Time to put your beat up, checkered Vans on the doorstep my fellow punk-rock children, because the beloved Warped Tour will be wrapping up in 2018 after a mammoth 24 years of endless summers.
Speaking to Billboard, Warped’s ringleader Kevin Lyman admits that after being on the road for 26 years with both Warped and Lollapalooza, he’s really bloody tired and look, fair enough mate.
Warped has become a rite of passage for many punk/emo/hardcore kids over in America, where different evolutions of alternative music fans have cut their festival teeth in carparks and dust bowls across the States.
Many Aussie bands have tripped around the US with the festival, including The Amity Affliction, Hands Like Houses, Parkway Drive, and Tonight Alive. Lyman and his massive punk-rock summer camp have helped many young up-and-coming pop-punk/emo/and hardcore bands find a footing in the American alt music scene with Warped, and it’s an institution of the community that has survived several shifts of popular music and artists within the subculture.
It’s been the launch pad for huge acts like Paramore, My Chemical Romance and Blink 182, and has been recognised as being a supportive space for bands that Lyman sees potential in.
The festival also had a couple of attempts of bringing the show over here between 1998 and 2002, and again in 2013 – with a regional Warped tour bringing some of the biggest names in punk and its sub-genres to Australia. I fondly remember listening to The Mighty Mighty Bosstones ringing out across my small hometown way back in 1998.
Though the final Warped Tour has not yet been locked in, Lyman says that the bands on the tour will include a “mix of bands that have really embraced the Warped lifestyle”.
RIP Warped Tour, and good luck to whatever is going to fill that void.
