TVD Live Shots: Vans Warped Tour at the Shoreline Waterfront, 7/26

WORD AND IMAGES: MATT MARTINEZ IN LONG BEACH, CA | The return of Vans Warped Tour in 2025 brought together Warped Tour veterans and many bands that would have sharpened their teeth as performers on these stages, had Warped Tour never gone on hiatus. With the success of this mixing of bands last year, Kevin Lyman has continued that ideology with this year’s lineup. We have some returning fan favorites and a slew of bands that have never graced the Warped Tour stage until now.

The Vans and Off the Wall stages were the biggest on-site and hosted some of the most legendary bands in Warped Tour history, giving them some of the longest set times of the day. Some other favorites included: Mayday Parade, Taking Back Sunday, Third Eye Blind, The Used, and Papa Roach.

The Ghost and Beatbox stages hosted many bands that built their careers at Warped, as well as up-and-coming bands leading the charge for the new Warped Generation. Featuring bands like: The Academy Is…, Drain, Silverstein, Hawthorne Heights, and many more.

The Verizon, Doordash, Rex, and Octopus stages were a mix of genres, with pop punk bands, metalheads, hardcore kids, and everything in between. If you want to experience some new music for yourself, you could find it here. Featuring bands like: Daisy Grenade, Origami Angel, Jiluka, The Paradox, The Ataris, Meet Me @ The Alter, Hot Milk, Save Ferris, and so many more bands playing tight 30-minute sets.

Now that the festival is 30 years old, there’s a feeling of passing the torch, as you could see plenty of parents bringing their kids to experience a festival that has always held such a strong place in their hearts. Many of these kids seem to have been born after Warped Tour first ended in 2019, but their parents introduced them to music that will live on through them.

Many of the bands performing throughout the day frequently took note of the age range of the fans in the crowd, from people starting to go gray to the young kids singing along to every word of every song. You could tell the bands really cherish performing in the daytime for moments like this, where you can truly see the fans and how much they love the music.

Closing the Vans main stage for Day 2 was Papa Roach. Some might find it strange, but this was Papa Roach’s second time ever playing Warped Tour. They played one year, the same year their debut album Infest came out, and now they were back to show Warped Tour what they’ve made of themselves since then. Surrounded by the biggest pyrotechnics of the day, Papa Roach tore the roof down (if there was one). They even dedicated their song “BRAINDEAD” to Lou Koller, who passed away a couple of days prior.

Kevin Lyman continues to produce a festival filled with nostalgic love, with our favorite bands of the past couple of decades still showing up, while also looking to the future of music by booking the newest bands he knows we, the people, need to hear.

The Vans Warped Tour will return to Long Beach on July 24th and 25th in 2027. However, the format of the event has changed from a single-day touring festival that would attract upwards of 20,000 people. It now boasts being a two-day epic event, drawing upwards of 80,000 people each day. However, the diehards do miss the old days of Warped, the amenities, the culture of bands traveling with the tour, and definitely the old cost. The new Warped layout is here to stay, and fans are embracing the new generation of the Vans Warped Tour.

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