In a world where every day feels like a fresh new level of “What now?,” the iconic Vans Warped Tour returns to bring music fans some well-deserved joy. After five years away, the 30th anniversary of the festival will deliver many of our favorite bands and introduce us to plenty of new ones.
Warped has already rocked Washington D.C. – Orlando will receive its version in November – and by all accounts, the Vans Warped Tour we love is back: tons of incredible bands, backyard party vibe, the Battle of Bands, meeting the bands at merch tents, and of course, set times announced the day of.
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This weekend in Long Beach, you can try to catch more than 100 bands over eight stages. Sublime, 311, The Vandals, Less Than Jake, Pennywise, Fishbone, Goldfinger, The Aquabats!, Dropkick Murphys, The All-American Rejects, Bowling For Soup, The Interrupters, Hawthorne Heights, Body Count, and Ice-T are just a few of the familiar names, but get ready to add a stack of newer artists to your playlists.
Of course the man who is just as legendary as the festival is its creator, Kevin Lyman. As Warped lay sleeping, Lyman has been teaching at USC Thornton School of Music as an associate professor. After hitting the road last year with the Summer School Tour, and talking with his students at USC, Lyman has brought Warped – the longest-running North American festival tour – back to life.
Despite it being show week and lots to be done, Lyman sat down long enough to give us the latest – even as crews worked around him to prepare for the weekend.
Traci: Hey Kevin! Thanks for stopping to talk! Oddly enough, I just picked up the Lollapalooza book this weekend before knowing we were going to talk and I see you’re in it!
Kevin: The Lollapalooza oral history. I had some outspoken comments that they use quite a few in there, I think.
Traci: Warped is back! I know in 2018, you were going to retire the tour. You came back for 2019, the 25th anniversary, took some time off and started teaching. What brought you back for the 30th?
Kevin: I’ve always been doing a lot of benefit shows, things like that, so I never really completely left. I continued with the benefit shows, and then it wasn’t even about the 30th. It was just the timing was right. It timed to the 30th, but I also felt that we lost during COVID. Being a teacher, you saw a generation of young people who it wasn’t in their DNA to go to live shows. They got into gaming. They got into watching a TV. I tend to teach entertainment industry students. When they’re not going out to shows every week or they’re worried about buying a ticket because of the price and things, and the lack of community post-COVID and current situation in the country, I thought, well, people are looking for gathering points with like-minded people and just people that they can share ideas with and not be judged.
Kevin went on: I was approached by a friend, Maureen Valker, who worked on early Warp tours with us and said, “Hey, you want to make this work?” I sat with Pasquale (Rotella) of Insomniac. We’re both well aware of each other, what we’ve done in our lives. I think it took us about 10 minutes to figure out to get to work together. Why not give it a shot? We went right to work. We actually went to work so fast that we’re trying to catch up on some of the things you would normally do to prepare for something. But it’s been overall good. It’s a blending, and they’re very good at putting on festivals, and each festival has its own idiosyncrasies. They’re learning the culture of Warp. It’s been fun.
Traci: Is starting with three shows (Washington D.C., Long Beach, and Orlando) a good plan, or was that too much, too little?
Kevin: Well, I think it was enough. I have to be very careful to balance with the amount of teaching. I still want to currently teach. I teach five classes; it’s a full-time gig for me. We’re trying to balance that out and wanted to put our toe back in and see if anyone cared. Some people did care. It wasn’t expected necessarily to be such a great response. But I can only get a few minutes to sit back and reflect and I go, “I guess this tour did touch people in a different way, maybe in a long term way.” There is a little bit of the nostalgia. I just got a note from a 74-year-old coming to the show. But I was very much motivated and enthusiastic to see that I’d say about a third of the people, it was their first festival or maybe their first concert. I talked to a lot of people out there that this was their first show.
Kevin explained: That’s what we need as an industry. We need to get new people engaged in this lifestyle and culture so mostly some people can stay working in it, something they love. But it was encouraging in D.C. to talk to so many people. I could tell they were at their first Warped Tour because they had these giant smiles on their faces, and they were young. They go, “How did you guess I was at my first show?” I go, “Well, you fell asleep with a smile on your face and you woke up with one.”
Kevin went on: I was also very excited that when you came into the show, it felt like Warped Tour with the tents, the signings, the merchandise. I like to say that it just had bigger stages and video and lights. The atmosphere was still there. To watch the fans engage with the nonprofits, they ran right to the balloon. When someone asks something online, they don’t get attacked for asking a question. The crowd corrects him, “No, this is how Warped is. It’s a little different. You won’t know the schedule until the day of the show. Oh, you have to do this. You have to go to the nonprofit area.” And to walk down the nonprofit, it was packed in D.C. the first two hours. It was really cool to see that right now.
Traci: Regarding nostalgia, I don’t know of any other tour that is beloved the way Warped is.
Kevin: There’s so many festivals out there. A lot of great people that are putting on festivals. They always say, “For me, the hardest part is the festival between the stages.” People didn’t realize that engaging in that community, the canned food drive – we brought it back. In D.C., we had 27,000 pounds of food donated for the local food banks. I’m looking forward seeing what the 80,000 people will bring to Long Beach. Then you see the people sharing, bringing the food, donating the money, helping out; it starts before you get in the gates and hopefully carries through the whole day. For that fan, they walk out going, “Wow, I saw great music and I signed up for two nonprofits, I signed up to vote and had a little impact in my community.”
Traci: You’ve always said that you want Warped accessible with your price point, which is a big deal that you were able to do again this year. Warped also has that special community between the bands and the fans. Are you bringing back Battle of the Bands and artists going to the merch tents?
Kevin: We did the Battle of the Bands with Ernie Ball. Each day, there’ll be a band playing on the main stage with the Battle of the Bands. That was nice. It was a phone call over to Ryan (McLain, Ernie Ball Director of Marketing) who was so engaged in that process through all those years on Warped, and that was such an important thing. They got right involved in it. People’s comments were, “I didn’t realize so many bands were out in their tents.” You might remember The Maine. They actually resurrected their old signs and tent! We’ve got a comp CD that’s $5. We’ve resurrected that with Smart Punk. CDs are coming back a little bit; people are wanting something physical and tangible. We have sticker pack, and we gave the fans a sticker pack for signing up. It was fun. It was gratifying in that sense. We can all learn from it.
Kevin went on: Now we’re back in LA, where it all started. This is where I cut my teeth working in the clubs and putting on shows in backyards and putting a plywood ramp up against the wall. But now we’re starting to get all the calls, and it feels good. We’re going to have some super special guests dropping in to sing do acoustic sets and maybe jump on the skateboard ramp. I think it sparked something. I think it’s rekindled a lot because honestly, in around 2019, I thought I’d done everything with the project. I think people started taking work for granted in a way. I thought I’d done everything with the project and it was time for me to move on. Luckily, I was able to transition to doing what I did and coming back now with a new sense of purpose in that, it hopefully inspires a new generation to maybe go home, pick up guitars or pick up a drum, go out or start a nonprofit. I think we have about 25 of them here.
Traci: There’s over 100 bands playing Long Beach, right?
Kevin: I think – between the acoustic stage now – it’s like 150 artists playing.
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Traci: We have the well-known acts like 311, Goldfinger, Fishbone, Less Than Jake. You like to pay homage to the past, but also look to the future. Who are some of the bands that you see as the future?
Kevin: Magnolia Park, Honey Revenge, Paradox, Games We Play. And Taylor Acorn. It’s cool to see how many strong female artists there are right now. There’s a whole great movement in females that are inspired, too, that they can get up there and play on there. And they play hard and they play fast and they have a great time. And then you never know, even for myself, there’s some acts that I might wander by if I get out there.
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Traci: How much do you get to see on show days?
Kevin: They are slave drivers here. (chuckles) They make me do all this other stuff, giving tours, talking to people, but I enjoy it. It’ll be fun. And then in LA, of course, everyone’s coming down. Whoever’s had a touch point in their lives of Warped Tour.
Traci: You mentioned the new concertgoers attending in D.C. What advice would you give first-timers?
Kevin: Well, it was interesting because they got the word that you needed to come early in D.C. and the crew here is prepared for opening early when needed if the crowd’s here. It was awesome to have 17,000 people through the door at 11 o’clock in the morning. So come early, use public transportation down here. The red line, I know in LA, that’s like using public transportation, but it drops off right by the venue. It’s going to be just a day. Keep your mind open. Don’t stress out. Eat some food, sit under a tree, and be inspired.
Traci: Now, the two most difficult and important questions I have to ask you. First, what is your favorite style of Vans?
Kevin: Oh, my God. We got to go Old Skool.
Traci: Now from the Warped poster of this year, there’s the guy getting the tattoo. If someone comes into Warped with the Kevin tramp stamp…
Kevin: Oh, my God.
Traci: Do they get anything special?
Kevin: I’m going to pay for laser surgery. Come find me. (laughing)
Traci: I gotta go cancel my tattoo appointment…
Kevin: Hey, to each his own!
Traci: What is the future of the Warped Tour? Or is it too early to say?
Kevin: We’re looking at maybe not a whole lot of growth in the US right now, but some international markets. That’s the one benefit of working with a company like Insomniac that has that experience overseas and around the world. I used to take my tours around the world, and it was always me trying to figure it out. They have a great team of people, and I think the expansion could be overseas. I think music right now is so important to keep that cross-understanding that we are all humans on this Earth and music does bring us together. Warp was a place to bring people together. I wouldn’t be surprised if you might see some international dates next year, as well as some domestic dates again.
Thank you so much, Kevin! We fully expect this will be an amazing weekend. Saturday and Sunday at Shoreline Waterfront in Long Beach, the Vans Warped Tour returns! If you can’t make it in person, the whole thing will be streaming live on YouTube and Twitch.
