The All-American Rejects, Sublime, Landon Barker, and so many more took over Long Beach at the 30th anniversary of Warped Tour, and we sat down with some of the biggest stars in rock, interviewed fans and more!
Did you go to the Warped Tour? Let us know in the comments!
00:00Look at this couch. This couch would be covered in piss at the old Warped Tour.
00:03That's true.
00:04Like we carved out a little era, you know, and we were a part of it.
00:09Well, you said it, I didn't.
00:11As soon as I walked in, I smelled Warped Tour.
00:14I think it's like monster energy drinks, the grass, the sunscreen, and I was like, this is Warped Tour.
00:19It's the motherfucking Warped Tour, bitches!
00:22From the All-American Rejects Aussie tribute.
00:25Mama, I'm coming home.
00:30To Tony Hawk taking the stage.
00:34Here I am, going older all the time, looking older all the time, feelings are going in my mind.
00:43It was a Van's Warped Tour takeover in Long Beach, California over the weekend.
00:48And Billboard was there not only watching the sets, but hanging with the artist behind them.
00:52I forgot the question.
00:53The largest turnout in festival history proves once and for all that it was never just a phase.
00:58We take you there in billboard all accents.
01:02What the fuck's up Warped Tour?
01:04What does it mean to be at the 30th anniversary of Warped Tour?
01:07First of all, why are you so tall? You're like on a hill or something?
01:10Why is Travis six foot eight and I'm five foot two?
01:13It means so much for me to be here today.
01:15Warped Tour has been at the very top of my dream festivals forever.
01:19Warped Tour is so iconic. It's amazing that we could just be on the bill and invited.
01:23We're so excited just being here at the hometown feel.
01:26We are humbled to find out that Kevin put us on the board last today.
01:31Biggest crowd in Warped Tour history today? We get to play last.
01:35Is this a dream?
01:45I think the last Warped Tour that was held, I was maybe 13 or 14.
01:48So I was in middle school and I wasn't old enough to go to concerts by myself yet.
01:51So to attend Warped Tour for the first time and play it is a really surreal thing for me.
01:57It's been a dream come true.
01:58It's like our favorite bands growing up and now we get to be a part of that scene is awesome.
02:01You know, I played this tour in 2009. I played it again in 2012.
02:04But 2025 is the first year for Girlfriends and it means the world to us.
02:08We dropped West Coast right before Warped because how are you going to play a show in Long Beach, California,
02:12and not put out a song called West Coast.
02:19Recently it's been great because there's been a lot of girls in rock that are like coming out of the woodworks
02:23and there's so many new exciting people and I'm honored to be considered one of them I guess.
02:28You know, I'm here for the girls.
02:30That women in audience, POC women in the audience.
02:32Just to be like, yes, we can do this too. We belong in these spaces.
02:35For such a long time, it wasn't like that.
02:38And seeing the women come out to support in the crowd and just exchanging that energy is just like insane.
02:44We just feel like we need to raise our voices and keep just like rocking hard.
02:48We can rock as hard, if not harder, than the men.
02:58The energy that people have here, we wasn't disappointed. It was amazing.
03:02We're not doing Warped Tour without a live band.
03:05I think this time around is just kind of being a bit more authentic on my end
03:17of not trying to be perfect or sound perfect and just go up there and be myself.
03:21That way that everybody that's watching can feel like they could be themselves too
03:24and I think that's the best thing that they could take away from this performance.
03:27Yeah, I know. I might die in California. Die in California.
03:33Well, with me only having two singles out and having like a full crowd, that just meant the world to me.
03:37I always say this whenever I perform, but I always have like a fear of me putting on a show or going out to do a festival
03:43and nobody's showing up, you know? Seeing everybody's faces tonight, just like a moment for me to really take in and be grateful for, you know?
03:51We definitely paid our dues on Warped Tour. I mean, it's a hard tour to be a baby band on.
03:56There's a lot of hustle to Warped, just trying to get people to come watch your band, you know?
04:00And then keep them there when they are there.
04:08Warped Tour helped shape our band in so many ways.
04:11And we did like a lot of 03, all of 04, all of 06, 08, you know, like we were out here for a lot of shows.
04:19When we were coming up in like the early 2000s, this wasn't really a thing except for overseas.
04:24So to like see just festival culture and the Warped Tour be able to like do this is amazing.
04:30It feels a lot bigger. Yeah. Right? Like I do not remember 82,000 people at past Warped Tours.
04:35Hell no.
04:36It was way more scrappy in the old days.
04:41They definitely got their shit together.
04:43Yeah. And it was fun when it was scrappy.
04:45I did go walk around earlier and out there it does actually still feel very warped.
04:50It's very, yeah, all the tents and people are miserable. It's great.
05:02My experience has been great. How about your guys's?
05:04Very hot, but very successful. I'm happy.
05:06It's been a blast. We've had so much fun so far.
05:07First text message. I was like, we're going.
05:09I texted her so quick. Like, did you see that?
05:12We're back to 2006. Take me to my childhood.
05:15Honestly, Warped Tour is just one of the best vibes ever.
05:17Like the original Warped Tours I went back to when I was 14 years old.
05:21It was cool to just come in and just not know what to expect.
05:24I think like lapsing the amount of time that I've gone to Warped Tour as a kid versus now and still running into the same people blows my mind.
05:31I think that's the coolest thing about it. Like it feels like Warped Tour when I was a kid feels like it now.
05:36And I mean, it shouldn't stop.
05:38Warped Tour always resembled incredible community. People are longing for that right now.
05:42People are longing for a place to be safe, a place to meet with their friends, a place to listen to music that they love.
05:49It's like half nostalgia trip and half, you know, kind of moving into the future and finding new artists alike.
05:54Who are we excited to see? We watched Goldfinger, of course.
05:58Yeah, yeah, Goldfinger's set was...
06:00Top notch watching Tony Hawk.
06:02We got up on stage with Goldfinger and sang the Antiflag song and it was amazing.
06:09A day to remember for sure.
06:11A day to remember was awesome.
06:12A day to remember was definitely up there for me.
06:15I actually cried at the end of it.
06:23I want to see Slaughter to Prevail.
06:24Slaughter to Prevail? I wouldn't have said that a couple of years ago, but now after watching that, I'm like the musicianship.
06:29And that singer is like the sweetest guy ever backstage. You're like, what's up, man?
06:33And then he gets on stage. He turns into this like bear.
06:38And Sublime yesterday was super hard.
06:39Them being like a local artist is really cool just because you get to hear like the inspiration.
06:45It's an amazing feeling. I think Ensenada is attracting a whole new generation of fans.
06:59We already have like multi-generational shows happening right now where, you know, people are showing up.
07:04Grandparents, parents and grandchildren, you know, all running around together enjoying the music.
07:09So, you know, looking forward to spreading that love for more generations to come.
07:14I just ran into somebody who showed me a picture of the four of us standing with a guy and his baby.
07:18And he asked me to sign the picture and then told me he was the baby.
07:20Oh, my God. That's insane.
07:23What it means to us to connect with our fans. I mean, it's the entire reason why we started the band.
07:27You know, the things that are so magical about a place like Warped Tour, it truly is no barrier.
07:32And it's been that way since I was 12 years old buying tickets to come here.
07:35It's like you get to go and have conversations and meet literally your favorite artists in the entire world.
07:40The people that you listen to night and day.
07:42The museum is really cool. I think seeing like all the old lineups, it's really cool to see who might have been like opening the day on a smaller stage.
07:50And then all of a sudden they're like selling out like big arenas later on or closing the night out as a headliner.
07:55It was literally the birthplace to some of our favorite bands like Blink 182.
07:58My dad was there watching me and he's been doing Warped Tour for so many years before I was born and at my age.
08:04So I think it was like a big full circle moment for all of us.
08:07The amount of Blink shows that I went to growing up Warped Tour and non Warped Tour is disgusting.
08:11Well, I remember him telling me one thing about Warped Tour. He was like he never knew what time he was going to go on.
08:17And it was always just kind of like they wing it and it's always fluctuating.
08:20So that's kind of like a crazy thing to me because I feel like I love to like prepare and pre-plan and kind of know when I'm about to go on, you know?
08:28I feel like this generation is not used to that.
08:31No, they're, yeah.
08:32You know, like when the Warped Tour started, you never knew when things were happening from like shows to like a restaurant opening to like, you couldn't just look on the internet for anything.
08:40And so I think people were more used to the idea of like showing up to a fest not knowing who's going to play when.
08:45And so that's definitely a holdover from previous Warped.
08:48I learned this last night.
08:50I was just at the hotel bar and this young couple comes up to me and they're like, are you playing tomorrow or Sunday?
08:56And I was like, we're obviously playing tomorrow at 850.
08:59And they're like, okay, because we didn't know.
09:01They didn't even announce what day we would be in true Warped Tour fashion.
09:06That's fucking cool.
09:07Yeah.
09:08I feel like the nostalgia has made it so successful for me, like seeing the old school stages, the sound system.
09:16For me, it feels very nostalgic.
09:17I think when we talk about a nostalgic element to the bands and Warped Tour, it's respect.
09:22You know what I mean?
09:23It means respect when, you know, the scene died down for a bit.
09:28They came back 10 times stronger.
09:30I never think of nostalgia when I think of our band and we don't like rest on like our laurels or try to like, you know, go do, we're just playing songs from this record or whatever.
09:37We're still like carving a new path.
09:39But I think when it comes to like this culture of all these bands, like all together and the sound that was like, we're so dominant on like the radio at one point and like just in culture in general.
09:49Then I think I like, I understand it more.
09:51Something about this, like this energy that when you put all of us together from like these scenes, I realized, oh, right.
09:56Like we carved out a little era, you know, and we were, and we were a part of it.
