I Was At the Last (?) Warped Tour Ever This Weekend

25 years of Warped Tour. And now, supposedly, it's all over.

Last year was positioned as the actual final year of Warped Tour as a summer-long tour, but since 2019 was the 25th anniversary, Kevin Lyman and co. threw together a couple of celebratory shows - one in New Jersey, and one in California. Is this for real the actual end of Warped Tour? My guess is - probably not. BUT JUST IN CASE IT IS, I had to do my part and show up, and see a bunch of my favorite bands in the process.

So I traveled to Mountain View, California this weekend and spent two straight days just getting bombarded with pop-punk music at the Shoreline Amphitheater. Some quick highlights:

Saturday: The Vandals, Save Ferris, Goldfinger, Less Than Jake, Simple Plan, Bad Religion, The Offspring

Sunday: All-American Rejects, Teenage Bottlerocket, Andrew WK, The Used, NOFX

And of course, part of the fun is discovering bands for the first time, and I was super impressed with Doll Skin, Go Betty Go, Bad Cop/Bad Cop, and Man Overboard - definitely worth checking all of them out when you get the chance.

But the biggest talk of the festival happened at the very end - NOFX was supposed to go on at 9:30 for the last set of the night... but 9:30 comes around, and NOFX isn't there. Warped founder Kevin Lyman takes the state to explain that their flight was severely delayed and they were on the way, so while we waited he assembled an improvised supergroup with members of Sum 41, All-American Rejects, Circa Survive and more to just play some NOFX songs while we waited - it could have all been a disaster, but man, they crushed it. And the absolute best part: they brought an audience member onstage to sing NOFX's "The Brews," and about halfway through, THAT'S when NOFX finally shows up, running out on stage and finishing the song with them. If Warped Tour is really done for good, that was an awesome way for it to go out.