warped tour vans

THANK YOU FOR 25 YEARS!

VWT25_WEB RES_color.png

VANS WARPED TOUR

25 Years of the Vans Warped Tour

25 Years of Warped Tour | EP 1: When Kevin Lyman Met Steve Van Doren

25 Years of Warped Tour | EP 2: Skate Culture

25 Years of Warped Tour | EP 2: Skate Culture

25 Years of Warped Tour | EP 4: No Room For Rockstars

25 Years of Warped Tour | EP 4: No Room For Rockstars

25 Years of Warped Tour | EP 3: They Played Warped?!

25 Years of Warped Tour | EP 3: They Played Warped?!

instagram.png

©2019 CCRL, LLC

  • Album Release Calendar
  • Festival Guide

Loudwire

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

Attila’s Chris Fronzak Makes Warped Tour Revival Part of Presidential Platform

an image, when javascript is unavailable

  • Manage Account
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share to Flipboard
  • Share on Pinterest
  • + additional share options added
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Whats App
  • Send an Email
  • Print this article
  • Post a Comment
  • Share on Tumblr

Vans Warped Tour 25th Anniversary Shows to Feature Blink-182, 311, Bad Religion, Good Charlotte & Many More

The lineups for the Vans Warped Tour 25th anniversary show were released on Friday (March 1) and they feature an all-star list of classic acts and fresh faces.

By Gil Kaufman

Gil Kaufman

2018 Vans Warped Tour

After weeks of anticipation, the lineups for the 25th anniversary editions of the Vans Warped Tour were finally unveiled on Friday (March 1) and they feature a who’s who of classic Warped tour veterans and current punk upstarts. The line-ups for the large-scale special events in Cleveland, OH, on June 8; Atlantic City, NJ, on June 29 – 30 and Mountain View, CA, on July 20 – 21, are all toplined by Warped legends such as Blink-182, 311, Bad Religion, The All-American Rejects, Andrew W.K., Anti-Flag, Good Charlotte, Gym Class Heroes, The Offspring, Simple Plan, Bowling for Soup, Taking Back Sunday, Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake and Good Charlotte.

Other acts slated to play the shows include: Andy Black, We the Kings, Thrice, Dirty Heads, CKY, Lagwagon, NOFX, Ozomatli, The Starting Line, Silent Planet, Ariana and the Rose, Go Betty Go, Juliet Simms, Quicksand and Silverstein.

Trending on Billboard

“Through the years the Vans Warped tour has always tried to bring you something extra, this year we have gone through the past archives and dug up many of our old friends to join us for these special events,” producer Kevin Lyman said in a statement. “The curated art experience will showcase our favorite moments over the last 25 years. So, dust off the old Vans and lace em’ up since you won’t want to miss a thing!”

Tickets for the events are on sale now here.

Check out the full line-ups for each show below.

        View this post on Instagram                   JUNE 8 • CLEVELAND, OH?? We partnered with the @rockhall to create a special new exhibit – Forever Warped: 25 Years of Vans Warped Tour. ?? ?? This exhibit will document the history of the tour from its inception in 1995 through the final cross-country run in 2018.?? ?? On Saturday, June 8th, 2019, the exhibit will kick off with a special opening event featuring bands from the tour’s history, a mini vert ramp, and more!?? ?? — tickets on sale now?? ?? vanswarpedtour.com?? ?? #vanswarpedtour #warpedtour #foreverwarped?? #clevelandrocks #rockandroll #thisiscleveland A post shared by Vans Warped Tour (@vanswarpedtour) on Mar 1, 2019 at 7:52am PST

Vans Warped 25th Anniversary Tour Unveils Pre-Sale Tickets, First-Time VIP Access

        View this post on Instagram                   JULY 20+21 • MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA?? We are making a triumphant return to the Bay Area for a special 25th Anniversary 2-day event!?? — tickets on sale now?? ? vanswarpedtour.com?? ?? #vanswarpedtour #warpedtour #foreverwarped?? A post shared by Vans Warped Tour (@vanswarpedtour) on Mar 1, 2019 at 7:55am PST

Daily newsletters straight to your inbox

More From Pro

Spotify & iheartmedia lead music stocks, sm entertainment shares dip amid sex scandal.

  • By Glenn Peoples

Motions to Dismiss James Dolan Sex Trafficking Lawsuit Being Weighed by Judge

  • By Dave Brooks

BMG to Make Major Investment in Frontline Releases Under Jon Loba

  • By Melinda Newman

Bad Bunny’s Sports Agency Gave Improper Gifts to Players, MLB Union Says — Including VIP Tickets

  • By Bill Donahue

In Canada: Streamers Must Pay Portion of Revenue Into Canadian Content Funds, Government Says

  • By Rosie Long Decter , Richard Trapunski

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

Videos Expand videos menu

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.

Quantcast

search

Join us on Social

warped tour vans

Kevin Lyman 

Photo: Gabriel Olsen/Getty Images

Vans Warped Tour 25th Anniversary Details Announced

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: FEVER 333 Tackle The Tough Issues

Kendrick Lamar GRAMMY Rewind Hero

Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10 Essential Facts To Know About GRAMMY-Winning Rapper J. Cole

Franc Moody

Photo:  Rachel Kupfer  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Say She She

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

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

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

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

Shiro Schwarz

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

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

L'Impératrice

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

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

Franc Moody

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

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

The Rise Of Underground House: How Artists Like Fisher & Acraze Have Taken Tech House, Other Electronic Genres From Indie To EDC

billy idol living legend

Photo: Steven Sebring

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I did, yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think it was his car.

Did he get over it later on?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Living Legends: Nancy Sinatra Reflects On Creating "Power And Magic" In Studio, Developing A Legacy Beyond "Boots" & The Pop Stars She Wants To Work With

Graphic of 2023 GRAMMYs orange centered black background

Graphic: The Recording Academy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kelsea Ballerini — "HEARTFIRST"

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

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

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

Zach Bryan — "Something In The Orange"

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

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

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

Miranda Lambert — "In His Arms"

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

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

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

Maren Morris — "Circles Around This Town"

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

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

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

Willie Nelson — "Live Forever"

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

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

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

2023 GRAMMY Nominations: See The Complete Nominees List

  • 1 Vans Warped Tour 25th Anniversary Details Announced
  • 2 GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016
  • 3 A Guide To Modern Funk For The Dance Floor: L'Imperatrice, Shiro Schwarz, Franc Moody, Say She She & Moniquea
  • 4 Living Legends: Billy Idol On Survival, Revival & Breaking Out Of The Cage
  • 5 Hear All Of The Best Country Solo Performance Nominees For The 2023 GRAMMY Awards
  • Skip to Nav
  • Skip to Main
  • Skip to Footer

How 23 Years of Warped Tour Changed America

Please try again

warped tour vans

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

warped tour vans

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

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

warped tour vans

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

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

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

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

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

warped tour vans

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

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

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

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

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

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

warped tour vans

Thanks for signing up for the newsletter.

warped tour vans

  • 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.

warped tour vans

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..

The Rolling Stones  and their fans spend the night together.

Carin León  is bringing música Mexicana and country ever closer.

A closer look at Jerry Garcia’s bluegrass roots .

Billie Eilish  is done hiding. Watch Popcast (Deluxe).

Tems , R&B’s golden child, dials in.

Vans Warped Tour 2024 - 25th Anniversary

Sat Jul 20 2024 at 11:00 am

Shoreline Amphitheatre At Mountain View | Mountain View, CA

Vans Warped Tour 2024 - 25th Anniversary

After a successful final cross-country run in 2023, the Vans Warped Tour will make only three US appearances in 2024 including a triumphant return to the Bay Area for a special 25th Anniversary 2-day event on Saturday, July 20 and Sunday, July 21 at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA.

Fans can expect the heart of the Warped Tour experience to be intact, but on a much larger scale over 2 full days. 50+ bands across multiple stages, extreme sports ranging from skateboarding to motocross, and an exhibit of art that has come out of the tour’s history.

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

It’s only fitting that Warped Tour would choose the Bay Area’s most iconic concert venue – Shoreline Amphitheatre – as the exclusive Western United Stated location for one of its only three 25th Anniversary events nationwide. The Bay Area almost became an instant second home to the event that got its start in the punk community of Southern California.

“I think probably close to half the bands on the first Warped Tour had some tie to the Bay Area,” remembers Lyman, “there was the up-and-coming band The Deftones, and then of course the Fat Wreck [Chords] roster – Good Riddance, No Use For A Name, Face to Face, and Tilt.”

From there, the Vans Warped Tour went on building its legacy; eventually playing sold out shows with 20,000+ attendees at Pier 30-32, AT&T Park, and the iconic Shoreline Amphitheatre. All the while, helping to launch the careers of area bands like Rancid, The Donnas, AFI, The Matches, Set Your Goals, and most recently, The Story So Far.

Pre-sales for the Vans Warped Tour 25th Anniversary event will begin on Monday, February 25th and tickets will be available to all on Friday, March 1st. The band lineup and special attractions will be announced on Friday, March 1st. Tickets will be available at LiveNation.com.

Where is it happening?

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Pariya Aktar

Host or Publisher Pariya Aktar

It's more fun with friends. share with friends, discover more events in mountain view.

Barbie: The Movie - In Concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre - CA

Shoreline Amphitheatre At Mountain View

Barbie: The Movie - In Concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre - CA

Mountain View, California

Niall Horan - The Show Live On Tour

1931 California St

Open Mic ~ Music ~ Poetry ~ Hip Hop ~ Jazz ~ Vendors Needed Wanted

Mountain View

Taste of Mountain View - Food, Beer & Wine Walk on Castro Street

Downtown Mountain View

Dandies Barbershop & Beard Stylist Mountain View

C'est Bon 2024 Summer Concerts

Community School of Music and Arts

Karaoke Madness at Sports Page

Sports Page Bar Mountain View Ca

Live Music at Roger w\/ Mariana Bonetti

Roger Bar and Restaurant

Bon Bon Vivant at Bubb Park

Shoreline Amphitheatre - CA

Gypsy Tribe Live at Cascal \ud83c\udfb8\ud83c\udfb6

Cascal Restaurant

The Chinese Computer

1401 N Shoreline Blvd, Mountain View, CA, United States, California 94043

Karaoke Madness at Sports Page

What's Happening Next in Mountain View?

What do you think? Leave a respectful comment.

Fans attend the Vans Warped Tour at White River Amphitheatre on August 12, 2016 in Auburn, Washington. (Photo by Suzi Prat...

Lora Strum Lora Strum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Support Provided By: Learn more

Educate your inbox

Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.

warped tour vans

The Untold Truth Of Vans Warped Tour

Bert McCracken holding a mic stand

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."

Vans Warped Tour Tickets, Tour Dates and %{concertOrShowText}

Vans Warped Tour Verified

Similar artists on tour.

warped tour vans

Live Photos of Vans Warped Tour

Concerts and tour dates, fan reviews.

warped tour vans

About Vans Warped Tour

warped tour vans

10 Things You May Not Know About Vans Warped Tour

  • Copied to Clipboard

warped tour vans

Vans Warped Tour is one of the most popular summer festival tours in the country, drawing out hundreds of bands and thousands of fans each year for an adrenaline-filled series of hard-hitting shows. Over the years it has grown from a scrappy festival upstart to a massive and well-oiled production, but it has always maintained its DIY spirit, punk rock edge, and commitment to showcasing emerging bands.

This year’s tour promises festivalgoers an unforgettable day of high-octane performances by big names like Black Veil Brides , Asking Alexandria , Never Shout Never , and Escape the Fate , as well as smaller acts like Silverstein , Attila , and Memphis May Fire . In anticipation of the 2015 tour we’ve compiled 10 things you probably didn’t know about Warped Tour — check it out below and impress all your friends with your vast Vans Warped Tour knowledge on concert day.

1. Warped Tour has been around a while The first Vans Warped Tour took place in 1995, making it the longest running touring music festival in North America. While the festival initially only featured punk and alternative artists, it has since expanded to include emo, folk, rap, hip hop, EDM, and many other musical styles.

2. It supports amazing charities Warped Tour partners with a seriously impressive array of charities and non-profits including MusiCares, PETA2, and Farm Animal Rights Movement. Check out the full list of participating organizations here .

3. For some bands it’s a “full circle” experience Pierce the Vale got their first taste of Warped Tour as attendees, but now they’re a featured act performing their post-hardcore tunes to the masses. Talk about an inspirational punk rock success story.

4. You can skip the line by doing some good Want the quickest access to the festival? Make sure to check out the Feed Our Children NOW! tent, which will be handing out Skip The Line wristbands to concertgoers who provide three canned goods (cannot be dented or expired cans), a $5 donation, or a used cell phone. The tent is located near the Skip the Line flag at the main gate, and proceeds benefit child hunger and the organization’s youth empowerment program. This year Feed Our Children NOW! will also be accepting iPods (with or without charger) to support the charity Music & Memory.

5. The “BBQ Band” for the 2015 tour is pop rock outfit Boy Meets World Yes, this is a real thing. The Warped Tour has a pretty sweet tradition — in exchange for a spot on the tour, the BBQ Band has to grill up a feast after each show for the bands and crew. This year Boy Meets World will join an impressive list of BBQ Band alumni that includes Dropkick Murphys and Art of Shock .

6. Warped Tour puts out an annual compilation CD Each year the festival puts out a mix CD featuring songs from artists on the tour. It’s become somewhat of a collectable item, and it’s a great way to commemorate the experience.

7. Parents and legal guardians can get in free! And there’s reverse daycare for parents Reverse Day Care for parents? That’s right kids, you can send your parents to daycare while you catch your favorite bands. The ultimate perk for parents, the Reverse Daycare Tent is an air-conditioned chill zone for parents who escort their teens to the concert but crave a break from the heat and music. Warped Tour also offers one complimentary, non-transferrable ticket to parents and guardians accompanying a minor (under 18) who has purchased a ticket to a 2015 Warped Tour show. Learn more about both parent-friendly programs here .

8. It’s not just punk and alternative music While punk and alternative still form the backbone of the Warped Tour lineup, the festival has grown over the years to encompass a diverse range of genres including hip hop, indie rock, and even mainstream pop. Noteworthy appearances over the years include Sublime (1995), Beck (1996), Eminem (1999), The Black Eyed Peas (1999), Talib Kweli (2000), Katy Perry (2008), and G-Eazy (2012).

9. Warped Tour has a sweet Tumblr Stay up to date with news, videos, and exclusive behind-the-scenes content over at the slick Vans Warped Tour Tumblr .

10. Set times are not announced until the morning of the show The Vans Warped tour lineup was released with tons of great bands and artists, but set times don’t come out until the morning of the show. Get to the festival early and head to the big inflatable blow-up board at the main Vans tent where the schedule will be displayed in all its glory. And check out the Vans Warped Tour playlist below, lovingly curated by Ticketmaster staff.

Loading Events

  • Festival News

You Might Like

Global festival guide: 28 events, 12 cities, one amazing bucket list.

From pulsating beats to breathtaking performances, we bring you a curated selection of festivals happening across the summer that will leave you with unforge...

A First-Timer’s Guide To Ibiza, Spain’s EDM Party Island

Gorgeous beaches. Legendary clubs. Wild pool parties. There’s a reason why Ibiza, Spain, is considered one of the top places to party in the world. Ibiza is ...

9 Lollapalooza Performances That Made History

As we prepare for Lollapalooza's virtual 2020 installment, let's look back at the moments that made the festival iconic.

  • Cover Story

Here's What Really Caused The Downfall of Warped Tour

Founder Kevin Lyman explains how the scene that built Warped Tour ripped the festival apart from within.

Here's What Really Caused The Downfall of Warped Tour

It's always sad when a big yearly festival or event comes to an end, and such was certainly the case with Vans Warped Tour , the massive traveling punk rock event that took the world by storm for 25 years. Sadly, 2018 was the year's last as a touring festival, with this year's three fests across the country acting as its memorial. When the fest ended, rumors circulated about what ended the festival -- most notably financial losses. But now, the man behind Warped Tour has stated that it was something much more human behind the festival's downfall -- the loss of punk rock community.

In the latest episode of Inside Track -- our podcast in which the true stories behind rock's most important moments are told by the people who lived them -- Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman explains what led to him winding down the traveling festival after 25 years.

"Ultimately, when I started to think about winding this down after 25 years, it was, ‘I think we’ve lost the sense of community,'" says Kevin. "It took a community to make Warped Tour go. 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!"

Not only did Kevin find that the unity that built Warped Tour was no longer present, but preconceived notions about bands resulted in great musicians turning down the gig, lest they come off as a "Warped" act.

warped tour vans

"This is what kind of pissed me off," says Kevin. "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."

Listen to the full episode below:

And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to Inside Track to hear more of the insane, wonderful, highly-unlikely and totally true stories behind some of the greatest moments in rock history:

  • Subscribe on iTunes
  • Subscribe on Spotify
  • Subscribe on Stitcher
  • Subscribe on Castbox
  • Subscribe on TuneIn
  • Subscribe on Acast

READ THIS: How Less Than Jake pranked Warped Tour with a "police escort" of strippers

Check out more:

Now read these.

Why hyperpop owes its existence to heavy metal

Why hyperpop owes its existence to heavy metal

Hyperpop is on the rise – and it’s thanks, in large part, to metal subgenres like nu-metal, crunkcore and metalcore…

How Less Than Jake Pranked Warped Tour With A "Police Escort" Of Male Strippers

How Less Than Jake Pranked Warped Tour With A "Police Escort" Of Male Strippers

Chris Demakes of ska band Less Than Jake recalls the ultimate punk rock bait-and-switch in the latest episode of our podcast, Inside Track.

Warped Tour: The True Story Revealed In New Episode Of Our Podcast, Inside Track

Warped Tour: The True Story Revealed In New Episode Of Our Podcast, Inside Track

Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman and members of Sum 41 and Less Than Jake explain the rise, fall, and legacy of the festival in our new episode of Inside Track.

Tomorrow: The True Story Of Warped Tour's Rise And Fall, Told In Our Podcast

Tomorrow: The True Story Of Warped Tour's Rise And Fall, Told In Our Podcast

Members of Sum 41 and Less Than Jake -- along with fest founder Kevin Lyman -- reveal the hidden history of Vans Warped Tour in the latest episode of our podcast, Inside Track.

The 21 Hottest Live Bands On Earth

The 21 Hottest Live Bands On Earth

PLUS! Slipknot, Soundgarden, Black Veil Brides, blink-182, Ghost, Green Day, Metallica, Frank Iero and LOADS more!

Quicksand's Sergio Vega Goes Behind The Scenes At Warped Tour's 25th Anniversary Festival

Quicksand's Sergio Vega Goes Behind The Scenes At Warped Tour's 25th Anniversary Festival

Quicksand bassist Sergio Vega gives us a backstage portrait of New Jersey's Warped Tour festival.

More Bands Have Been Announced For This Year's Warped Tour

More Bands Have Been Announced For This Year's Warped Tour

ONE OK ROCK, The Used, The Story So Far, Yungblud and more have joined Warped Tour's 25th anniversary celebrations.

Kevin Lyman Tried To Get My Chemical Romance To Play Warped Tour 2019

Kevin Lyman Tried To Get My Chemical Romance To Play Warped Tour 2019

The founder of the Vans Warped Tour put in the request for My Chemical Romance…

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

Punk singer Shira Yevin pushes for fair pay with InPink, a women-focused job marketplace

warped tour vans

It’s been 20 years since Shira Yevin, the lead singer of punk band Shiragirl drove a pink RV into the Vans Warped Tour grounds, the now-defunct punk rock festival notorious for being male-dominated . In response to the festival’s lack of female-fronted bands, Yevin’s band crashed the festival and set up an impromptu all-female stage. This led to the creation of Warped Tour’s Shiragirl Stage, which hosted over 300 bands, including Joan Jett & The Blackhearts and Paramore. It was later honored with a Warped Tour exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

After Shiragirl Stage, Yevin went on a “lifelong crusade for carving out a space for women in music and other male-dominated industries,” she told TechCrunch. This began with the launch of Gritty in Pink in 2020, a Live Nation-backed platform designed to empower women in the music industry.

A few years later, the company rolled out its flagship product, InPink , a job marketplace for females and nonbinary artists, among other professionals across the music and live entertainment space, such as tour managers, photographers and video editors who specialize in concerts, and graphic designers for poster creation. Like freelance platforms Fiverr and Upwork, users can publish listings to highlight their services on InPink’s marketplace and connect with major brands. 

“On the freelance talent side, it’s hard to find opportunities without a network or personal connections. If you’re not in the ‘boys club,’ most jobs aren’t even posted. And then, of course, admin headaches, sending invoices, chasing down payments, and fairly pricing services are major struggles for all freelancers but for women in particular … We’re aiming to build the next-generation career platform for talent and help [women] upscale and network,” Yevin said. 

In addition to its focus on women and nonbinary creatives, InPink also aims to address other DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) needs with a feature called “Diversity” tags, which filters creators based on specific diversity criteria: Asian, Black, Indigenous, Hispanic/Latina, Queer, and POC. 

InPink has grown to over 3,000 users and has facilitated several dream gigs for people on the platform, including Leanne Bowes (bassist) and Constance Antoinette (guitarist), who work with Demi Lovato. Moa Munoz , meanwhile, secured the bass player position for pop star Olivia Rodrigo.

The company has processed $300,000 in transactions to date. 

warped tour vans

Looking ahead, InPink continues to develop new features, such as two AI-powered tools: a fair pay scale that analyzes market rates to determine fair compensation for female creatives and a matching tool that will help companies discover talent more efficiently.

The fair pay scale is particularly notable as female musicians are still being underpaid or don’t know how much to charge for their services. As cited by a study from the Recording Academy , about 18% of respondents who identify as performers or music creators earned less than $40,000 a year in 2019. More broadly, women freelancers reportedly charge 47% less than men on online marketplaces.

Yevin explained that InPink’s fair pay feature will recommend how much users should charge based on “location, the service, and the scope of the project.” The AI will pull from “diverse” sources to “make sure that [the price] is as accurate as possible,” Yevin said, yet declined to share further, as it is still in the early stages of development. 

Meanwhile, the forthcoming matching tool helps job seekers discover projects that best suit their skills and interests. The AI also analyzes past performance to make optimal matches for companies. 

“In the future, it’s going to be more of an AI prompt, so you can prompt what you are looking for and get what you need in a quicker way,” Yevin added. 

The AI features are expected to launch in early 2025 or sooner. 

Other ideas on the product roadmap include a paid Pro subscription, which will be available to higher-level talent who have worked with notable names. The company is also looking to expand beyond the music industry and offer its services to adjacent sectors in entertainment, such as sports and live events. Yevin said InPink is already working with one sports client, Angel City Football Club (the LA-based women’s soccer league), to help them hire talent for pre-shows. 

“We’re already seeing the potential with other industries,” Yevin said. “We see InPink transforming the future of work for music, entertainment, and beyond and making it more flexible and equitable in the process.”

Gritty in Pink has raised over $500,000 from Alternative Wealth Partners, Gaingels, LiveNation, Long Beach Accelerator, and angel investors. The company is set to close a $1 million pre-seed round soon and was recently accepted into the Berkeley SkyDeck incubator.

More TechCrunch

Get the industry’s biggest tech news, techcrunch daily news.

Every weekday and Sunday, you can get the best of TechCrunch’s coverage.

Startups Weekly

Startups are the core of TechCrunch, so get our best coverage delivered weekly.

TechCrunch Fintech

The latest Fintech news and analysis, delivered every Tuesday.

TechCrunch Mobility

TechCrunch Mobility is your destination for transportation news and insight.

Anterior grabs $20M from NEA to expedite health insurance approvals with AI

Anterior, a company that uses AI to expedite health insurance approval for medical procedures, has raised a $20 million Series A round at a $95 million post-money valuation led by…

Anterior grabs $20M from NEA to expedite health insurance approvals with AI

How India’s most valuable startup ended up being worth nothing

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. There’s more bad news for…

How India’s most valuable startup ended up being worth nothing

Bereave wants employers to suck a little less at navigating death

If death and taxes are inevitable, why are companies so prepared for taxes, but not for death? “I lost both of my parents in college, and it didn’t initially spark…

Bereave wants employers to suck a little less at navigating death

Apple needs to focus on making AI useful, not flashy

Google and Microsoft have made their developer conferences a showcase of their generative AI chops, and now all eyes are on next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference, which is expected to…

Apple needs to focus on making AI useful, not flashy

Deal Dive: Human Native AI is building the marketplace for AI training licensing deals

AI systems and large language models need to be trained on massive amounts of data to be accurate but they shouldn’t train on data that they don’t have the rights…

Deal Dive: Human Native AI is building the marketplace for AI training licensing deals

Wazer Pro is making desktop water jetting more affordable

Before Wazer came along, “water jet cutting” and “affordable” didn’t belong in the same sentence. That changed in 2016, when the company launched the world’s first desktop water jet cutter,…

Wazer Pro is making desktop water jetting more affordable

Autonomy’s Mike Lynch acquitted after US fraud trial brought by HP

Former Autonomy chief executive Mike Lynch issued a statement Thursday following his acquittal of criminal charges, ending a 13-year legal battle with Hewlett-Packard that became one of Silicon Valley’s biggest…

Autonomy’s Mike Lynch acquitted after US fraud trial brought by HP

Featured Article

What Snowflake isn’t saying about its customer data breaches

As another Snowflake customer confirms a data breach, the cloud data company says its position “remains unchanged.”

What Snowflake isn’t saying about its customer data breaches

Rippling bans former employees who work at competitors like Deel and Workday from its tender offer stock sale

Investor demand has been so strong for Rippling’s shares that it is letting former employees particpate in its tender offer. With one exception.

Rippling bans former employees who work at competitors like Deel and Workday from its tender offer stock sale

NASA puts $10M down on Mars sample return proposals from Blue Origin, SpaceX and others

It turns out the space industry has a lot of ideas on how to improve NASA’s $11 billion, 15-year plan to collect and return samples from Mars. Seven of these…

NASA puts $10M down on Mars sample return proposals from Blue Origin, SpaceX and others

In 2024, many Y Combinator startups only want tiny seed rounds — but there’s a catch

When Bowery Capital general partner Loren Straub started talking to a startup from the latest Y Combinator accelerator batch a few months ago, she thought it was strange that the company didn’t have a lead investor for the round it was raising. Even stranger, the founders didn’t seem to be…

In 2024, many Y Combinator startups only want tiny seed rounds — but there’s a catch

Watch Apple kick off WWDC 2024 right here

The keynote will be focused on Apple’s software offerings and the developers that power them, including the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS and watchOS.

Watch Apple kick off WWDC 2024 right here

Startups Weekly: Ups, downs, and silver linings

Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje’s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Anna will be covering for him this week. Sign up here to…

Startups Weekly: Ups, downs, and silver linings

BlackRock has slashed the value of stake in Byju’s, once worth $22 billion, to zero

HSBC and BlackRock estimate that the Indian edtech giant Byju’s, once valued at $22 billion, is now worth nothing.

BlackRock has slashed the value of stake in Byju’s, once worth $22 billion, to zero

Apple’s generative AI offering might not work with the standard iPhone 15

Apple is set to board the runaway locomotive that is generative AI at next week’s World Wide Developer Conference. Reports thus far have pointed to a partnership with OpenAI that…

Apple’s generative AI offering might not work with the standard iPhone 15

LinkedIn to limit targeted ads in EU after complaint over sensitive data use

LinkedIn has confirmed it will no longer allow advertisers to target users based on data gleaned from their participation in LinkedIn Groups. The move comes more than three months after…

LinkedIn to limit targeted ads in EU after complaint over sensitive data use

Startup Battlefield 200 applications due Monday

Founders: Need plans this weekend? What better way to spend your time than applying to this year’s Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt. With Monday’s deadline looming, this is a…

Startup Battlefield 200 applications due Monday

Novel battery manufacturer EnerVenue is raising $515M, per filing

The company is in the process of building a gigawatt-scale factory in Kentucky to produce its nickel-hydrogen batteries.

Novel battery manufacturer EnerVenue is raising $515M, per filing

Meta quietly rolls out Communities on Messenger

Meta is quietly rolling out a new “Communities” feature on Messenger, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The feature is designed to help organizations, schools and other private groups communicate in…

Meta quietly rolls out Communities on Messenger

Siri and Google Assistant look to generative AI for a new lease on life

Voice assistants in general are having an existential moment, and generative AI is poised to be the logical successor.

Siri and Google Assistant look to generative AI for a new lease on life

Bain to take K-12 education software provider PowerSchool private in $5.6B deal

Education software provider PowerSchool is being taken private by investment firm Bain Capital in a $5.6 billion deal.

Bain to take K-12 education software provider PowerSchool private in $5.6B deal

Shopify acquires Threads (no, not that one)

Shopify has acquired Threads.com, the Sequoia-backed Slack alternative, Threads said on its website. The companies didn’t disclose the terms of the deal but said that the Threads.com team will join…

Shopify acquires Threads (no, not that one)

Bangladeshi police agents accused of selling citizens’ personal information on Telegram

Two senior police officials in Bangladesh are accused of collecting and selling citizens’ personal information to criminals on Telegram.

Bangladeshi police agents accused of selling citizens’ personal information on Telegram

Carta’s valuation to be cut by $6.5 billion in upcoming secondary sale

Carta, a once-high-flying Silicon Valley startup that loudly backed away from one of its businesses earlier this year, is working on a secondary sale that would value the company at…

Carta’s valuation to be cut by $6.5 billion in upcoming secondary sale

Boeing’s Starliner overcomes leaks and engine trouble to dock with ‘the big city in the sky’

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has successfully delivered two astronauts to the International Space Station, a key milestone in the aerospace giant’s quest to certify the capsule for regular crewed missions.  Starliner…

Boeing’s Starliner overcomes leaks and engine trouble to dock with ‘the big city in the sky’

Rivian’s path to survival is now remarkably clear

Rivian needs to sell its new revamped vehicles at a profit in order to sustain itself long enough to get to the cheaper mass market R2 SUV on the road.

Rivian’s path to survival is now remarkably clear

What to expect from WWDC 2024: iOS 18, macOS 15 and so much AI

Apple is hoping to make WWDC 2024 memorable as it finally spells out its generative AI plans.

What to expect from WWDC 2024: iOS 18, macOS 15 and so much AI

What to expect from Apple’s AI-powered iOS 18 at WWDC 2024

As WWDC 2024 nears, all sorts of rumors and leaks have emerged about what iOS 18 and its AI-powered apps and features have in store.

What to expect from Apple’s AI-powered iOS 18 at WWDC 2024

Apple’s Design Awards highlight indies and startups

Apple’s annual list of what it considers the best and most innovative software available on its platform is turning its attention to the little guy.

Apple’s Design Awards highlight indies and startups

Meta rolls out Meta Verified for WhatsApp Business users in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Colombia

Meta launched its Meta Verified program today along with other features, such as the ability to call large businesses and custom messages.

Meta rolls out Meta Verified for WhatsApp Business users in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Colombia

Follow Puck Worlds online:

  • Follow Puck Worlds on Twitter

Site search

Filed under:

  • Kontinental Hockey League

Gagarin Cup Preview: Atlant vs. Salavat Yulaev

Share this story.

  • Share this on Facebook
  • Share this on Twitter
  • Share this on Reddit
  • Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: Gagarin Cup Preview: Atlant vs. Salavat Yulaev

Gagarin cup (khl) finals:  atlant moscow oblast vs. salavat yulaev ufa.

Much like the Elitserien Finals, we have a bit of an offense vs. defense match-up in this league Final.  While Ufa let their star top line of Alexander Radulov, Patrick Thoresen and Igor Grigorenko loose on the KHL's Western Conference, Mytischi played a more conservative style, relying on veterans such as former NHLers Jan Bulis, Oleg Petrov, and Jaroslav Obsut.  Just reaching the Finals is a testament to Atlant's disciplined style of play, as they had to knock off much more high profile teams from Yaroslavl and St. Petersburg to do so.  But while they did finish 8th in the league in points, they haven't seen the likes of Ufa, who finished 2nd. 

This series will be a challenge for the underdog, because unlike some of the other KHL teams, Ufa's top players are generally younger and in their prime.  Only Proshkin amongst regular blueliners is over 30, with the work being shared by Kirill Koltsov (28), Andrei Kuteikin (26), Miroslav Blatak (28), Maxim Kondratiev (28) and Dmitri Kalinin (30).  Oleg Tverdovsky hasn't played a lot in the playoffs to date.  Up front, while led by a fairly young top line (24-27), Ufa does have a lot of veterans in support roles:  Vyacheslav Kozlov , Viktor Kozlov , Vladimir Antipov, Sergei Zinovyev and Petr Schastlivy are all over 30.  In fact, the names of all their forwards are familiar to international and NHL fans:  Robert Nilsson , Alexander Svitov, Oleg Saprykin and Jakub Klepis round out the group, all former NHL players.

For Atlant, their veteran roster, with only one of their top six D under the age of 30 (and no top forwards under 30, either), this might be their one shot at a championship.  The team has never won either a Russian Superleague title or the Gagarin Cup, and for players like former NHLer Oleg Petrov, this is probably the last shot at the KHL's top prize.  The team got three extra days rest by winning their Conference Final in six games, and they probably needed to use it.  Atlant does have younger regulars on their roster, but they generally only play a few shifts per game, if that. 

The low event style of game for Atlant probably suits them well, but I don't know how they can manage to keep up against Ufa's speed, skill, and depth.  There is no advantage to be seen in goal, with Erik Ersberg and Konstantin Barulin posting almost identical numbers, and even in terms of recent playoff experience Ufa has them beat.  Luckily for Atlant, Ufa isn't that far away from the Moscow region, so travel shouldn't play a major role. 

I'm predicting that Ufa, winners of the last Superleague title back in 2008, will become the second team to win the Gagarin Cup, and will prevail in five games.  They have a seriously well built team that would honestly compete in the NHL.  They represent the potential of the league, while Atlant represents closer to the reality, as a team full of players who played themselves out of the NHL. 

  • Atlant @ Ufa, Friday Apr 8 (3:00 PM CET/10:00 PM EST)
  • Atlant @ Ufa, Sunday Apr 10 (1:00 PM CET/8:00 AM EST)
  • Ufa @ Atlant, Tuesday Apr 12 (5:30 PM CET/12:30 PM EST)
  • Ufa @ Atlant, Thursday Apr 14 (5:30 PM CET/12:30 PM EST)

Games 5-7 are as yet unscheduled, but every second day is the KHL standard, so expect Game 5 to be on Saturday, like an early start. 

Loading comments...

  • Today's news
  • Reviews and deals
  • Climate change
  • 2024 election
  • Fall allergies
  • Health news
  • Mental health
  • Sexual health
  • Family health
  • So mini ways
  • Unapologetically
  • Buying guides

Entertainment

  • How to Watch
  • My watchlist
  • Stock market
  • Biden economy
  • Personal finance
  • Stocks: most active
  • Stocks: gainers
  • Stocks: losers
  • Trending tickers
  • World indices
  • US Treasury bonds
  • Top mutual funds
  • Highest open interest
  • Highest implied volatility
  • Currency converter
  • Basic materials
  • Communication services
  • Consumer cyclical
  • Consumer defensive
  • Financial services
  • Industrials
  • Real estate
  • Mutual funds
  • Credit cards
  • Balance transfer cards
  • Cash back cards
  • Rewards cards
  • Travel cards
  • Online checking
  • High-yield savings
  • Money market
  • Home equity loan
  • Personal loans
  • Student loans
  • Options pit
  • Fantasy football
  • Pro Pick 'Em
  • College Pick 'Em
  • Fantasy baseball
  • Fantasy hockey
  • Fantasy basketball
  • Download the app
  • Daily fantasy
  • Scores and schedules
  • GameChannel
  • World Baseball Classic
  • Premier League
  • CONCACAF League
  • Champions League
  • Motorsports
  • Horse racing
  • Newsletters

New on Yahoo

  • Privacy Dashboard

15 men brought to military enlistment office after mass brawl in Moscow Oblast

Local security forces brought 15 men to a military enlistment office after a mass brawl at a warehouse of the Russian Wildberries company in Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast on Feb. 8, Russian Telegram channel Shot reported .

29 people were also taken to police stations. Among the arrested were citizens of Kyrgyzstan.

A mass brawl involving over 100 employees and security personnel broke out at the Wildberries warehouse in Elektrostal on Dec. 8.

Read also: Moscow recruits ‘construction brigades’ from Russian students, Ukraine says

We’re bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron !

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine

Recommended Stories

Top rbs for 2024 fantasy football, according to our experts.

The Yahoo Fantasy football analysts reveal their first running back rankings for the 2024 NFL season.

Sparks rookie Cameron Brink: 'There's a privilege' for WNBA's younger white players

The Sparks rookie had plenty to say about her WNBA rookie class, headlined by Caitlin Clark.

Angel Reese's 'weak' ejection from Sky-Liberty game draws attention, offer from Bulls' Lonzo Ball

Reese was ejected after two very quick whistles from referee Charles Watson.

Belmont Stakes 2024 winner, results: Dornoch scores upset victory at Saratoga giving former MLBer Jayson Werth a win on the track

The 156th running of the Belmont Stakes is headed to Saratoga

Larry Allen, Cowboys legend and Pro Football Hall of Famer, dies at 52

Allen was a seven-time first-team All-Pro and part of the Cowboys' Super Bowl XXX winning team.

Vikings reveal 'Winter Warrior' alternate all-white uniforms to be worn on Week 15

The Minnesota Vikings revealed their all-white "Winter Warrior" uniforms that the team will wear for Week 15's matchup with the Chicago Bears.

Rivian's path to survival is now remarkably clear

Rivian has had a lot on its plate as it transitioned from pitch mode to selling EVs. It created an electric pickup and an electric SUV while prepping a monster IPO. It now plans to sell an even cheaper SUV that could make Rivian a dominant EV player for years to come.

2024 Fantasy football wide receiver rankings

The Yahoo Fantasy football analysts reveal their first wide receiver rankings for the 2024 NFL season.

Sky's Chennedy Carter has 'no regrets' about foul on Caitlin Clark; Angel Reese will 'take the bad guy role'

The Sky have broken their silence about the flagrant foul on Caitlin Clark, and they had a lot to say.

GameStop stock soars as 'Roaring Kitty' announces livestream, reveals $382 million unrealized gain

First X, then Reddit, now YouTube. GameStop's most bullish enthusiast announced a livestream, and the stock surged.

Paul Skenes blows away Shohei Ohtani, who returns the favor in his next at-bat

The Dodgers-Pirates matchup lived up to its billing.

Iowa basketball player Ava Jones retires due to injuries from car accident that killed her father

Ava Jones and her family were hit by an allegedly impaired driver two days after she committed to the Hawkeyes.

Opposing players aren't fond of Caitlin Clark ... which should be good for the WNBA

Watching Clark fight through adversity and rack up rivals will only bring more eyeballs to the league.

NFL denies Packers RB Josh Jacobs' claim that wearing green isn't allowed in Brazil game due to potential violence

No, the Packers and Eagles aren't being told to not wear green for a game in Brazil.

2025 Toyota Crown Signia First Drive: Venza replacement puts efficiency and fashion first

Our first drive review of the 2025 Toyota Crown Signia where we tell you all about it and give initial driving impressions.

MLB Power Rankings: Yankees, Phillies, Orioles looking like baseball's strongest teams

How do we feel about all 30 MLB teams now, compared to what we expected at the start of the season?

2024 Fantasy football tight end rankings

The Yahoo Fantasy football analysts reveal their first tight end rankings for the 2024 NFL season.

Yankees, Juan Soto played some mind games in Dodgers' 11-inning victory

Yankee Stadium had a Fall Classic feel to it on Friday night as the Dodgers made a rare visit to the Bronx for a duel between two of baseball's best teams.

Stock market today: Stocks dip but notch weekly wins after jobs report smashes expectations

Investors are looking to the monthly jobs report for signs of labor market cooldown pivotal to the odds for a rate cut.

Former LSU player Josh Maravich, son of Pete Maravich, dies at 42

Josh was only 5 years old when his father died. He still followed him to LSU.

Rusmania

  • Yekaterinburg
  • Novosibirsk
  • Vladivostok

warped tour vans

  • Tours to Russia
  • Practicalities
  • Russia in Lists
Rusmania • Deep into Russia

Out of the Centre

Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery and Museum

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

warped tour vans

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

warped tour vans

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

warped tour vans

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

warped tour vans

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

warped tour vans

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

warped tour vans

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

warped tour vans

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

warped tour vans

Plan your next trip to Russia

Ready-to-book tours.

Your holiday in Russia starts here. Choose and book your tour to Russia.

REQUEST A CUSTOMISED TRIP

Looking for something unique? Create the trip of your dreams with the help of our experts.

IMAGES

  1. TIMELINE: A brief history of the Vans Warped Tour

    warped tour vans

  2. Here Are The Confirmed Dates For Vans Warped Tour 2019

    warped tour vans

  3. Vans Warped Tour 2017 Artist Announcement with Live Performances

    warped tour vans

  4. Full Vans Warped Tour 2016 Line-Up Revealed

    warped tour vans

  5. Vans Warped Tour 25th Anniversary

    warped tour vans

  6. The Final Vans Warped Tour Lineup is Released : festivals

    warped tour vans

COMMENTS

  1. Vans Warped Tour

    The official website of the Vans Warped Tour. 1995-2019. The official website of the Vans Warped Tour. 1995-2019. top of page. THANK YOU FOR 25 YEARS! SHOP OFFICIAL MERCH. VANS WARPED TOUR. Play Video. Facebook. Twitter. Pinterest. Tumblr. Copy Link. Link Copied. Now Playing. 25 Years of Warped Tour | EP 1: When Kevin Lyman Met Steve Van Doren.

  2. Warped Tour

    The Warped Tour was a traveling rock tour that toured the United States and Canada each summer from 1995 until 2019. It was the largest traveling music festival in the United States and the longest-running touring music festival to date in North America. The festival visited Australia in 1998-2002 and again in 2013. Following the first Warped Tour, the skateboard shoe manufacturer Vans ...

  3. List of Warped Tour lineups by year

    The Vans Warped Tour was a summer music and extreme sports festival that toured annually from 1995 to 2019. The following is a comprehensive list of bands that performed on the tour throughout its history.

  4. Why Did Warped Tour End?

    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 ...

  5. Vans Warped Tour says goodbye: Stories and statements over 25 years

    July 20, 2019. For almost a quarter of a century, Vans Warped Tour was a clubhouse for music culture, focusing on alt-rock and then branching into a punk-rock juggernaut with tentacles in all ...

  6. Vans Warped Tour 25th Anniversary Shows Lineup

    The line-ups for the large-scale special events in Cleveland, OH, on June 8; Atlantic City, NJ, on June 29 - 30 and Mountain View, CA, on July 20 - 21, are all toplined by Warped legends such ...

  7. Vans Warped Tour 25th Anniversary Details Announced

    The tour will also feature skateboarding, motocross and other extreme sports. The tour will end in the Bay Area, which "probably close to half the bands on the first Warped Tour had some tie to," Lyman said. The Vans Warped Tour is known to be the longest-running touring music festival in North America. Presale tickets will go on sale Feb. 25.

  8. Vans Warped Tour History

    Music Festival History: The Vans Warped Tour. Dating back to 1995, the Vans Warped Tour was a rock tour that traveled around the United States and Canada every summer. Known as "punk rock summer camp," this mobile music festival was the biggest one in the United States, and it also had the distinction of being the longest-running music festival that has ever toured in North America.

  9. Vans Warped Tour Tickets, 2024 Concert Tour Dates

    Vans Warped Tour Backgroung and artists: The Vans Warped Tour is a platform for music, athletes and lifestyles to co-mingle and thrive in an atmosphere dedicated to music fans of punk, alternative, hip-hop, ska, pop punk, electronica, alternative rock, emo, hardcore and more.

  10. How 23 Years of Warped Tour Changed America

    Vans Warped Tour Official Compilation CD (SideOneDummy Records) - Photograph of Tim Armstrong and Rancid by Lisa Johnson. The unique spirit of Warped is precisely why hundreds of people have stepped up, year after year, to work in unbearably high temperatures, notoriously dusty environs, facing parking lot after parking lot with few views of ...

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

    July 3, 2018. 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 ...

  12. Vans Warped Tour 2024

    After a successful final cross-country run in 2023, the Vans Warped Tour will make only three US appearances in 2024 including a triumphant return to the Bay Area for a special 25th Anniversary 2-day event on Saturday, July 20 and Sunday, July 21 at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA. Fans can expect the heart of the Warped Tour ...

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

    The final Vans Warped Tour will cross the country June 21 - Aug. 5, 2018. Fans have begged for Warped-Tour greats like Fall Out Boy, All Time Low and My Chemical Romance to play the final round ...

  14. Vans Warped Tour

    This is the official YouTube channel for the Vans Warped Tour. Tickets are on sale now and the lineup will be revealed via live webcast tonight March 22nd at 6PM EST. Complete info: vanswarpedtour.com

  15. The Untold Truth Of Vans Warped Tour

    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 ...

  16. Vans Warped Tour Concerts & Live Tour Dates: 2024-2025 Tickets

    Follow Vans Warped Tour and be the first to get notified about new concerts in your area, buy official tickets, and more. Find tickets for Vans Warped Tour concerts near you. Browse 2024 tour dates, venue details, concert reviews, photos, and more at Bandsintown.

  17. 10 Things You May Not Know About Vans Warped Tour

    1. Warped Tour has been around a while The first Vans Warped Tour took place in 1995, making it the longest running touring music festival in North America. While the festival initially only featured punk and alternative artists, it has since expanded to include emo, folk, rap, hip hop, EDM, and many other musical styles. 2.

  18. Here's What Really Caused The Downfall of Warped Tour

    It's always sad when a big yearly festival or event comes to an end, and such was certainly the case with Vans Warped Tour, the massive traveling punk rock event that took the world by storm for ...

  19. Here's the full lineup for the final Vans Warped Tour, coming to

    Van's Warped Tour stops at Meadow Brook Amphitheatre in Rochester Hills on Friday, July 20. Doors will open at 11 a.m. Tickets go on sale Thursday, March 8 at 10 a.m. for $45.

  20. Punk singer Shira Yevin pushes for fair pay with InPink, a women

    It's been 20 years since Shira Yevin, the lead singer of punk band Shiragirl drove a pink RV into the Vans Warped Tour grounds, the now-defunct punk rock festival notorious for being male ...

  21. Gagarin Cup Preview: Atlant vs. Salavat Yulaev

    Much like the Elitserien Finals, we have a bit of an offense vs. defense match-up in this league Final. While Ufa let their star top line of Alexander Radulov, Patrick Thoresen and Igor Grigorenko loose on the KHL's Western Conference, Mytischi played a more conservative style, relying on veterans such as former NHLers Jan Bulis, Oleg Petrov, and Jaroslav Obsut.

  22. 15 men brought to military enlistment office after mass brawl ...

    Local security forces brought 15 men to a military enlistment office after a mass brawl at a warehouse of the Russian Wildberries company in Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast on Feb. 8, Russian Telegram ...

  23. Moscow Oblast

    Moscow Oblast ( Russian: Моско́вская о́бласть, Moskovskaya oblast) is a federal subject of Russia. It is located in western Russia, and it completely surrounds Moscow. The oblast has no capital, and oblast officials reside in Moscow or in other cities within the oblast. [1] As of 2015, the oblast has a population of 7,231,068 ...

  24. Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery and Museum

    Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar ...