It’s difficult to face the reality that this year will be the last run for Warped Tour. The touring festival has booked major punk, pop-punk, emo, and metalcore acts as well as diverse styles that ranged from GWAR to Katy Perry and Eminem. Many who’ve been part of the 90s punk scene will never forget the insane Warped Tour lineups. For example, the one back in 2001 that had Weezer, The Ataris, Rancid, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, The Distillers, The Rollins Band, Guttermouth, rapper Kool Keith, and more.
With that said, a documentary about this remarkable 24-year-run festival should be considered mandatory. According to Variety, there will be a four-part series about this festival, which will arrive next spring, just in time for its 25th anniversary. The project will be a collaboration between Warped Tour organizers, Anthem Films and Dola Media Group. The series will not only involve the final run, it will also dig into the festival’s vault to highlight its legacy.
Director DJay Brawner told Variety:
“The documentary that we’re putting together is really about the legacy of the tour. Of course, this year being the final year it’s important for us to capture moments from the culmination, but what we’re really trying to put together is a story about how the tour started and grew over the last 24 years, with all of it culminating with the final day and what that means for this team of people, the future of the brand and everything in between.
So what we’re really trying to put together is something where we celebrate the faces of the tour, artists like Blink-182, Limp Bizkit, No Doubt, Fall Out Boy, Katy Perry, Taking Back Sunday — the list goes on and on. Getting all of them to tell us their story of Warped, and also all the people who have been involved it from other angles, like the Vans team, the various sponsors, the music managers and publicists of all the tour over the years.”
He continued:
“We’ve got archival footage that goes all the way back to the first year of the tour. Warped was not about just one band but about a community. Every person has a role and it only succeeds by 100% effort. In bands’ performances that is the key to standing out.”
