Nostalgia the headliner at Warped Tour’s finale
MOUNTAIN VIEW » It’s still an hour before gates open as Kevin Lyman looks out at the thousands of fans lining up to get into Shoreline Amphitheatre on Saturday morning, just a small fraction of the huge crowd that will fill the Mountain View venue to capacity to witness the final Vans Warped Tour.
“It didn’t start out this way,” reflects Lyman, who founded the festival in 1995. “I just wanted to put up a skateboard ramp and have punk rock music.”
And now the party — the longest-running traveling music festival — is coming to a close. There are several reasons behind this turn of events, but none seems more relevant right now than this:
“To be honest, I’m just tired,” Lyman remarks.
And he has good reason to be. Lyman was just 32 when he started Warped, taking what he’d learned working for Perry Farrell’s early Lollapalooza treks and modifying it to suit his own personality and the punk-rock/extreme sports scenes. It was a hit basically from the start, thanks in part to a large number of big talents — including No Doubt, Katy Perry, Blink-182, Black Eyed Peas, Jimmy Eat World and Kid Rock — who played Warped earlier in their careers and then went on to achieve massive success.
Now, Lyman is 57 with knee and ankle issues and can feel every mile that he’s logged on these cross-country road trips over the past 24 years.
“It’s not fun to do this when you aren’t 100 percent,” he says.
Of course, the decision to end the tour was made a bit easier due to a plunge in attendance. Last year’s numbers were the lowest since Year One. That was even true in the Bay Area — which is traditionally one of the tour’s strongest markets — where fewer than than 9,000 fans turned out to the 22,000-capacity Shoreline.
Yet, the tour has experienced a reversal of fortune for its last go-around. It’s looking like this year’s box office will be one of the biggest in Warped history. Shoreline was absolutely jammed this year, with attendance up some 250 percent as 20,000plus fans turned out to witness over 60 acts performing across six different stages and — of even greater significance — get their chance to say goodbye to Warped.
And some of the goodbyes were quite emotional.
“I have been to Warped Tour in many different states,” says Lenny Peterson Jr., who was attending with his sister and daughter. “I actually proposed (marriage) to my wife after Warped Tour in San Francisco in 2012. I just thought what an ultimate time to propose to my wife.”
Peterson was one of many people who approached Lyman — wanting to pose for selfies with the founder, or simply shake his hand — as we spoke outside the venue before the gates opened. Although Lyman was juggling several things, he took time to talk with each fan who approached him and often tried to help them with whatever issues they might be going through that day.
For instance, Peterson didn’t have tickets when he showed up — and there were none to be had at the box office for the soldout show. But Lyman was touched by the marriage proposal story, so he give Peterson’s family tickets.
“I was almost brought to tears, so thank God I’m wearing sunglasses,” a grateful Peterson said.
Of course, Lyman isn’t in the business of giving away tickets. But he points out that the action seems particularly fitting for this setting.
“In the spirit of Bill Graham, I just gave them dream tickets,” said Lyman, who knows well that Graham, a rock concert promoter, helped get Shoreline built in the mid’80s. “I learned a lot from Bill Graham.
“I used to sell egg rolls outside Grateful Dead shows.”
Lyman is now looking forward to his posttour life, which includes a professorship at USC and teaching such business topics as product branding. He’ll also work on putting together some kind of performance/event in May in conjunction with the Warped exhibit opening at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
Perhaps most importantly, Lyman says he will continue to put on Warped shows in some fashion in years to come — just not in the coast-to-coast fashion of previous years. And he hasn’t ruled out even bringing Warped back to the Bay Area someday.
That’s good news for such fans as Charlotte June Schwartz.
“I was born on June 11, 2000 and I have been going to Warped Tour ever since then,” she says. “Warped Tour is something that has always been there for me.
“The idea of being able to go somewhere for about $40 and see 50-plus bands is absolutely amazing. it’s an incredible gift that Kevin Lyman has created for everyone.”