Warped Tour recently came to Long Beach on July 26-27, 2025, for their 30th anniversary, and brought world-renowned artists as well as smaller bands to perform for the people of Southern California. Some of the notable bands among the 130 artists that performed are 311, Less Than Jake, Mom Jeans, Pennywise, The Vandals, The Suicide Machines, The All-American Rejects, Of Mice And Men, Falling In Reverse, Rise Against, Bowling For Soup, Dropkick Murphys, and, of course, Sublime.
History of Warped Tour
In 1995, Kevin Lyman and Ray Woodbury, who worked as an event manager and president of RK Diversified Entertainment, respectively, created a tour featuring skater-punk bands that toured across America. Originally, the duo planned to name the tour “The Bomb” because it would be so awesome. However, before the announcement of the tour name, the
Oklahoma City Bombing occurred, and they decided that the name would be too offensive. A year later, Vans approached Lyman for a potential sponsorship because Vans was associated with extreme sports and the rugged
skater lifestyle, so it was a no-brainer for Lyman to take the deal. Vans have been a sponsor ever since, giving it the name Vans Warped Tour.
Since then, Warped Tour has featured a diverse range of music genres on its stage, including ska, pop, hardcore, and hip-hop. They’ve brought artists to the public eye and aided them to fame, small bands at the time like Sum 41, the Black Eyed Peas, Paramount, Avenged Sevenfold, and Fall Out Boy, spiked in popularity thanks to their performance at Warped Tour. Warped Tour continued to be successful for the years coming but then in 2018, Lyman announced that Warped Tour would be shutting down because of conflicts bands had with other bands who refused to play because of the other bands that would be there. They played their last three shows in 2019. Then September 11, 2024, Rock Feed announced that Warped Tour would be coming back in 2025 for its 30th anniversary.
At the Warped Tour in Long Beach, according to the Hi-Lo, the number of attendees reached 85,000, making it the biggest concert in Long Beach history. Currently, you can buy tickets for next year, so Lyman doesn’t plan to shut down the Warped Tour train any time soon.
Punk Rocker, Pit Mosher, and Fist Thrower
Cypress 9th-grade punk-rocker Aidan Collins went to Warped Tour for the first time this year. He stated that it was almost a surreal experience seeing his most adored bands in person all at once, “I think it was pretty sick because it’s just a big cultural thing with punk and stuff. It was actually my dad’s first time too.” Collins and his dad have been anticipating this festival for some
time. He remarked that his dad has always wanted to go ever since he was a kid, but never got a chance to. The band he wanted to see the most was Goldfinger, and he was blown away when pro-skater from the late 90s, Tony Hawk, came out to sing one of their most popular songs and iconic track in his game, Tony Hawk Pro-Skater, Superman. “Everyone was freaking out, like no one was expecting that,” Collins said.
Mosh pits are a staple to any show, from ska to punk to death metal. Warped Tour, specifically the set with The Vandals, was Collins’ first experience in the pit, and it changed him forever. He ended up in the pit, like how many end up in it, getting pulled into the floods of people
pushing and dancing. “I actually wasn’t planning to get in the mosh pit for that show, I thought to myself, ‘I’ll do two or three and I’ll be fine’. Then I get pushed into it on accident because I like being on the edge of them to push people back into it. Some guy wanted to get through, and he pushed me with
him,” Collins described. He walked out of one of the pits with bloody legs, but that’s all a part of the fun. One thing he found to be insane was that during The Vandals’ set, there were two mosh pits, and they merged, creating a figure 8, which, according to Collins, is very rare. Though the pits were intense, people were very nice in helping each other get back up if someone fell.
The vibe of the whole show was one of belonging, according to Collins, which is what he described as the very idea of punk, “The whole idea of punk and when it started is like outcasts and people who are weird but were proud of it. That type of thing and that type of community, like this is a place where everyone in that community can belong.”
The band Sublime was formed in 1988 in Long Beach, CA by vocalist/guitarist Bradley Nowell, as well as Bassist Eric Wilson and drummer Bud Gaugh. Sublime dominated the radio in Southern California and started to become a worldwide phenomenon in 1996 with the release of their self-titled album. In the summer of 1996, lead singer and guitarist Bradley died of a heroin overdose at 28, two months before the release of the album that made them famous. According to Collins, seeing Sublime in person with Bradley’s son, Jacob Nowell, taking over as lead singer, was said to be a surreal and emotional experience.
“Seeing him with Sublime, seeing Sublime play, and seeing all the original members together, it was a surreal experience and extremely emotional. It was one of those things where you can tell that everyone was feeling it. Even then, I’m pretty sure this was his first show in Long Beach, which is where he grew up and where Bradley was from,” said Collins.
