The 2008 Vans Warped Tour in review
July 30th, 2008 - Written by Angel
Roughly ten days ago, on July 20th, 2008, the world renowned Vans Warped Tour pulled into Montreal’s Parc Jean Drapeau - a large park spanning across two small islands in the middle of the St-Laurent River - for one of the summer’s most anticipated festivals. Every year, thousands of kids make their way to this picturesque location to see some of their favorite bands perform and hopefully make new musical discoveries.
As we made our way to the press tent to retrieve our event passes, we ran into Jeff Beaulieu, guitarist for Your Favorite Enemies, a band we had interviewed at last year’s festivities. Despite it having been a full year since we had crossed paths, he recognized us immediately and came to say hi. That’s one of the great things about this tour: the friendly and equal-footed atmosphere.
There to do some interviews for ‘YFE TV’, a video podcast series featured on the band’s website, we had a chance to catch up a bit while we waited in line. He told me that they had just come back from Japan where they opened for Simple Plan and what a changing experience that had been for them. We parted ways after a few minutes with passes in hand and headed to the backstage press area to wait for our respective interviews.
This year, CONFRONT had the privilege of interviewing a wide range of artists including: Against Me!, Anberlin, Animo, Cobra Starship, From First to Last, Gym Class Heroes, Jack’s Mannequin, Madina Lake and TAT.
But before we share these interviews with you, with thought it important to look into the history of this incredible tour and find out what makes it one the most sought after show tickets every year.
Named after a short-lived Magazine published by Transworld, titled Warp - which covered surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, and music - The Warped Tour was created in 1994 by Kevin Lyman, who got the idea while working on skateboarding shows such as the Vision Skate Escape and Holiday Havoc; shows that combined music with skateboarding contests.
That year, Lyman, a 3-year Lollapolooza veteran, took to the road with Sublime, No Doubt and a few other of his favorite SoCal Punk & Ska bands and embarked on what has been said to be “an inevitably financially unsuccessful, but life-affirming tour”.
Given his lackluster success the previous summer, Lyman considered calling off the 1995 tour, but was then approached by the Vans Shoe Company to organize a skating festival. Jumping on the opportunity, Lyman incorporated the Vans Shoe Company’s idea into his Warped Tour and thus, the longest running annual tour in North America was born.
By 1997, the crowd had grown twice as large as that in 1996; thanks to the participation of bands such as Blink-182 and Social Distortion. Eleven years later, The Vans Warped Tour is one of the biggest and most attended touring festivals in the world; that’s why it is known as “The Tour That Won’t Die”.
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