ABC/Paula LoboWarped Tour may be over, but it will celebrate its 25th anniversary this weekend with a two-day concert in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Warped veterans Blink-182 are part of the lineup, and bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus tells ABC Radio what the festival has meant to him.
“It’s strange to think that the Warped Tour’s been around for 25 years,” Hoppus says. “We played on the second-ever Warped Tour…so it will be good to go back and play the set.”
Of course, now that they’re platinum-selling, arena-headlining rock stars, Blink’s set at this weekend’s festival will be a bit different from their first Warped performance.
“I think we actually get to be on at night, which is cool, and we don’t get restricted to a half-an-hour set, which is cool,” Hoppus says. “But it’s also nice when you play the Warped Tour that you know that you never have to play more than a half-an-hour.”
311 is also on the 25th anniversary celebration bill, and the reggae-rockers have also seen their fair-share of Warped Tours.
“Warped Tour was…the ultimate punk rock camaraderie summer camp,” frontman Nick Hexum says.
Case in point, Hexum remembers when 311 played Warped Tour 2001, after spending all day watching other bands, he would take part in a nightly poker game hosted by NOFX‘s Fat Mike.
“The stakes would get really, really high,” Hexum says. “The participants would get really high, as well.”
The Atlantic City Warped lineup also includes The Offspring, Atreyu, Dirty Heads, A Day to Remember, Bad Religion, Sleeping with Sirens, Andy Black and Taking Back Sunday, among others.
Another 25th anniversary celebration will take place July 20-21 in Mountain View, California.
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