The end of an era. The Vans Warped Tour, one of the longest running music festival that travelled throughout the United States and a few stops in Canada has come to an end here in 2018. The festival was started by Kevin Lyman back in 1995. Each year as the tour grew bigger and bigger it has been branded as a safe haven for kids who felt like an outcast. Myself included. From alternative music to a few hip hop artists to metal and punk, this tour has been so influential to not only artists on the tour but the fans who came out to the festival. As some of you may know Warped tour has helped MANY artists get where they are today, some of those including Fall Out Boy, Katy Perry, Blink 182, My Chemical Romance, Paramore and many more.
I’ve been attending this festival since 2012 and my favorite memory was always heading over to Merriweather at 10 o’clock in the morning just to wait in the massive line right before doors opened. Flash forward to 2014, that was the first year I got to photograph the event, plus a huge handful of my favorite bands at the time were there and I got to finally photograph them. Best.Day.Ever. Now it’s four years later, I’ve been photographing for a little over four years now and it was quite bitter sweet to think that July 29th at Merriweather Post Pavilion was going to be my last time photographing The Vans Warped Tour.
I was restless the night before because I found out that my absolute favorite band, Good Charlotte, decided to play a hometown show at Warped Tour one last time. Honestly it was such a good choice to play in their hometown, it made the day so much better. The lineup was full of insanely talented artists. Not only was Good Charlotte one of the “hometown” bands on this stop, but Turnstile made an appearance on the Mutant Red Dawn Stage as well. We covered bands on the White Lightning Stage which included Crown the Empire, Unearth, Motionless in White and August Burns Red. Then on the other side to the Mutant Red Dawn Stage we got to catch Twiztid, Mychildren Mybride and The Amity Affliction. If we weren’t catching the heavier music at the Monster stages we were relaxing at the main stages; Journeys Left Foot & Right Foot.
On the Left Foot Stage we got to experience Good Charlottes set which fans were going crazy to, the crowd was all the way into the wooded area practically. Before Good Charlottes set, we finally got to see The Interrupters. Their set was so energetic and to be honest a lot of people were really into them, including myself. Unfortunately due to such a time crunch the only visit made into the pavilion was to catch Tonight Alive. Now we can’t forget to mention the smaller stages such as the owlfy.fm stage. One of the most talked about artists, Yungblud was on that stage and the hyper is true, this kid is insanely talented and his set was an absolute blast. Literally all over the place. We also got to catch With Confidence on that stage as well. There were so many other bands that played that we didn’t get to catch them all, such a bummer but that doesn’t matter. A day spent with good friends, good music and memories that would live on forever made up for the crazy schedule.
GALLERY BELOW:
August Burns Red
Crown The Empire
Good Charlotte
Motionless In White
MyChildren, MyBride
Senses Fail
The Interrupters
The Amity Affliction
Tonight Alive
Turnstile
Twiztid
Unearth
With Confidence
YUNGBLUD
To Mr Lyman & the Warped Tour Crew,
On behalf of The Vinyl and myself, I would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Without you and all your hard work and dedication we wouldn’t have had the memories we will live with and we wouldn’t have had a place where we could be ourselves and not feel judged. Again, thank you Mr Lyman for 24 years of pure bliss and excitement each and every summer! Best Wishes on future endeavor’s!!!