Warped Killed Rock: How Warped Tour is the Beginning of the End

School is out. The sun beats down on every city in America. Kids of all ages, backgrounds, colors, and genders gather at the gates of a temporary chain link fence surrounding a parking lot, a pavilion, a field or an amphitheater. They wait in line, some wait for hours, for the gates to open and to experience the “best summer ever.” On the other side of the fence, bands and artists from all over the world gather on half a dozen stages in one city. These kids get the chance to see their favorites and discover new, fresh, never before seen or heard music. They experience 12 hours of non-stop music, mosh pits, and mania. This has happened 41 times over the course of 8 weeks during the summer for the last 23 years. This is Vans Warped Tour. 

The rock and roll music festival is an integral part of how the genre got its roots. It was a key part of the social dynamic. It was an experience, an interaction, an integration of music and people, a protest, and a political statement. Festivals have a history bringing people together for music. But, few festivals have ever brought the music to people. There is not a long-running, touring festival in the United States that compares to the scale of Vans Warped Tour. Over the last 23 years the tour has hosted over 1,700 bands and musical artists, each year hitting about 41 cities over the course of 8 weeks. Gearing up for its 24th and final national tour of the US, the 2018 Vans Warped Tour marks the end of an era. With Warped Tour coming to a sudden stop, rock and roll, as we know it, will soon die off as well. 

Vans Warped Tour is not another club show for rock and roll and punk kids to come and get their kicks. “It is a coming of age type thing. It’s youthful exuberance. It’s outrage at how screwed up things are. And you just get to knock the shit out of each other,” (Patton). Warped has always been about bringing out the culture of the genre. It is a celebration of art and people. The attendees of Warped are shoulder to shoulder with artists that can pack a ten-thousand seat stadium with the mention of their name and with artists that can barely draw ten people to a club. Festivals offer a unique opportunity for artists and audiences. “If a festival provides good contact between the artists and their audiences, this special venue can help to construct more profound realities than a mainstream performance does,” (Bartmann). An interview with a fan named Adam in Patton’s 2012 film No Room for Rock Stars explains how in 1997 Warped popularized because it wasn’t just about coming to experience great music, it was about community. Adam and others, band members and fans, talk about how the tour became a family in the early years. It was about unity. They talk about how people that would be outcasts by normal societal standards all belong and have a family at Warped Tour.

Vans Warped Tour has been the start for so many artists that went on to become mainstream, household names. Without Warped, bands like Blink-182, Bad Religion, and The Offspring would not be where they are today. It bore witness to the rise and popularization of pop punk with Sum 41, Simple Plan and Good Charlotte having some of the first exposure on the tour. Warped was the catalyst that birthed emo with Taking Back Sunday, The Used, and Motion City Soundtrack getting the start on the side stages of Warped. (Lyman) In “No Room for Rock Stars” the founder of Warped Tour, Kevin Lyman, talks about the importance of the tour as a platform for artist that are now household names. Ten years before Kid Rock, Katy Perry, or Fall Out Boy played the Super Bowl they spent months touring in the heat of the summer playing for small crowds of a couple hundred on the main stages of Warped. In an interview in the film, Lyman states, “If I would have started Warped Tour in 2010, it wouldn’t have lasted two days.” Sub-genres of rock and roll became popular in the 90s and 2000s because of Warped Tour. 

The commercialization of the music industry is destroying the chances for new talent to come through the spotlight. Warped is one of the few things left where bands can hustle for CD sales to people standing in the line and make enough money to follow the tour and in-turn, gain a following and hope for a chance to one day join the tour. Rock and roll has always been about making money. To this day artists not only create music that is sell-able but they create something that makes listeners feel understood. This feeling of belonging and understanding is supported by Warped Tour, where fans get the opportunity to get up-close and personal with the artists they love so much. As music becomes more and more accessible the need for festivals and shows like Warped is fading. People are buying less music, which no longer allows small-time garage bands to live on hustling CDs to the lines of Warped. As the masses flock to art-forms rising in popularity such as hip-hop and electronic dance music, Warped Tour is becoming less and less sustainable. With it, less artists are able to rise out of the underground and into to the mainstream. 

Musical artist, Christopher Drew, talks about his experience as an artist on Warped Tour in No Room for Rock Stars. He reflects on being on the tour since he was sixteen. Now nineteen, he talks about how his experience of “growing up on the road” in similar to what a lot of the kids coming out to the shows are experiencing. Warped is an integral part of how many of these young people understand themselves in the context of the world and culture as a whole. The figure out where they fit in all the chaos and who they can fit in with. The removal of Warped is almost a removal of this ritual-like rite of passage. “…The collective ritual of the rock music festival is not limited to a cultic practice of fandom in front of concert stages, but includes a celebration of community in the festival camp…” (Tjora) In other words, it is not just about the music itself, it is about the experience within the community on the festival grounds. There is a remarkable scene in No Room for Rock Stars where Kevin Lyman is seen grilling for the bands. This embodies the heart and soul of Warped. “There is no room for rock stars on the Warped Tour,” says a roadie in an interview, “just people. We are a team. And, if you don’t want to be a part of it, get the fuck off the tour.” Lyman believes in and lives this spirit of Warped.

Warped Tour was not just a platform for musical artists, it was a launching pad for photographers, clothing brands, independent vendors, online personalities, journalists, non-profit organizations, and more. The history of Warped Tour is so rich and diverse that with the end of the tour comes an abrupt halt to the development of the culture. From the mosh pits to the vendors, from the pop stars to the punk rockers, from the headbangers and emo kids to the parents of those participants, the “festival produces a profound sense of connectedness between participants,” (Tjora). These practices go back to the beginnings of rock and roll from folk festivals in the 40s and 50s, to the large scale festival style protests of the 60s, Warped is imbedded with the pretenses of cultural influence and individuality. 

As Vans Warped Tour comes to an end, we can expect to find deviant sub-genres, garage bands, and no-name artists become fewer and farther between. With the gates of Warped Tour locking for good I wonder what will happen to the emo kid, the metal head, and the rocker. The culture will go on in bars and small time venues across the rock and roll world. But, it will no longer be host to the family of outcasts that was enabled by Warped. “The festival - as community - is constantly being developed and (re-)created by its participants and that the organizers can only shape the festival by attempting to influence the actions and patterns of action of its participants,” (Tjora). In his final letter to fans, Lyman sends off Warped with these words: “Though the tour and the world have changed since ’95, the same feeling of having the ‘best summer ever’ will live on through the bands, the production teams, and the fans that come through at every stop.” Perhaps the end of Warped isn’t the complete end of the community. Perhaps they will reshape, reconvene at a later date. Likely, they will not. Their children will hear stories of mosh pits and crowd surfing and think it primal. Parents will reminisce of “the good ol’ days” and say to their kids, “if only you could have been at Warped Tour, then you would understand.”

Works Cited

Bartmann, Manfred. “Spotlights on Festival History and Communication: Folk Legends Work on the Great Hits of Rock and Popular Music.” The World of Music, vol. 43, no. 2/3, 2001, pp. 193–206. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41699375.

Lyman, Kevin. “Vans Warped Tour: All Things Must Come to an End.” Vans Warped Tour, 15 Nov. 2017, vanswarpedtour.com/2017/finaltour/.

Patton, Parris, director. No Room For Rockstars. Agi Orsi, 2012,

Tjora, Aksel. "The Social Rhythm of the Rock Music Festival." Popular Music, vol. 35, no. 1, 

2016, pp. 64-83. ProQuest,