a mosh-friendly finale.
• Primary opener the Interrupters were essentially motivational speakers set to ska music, with the always-moving Aimee Allen, with a Joan Jett-style snarl, singing about not being pushed aside for “Take Back The Power,” living “like a warrior” on “Title Holder,” and being “easy on yourself” for “Easy on You.” She even offered gratitude for her heartbreak on “Afterthought.” The energy and uplift easily won over the Sum 41 fans, but just to make sure they had their full support, the Interrupters also offered a trombone-blaring cover of Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” and a bit of “Blister in the Sun” in honor of Milwaukee rock heroes the Violent Femmes.
• Joey Valence & Brae kicked off the night with a blast from the past, with originals like “Crank It Up,” “Drop!!” and “Punk Tactics” that are blatant rip-offs of Beastie Boys, but still pretty fun live. And the duo’s more hyperpop-leaning “Gumdrop” illustrated where they could take their act next.

Sum 41's Eagles Ballroom setlist

• "Motivation"
• "The Hell Song"
• "Over My Head (Better Off Dead)"
• "No Reason"
• "Underclass Hero"
• "Landmines"
• "We're All To Blame"
• "Walking Disaster"
• "Makes No Difference"
• "My Direction"/"No Brains"/"All Messed Up"
• "Preparasi a salire"
• "We Will Rock You" (Queen cover)
• "Ring of Fire" (cover of song popularized by Johnny Cash)
• "Still Waiting"
• "Waiting On a Twist of Fate"
• "In Too Deep"
• "So Long Goodbye"

Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or  [email protected] . Follow him on X at  @pietlevy  or Facebook at  facebook.com/PietLevyMJS .

• Sports Betting
• Sports Entertainment

Recommended

Kris kim, 16, becomes youngest player to make pga tour cut in nine years.

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

McKINNEY, Texas — Kris Kim, a 16-year-old amateur playing on a sponsor exemption at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, became the youngest player in nine years to make the cut in a PGA Tour event.

Kim finished his second round Friday with a birdie for a 4-under 67.

At 7-under 135, he was among 66 players who made the cut, which was 6 under.

“Just make the cut, to be honest,” Kim told reporters after the round. “I knew something around this number would be good enough, but to shoot that I’m pretty happy.” 

Jake Knapp was the leader at 14-under 128.

Kyle Suppa was 16 when he made the cut at the Sony Open in Hawaii in 2015.

“It feels pretty good,” Kim said. “I feel like I played well over the last two days. Stay pretty patient out there, and I guess it worked.” 

At 16 years, seven months old, Kim surpassed Jordan Spieth as the youngest player to make the cut at the Nelson.

“I’ve enjoyed it so much the last couple of days, and being here two more days makes it so much sweeter.” 

Kim finished Saturday’s third round tied for 46rd at 8-under after shooting a 1 under for the day with Knapp getting ready to tee off.

Spieth was two months shy of his 17th birthday when made his first PGA Tour start at his hometown event in 2010, and finished tied for 16th.

Kim, who is the son of former LPGA Tour player and South Korea native Ji-Hyun Suh, is making his PGA Tour debut.

He is the first amateur sponsored by South Korean company CJ Group, which is the title sponsor of the Nelson for the first time.

— With AP

Share this article:

Billie Eilish tour 2024: How much are Billie Eilish tickets? Here’s how to score the best seats

Billie Eilish is getting ready to hit the road on her biggest tour yet .

Just a few months after winning her ninth Grammy Award for the hit song “What Was I Made For?” from the “Barbie” movie, Eilish is set to promote new music. The U.S. leg of the “Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour” will kick off on Sept. 29 in Quebec and it will end on Dec. 17 in Inglewood, Calif.

As part of her tour alongside brother and producer FINNEAS, Eilish will make one stop in New Jersey at the Prudential Center in Newark on Oct. 9 and then the tour will have three stops at Madison Square Garden in New York City from Oct. 16-18 .

This tour is in support of the Grammy winner’s third album “ Hit Me Hard and Soft ” which releases on May 17.

Here’s how to see Eilish perform songs from her upcoming album and previous hits live and the expected ticket prices.

How much are Billie Eilish tickets for the ‘Hit Me Hard And Soft’ tour?

According to the Heritage Bank Center site , tickets are grouped into eight different tiers, ranging in price from $59.50 to $499.50 . Here is a look at the prices.

To get tickets at retail prices, rather than jacked-up reseller prices, you’ll want to take advantage of the artist presale while it is going on at Ticketmaster .

How to get Billie Eilish tickets

Fans will be able to purchase tickets to Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft Tour” during presales and a general sale on Ticketmaster between April 29 through May 3, 2024.

In the U.S. presales start on Tuesday, April 30 with the Artist Presale from 12 p.m. EDT to May 3 at 11 a.m . EDT .

The American Express Early Access Presale and Preferred Access seating sale with also begin on April 30 at 12 p.m. EDT and end on May 3 at 11 a.m. EDT. You can find out how the AMEX presale and preferred seating sale work here .

Those who can’t access the presales will have an opportunity to purchase tickets during the general sale on Friday, May 3 at 12 p.m .

These tickets are sure to sell fast, but there will be tickets available on secondary market sites, including StubHub , Vivid Seats , TicketCity , TicketNetwork , and SeatGeek .

First-time Vivid Seats users can save $20 on ticket orders over $200 by entering promo code NJ20 at checkout.

TicketCity users can save $15 on orders over $400 using promo code TCITYSAVE15 at checkout.

You can find a full calendar of Billie Eilish’s tour dates here .

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com .

Nicole Iuzzolino can be reached at [email protected] . Have a tip? Tell us at nj.com/tips .

©2024 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit nj.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

• Election 2024
• Entertainment
• Newsletters
• Photography
• Personal Finance
• AP Investigations
• AP Buyline Personal Finance
• AP Buyline Shopping
• Press Releases
• Israel-Hamas War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• Global elections
• Asia Pacific
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Election Results
• Delegate Tracker
• AP & Elections
• Auto Racing
• 2024 Paris Olympic Games
• Movie reviews
• Book reviews
• Personal finance
• Financial Markets
• Business Highlights
• Financial wellness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media

Luke Rowe, who helped 3 leaders win the Tour de France, will retire at the end of the season

FILE - Britain’s Luke Rowe competes in the twentieth stage of the Tour de France cycling race, an individual time trial over 22.5 kilometers (14 miles) with start and finish in Marseille, southern France, on July 22, 2017. British cyclist Luke Rowe, who played a role in five Tour de France victories for three different leaders, will retire at the end of the season. The 34-years-old Rowe, a good classic rider, has been riding with the team which was then known as Sky since 2012. He took part in eight consecutive editions of the Tour de France. (AP Photo/Claude Paris, File)

• Copy Link copied

LONDON (AP) — British cyclist Luke Rowe, who played a role in five Tour de France victories for three different leaders, will retire at the end of the season, his Ineos Grenadiers team said Friday.

The 34-year-old Rowe, a good classic rider, has been with the team which was previously known as Sky since 2012.

He took part in eight consecutive editions of the Tour, helping Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal to victory, often in the role of road captain.

Rowe had signed a new 2-year contract to remain with Ineos Grenadiers through to 2025 but decided to bring forward his retirement by a season after getting injured in a crash during the E3 Saxo Classic in March.

“I’ve had an amazing career and I have absolutely no regrets,” he said. “But the last 18 months have been testing in different ways and with this latest crash and resulting injury, it just feels like now is the right time to bow out, head home to Wales and spend a bit more time with my family.”

Rowe says he still hopes to race again this year, “with the Tour of Britain being my dream race to end on.”

Cycling: https://apnews.com/hub/cycling

• CBSSports.com
• Fanatics Sportsbook
• CBS Sports Home
• Kentucky Derby 
• Champions League
• Motor Sports
• High School

Men's Brackets

Women's Brackets

Fantasy Baseball

Fantasy football, football pick'em, college pick'em, fantasy basketball, fantasy hockey, franchise games, 24/7 sports news network.

• CBS Sports Golazo Network
• PGA Tour on CBS
• UEFA Champions League
• UEFA Europa League
• Italian Serie A
• Watch CBS Sports Network
• TV Shows & Listings

The Early Edge

A Daily SportsLine Betting Podcast

With the First Pick

NFL Draft recap

• Podcasts Home
• The First Cut Golf
• Beyond the Arc
• We Need to Talk Now
• Eye On College Basketball
• NFL Pick Six
• Cover 3 College Football
• Fantasy Football Today
• My Teams Organize / See All Teams Help Account Settings Log Out

2024 CJ Cup Byron Nelson live stream, watch online, TV schedule, channel, tee times, radio, golf coverage

Only a couple of tournaments remain on the pga tour calendar before the second major championship of the season.

The PGA Tour returns to its regularly scheduled programming with a standard format of 72 holes of stroke play this week at the 2024 CJ Cup Byron Nelson. Welcoming the normal cast of characters to TPC Craig Ranch for the fourth straight season, the PGA Tour embarks on its final full-field event before the PGA Championship to be held in two weeks.

After two rounds, it's PGA Tour rookie Jake Knapp taking the lead into Moving Day. Looking to become the first Tour rookie to win twice in one season since Xander Schauffele in 2017, Knapp topis an intriguing leaderboard that features plenty of capable chasers on a course that's already produced plenty of low numbers. 

Last year's winner, Jason Day, is set to defend his title while two-time champion K.H. Lee hopes to grab his third Byron Nelson title in the last four years. Adam Scott, Sungjae Im and Min Woo Lee are among the rest of the large international contingent to round out the action.

All times Eastern; streaming start times approximated

Round 3 - Saturday

Round starts:  8 a.m.

PGA Tour Live:  8 a.m. -  6 p.m. --  PGA Tour Live

Early TV coverage:  1-3 p.m. on Golf Channel,  fubo  (Try for free) Live streaming:  1-3 p.m. on Peacock

Live TV coverage:  3-6 p.m. on CBS Live simulcast:  3-6 p.m. on  CBSSports.com  and the  CBS Sports App

Radio:  1-6 p.m. --  PGA Tour Radio  

Round 4 - Sunday

Our latest golf stories.

Koepka leads on LIV in last start before PGA defense

Patrick mcdonald • 2 min read.

2024 PGA Championship odds, picks, best bets, field

Cbs sports staff • 5 min read.

Byron Nelson: Knapp in position for win No. 2

Patrick mcdonald • 5 min read.

CJ Cup Byron Nelson: Reigning champ Day three back

Kyle porter • 4 min read.

Tiger Woods accepts exemption for 2024 U.S. Open

Kyle porter • 2 min read, 2024 cj cup byron nelson odds, picks, computer sims, cbs sports staff • 4 min read, share video.

How to watch 2024 CJ Cup Byron Nelson

LIV Singapore: Koepka holds lead

Tiger gets U.S. Open exemption

Tiger on Scottie Scheffler: 'He's just that good'

Power 18: Rory rises, Åberg chasing in rankings

Report: Woods, McIlroy set to receive loyalty bonuses

Rory McIlroy on expected return to PGA Tour board

2024 PGA Championship odds: Scheffler on top

Davis Love III enthused about golf's young stars

Johnny Damon: How I started loving golf

Get the best experience and stay connected to your community with our Spectrum News app. Learn More

Continue in Browser

Get hyperlocal forecasts, radar and weather alerts.

Please enter a valid zipcode.

New York on two wheels: What to know about the Five Boro Bike Tour

May 5 marks the 46th Five Boro Bike Tour in the city. Less than a year after the New York City Marathon became a five-borough course, the city’s cyclists decided to do their own version of the idea.

The first Five Boro Bike Tour took place in 1977, with only around 200-250 participants . Now, over 32,000 riders take part in what organizers say is more of a community than a competition.

What is the Five Boro Bike Tour?

The Five Boro Bike Tour is the cyclist’s annual opportunity to enjoy 40 miles of car-free roads in the city, including the chance to ride on city highways.

Bike New York, the nonprofit that manages the tour, says it’s the largest charitable bike ride in the world, with the proceeds funding free bike education programs.

When is the bike tour?

The tour starts on the morning of Sunday, May 5. The first waves start as early as 7:30 a.m. All cyclists will set off by 10:30 a.m.

The time it takes to complete the tour depends on your bicycle and experience level. Most cyclists report anywhere between three to five hours.

Where does the tour take riders?

Cyclists start the 40-mile, traffic-free route by gathering in Lower Manhattan and making their way up Sixth Avenue. The tour stretches through Central Park and Harlem before briefly crossing into the Bronx. It then makes its way along FDR Drive before going across the Queensboro Bridge into Long Island City. Next is a trip across the Pulaski Bridge into Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Then, the tour travels onto the BQE and the Gowanus Parkway, and then heads onto the lower level of the Verrazzano Bridge and into Staten Island.

At the end of the line is the Finish Festival at Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island. Participants are treated to live music, food trucks and photo opportunities.

Are there any major street closures to be aware of?

Yes, there are a number of closures in each of the five boroughs. A full list can be found here .

Can I still sign up?

Unfortunately, registration closed on April 12, but there are spots in each borough for spectators to cheer on and support cyclists along the route.

Cheer zones include Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in Harlem, 138th Street and Third Ave in Mott Haven, off the exit of the Queensboro Bridge in Long Island City, near Seventh Street in Williamsburg and at the finish line at Fort Wadsworth.

I’m already signed up, but I don’t know where my start point is. What do I need to do?

Those registered should have received their wave assignment, including their start time and point of entry to the route, via email. They were emailed out between April 26 and April 29.

Also included in the email are the times and location riders can pick up their participation packet. It includes the racer ID plate and helmet cover required to take part in the tour.

For all other questions on the tour, head here .

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Madonna will perform at Rio's Copacabana beach to close out her tour

Julia Carneiro

Over a million fans are expected to turn up on Rio's famous Copacabana beach Saturday for Madonna's end-of-tour mega concert.