August 22, 2026
The Vans Warped Tour
The Vans Warped Tour is one of the longest running, nomadic carnivals of athletes and musicians around. Maybe the only one of it’s kind. Born in 1995, the festival itself was present just before the internet really took off and improved/ruined our lives. It was the days of the 56kbps modem, ICQ and a festival beer probably cost you about 7.50$ with tip.
About 20 years later, the cost of a single beer is enough to give you a hangover and emo bands are now part of the festival. The internet has since proven to be more of a cesspool of human expression and a troubling alternate reality than some utopian secret place where we all share, collaborate and merrily download MP3s.
See Also: The Offspring at Mtelus, Montreal
However, over the course of it’s 2 day run at Montreal’s Parc Jean Drapeau, The Warped Tour offered us a little taste of the old times. But a just a taste, mind you. A veritable outdoor village, it attracts old punk hermits, young hardcore kids with moustaches and gym memberships, emo children with mascara or just normal people dressed as bananas. Some people even throw their kids into this eclectic muffin mix. And from this sub-cultural ooze is born a delightful result.
Granted photographic privileges, I decided to push the type of photography I began at my very first Warped Tour, in the year 2000. That is, walking around with film cameras and really identifying the things that fascinate me the most: people and their behavior. Of course back then, I was young and timid. Now, in my finest and most mature form yet, I feel freer than ever to bug people with my voyeuristic passion of photography.
Armed with the barest of camera situations, I set off on this most gnarly of missions: to take photos of you and your friends in mosh pits. And make a book with it.
Here are some bands I saw for which I took the best notes.
Concrete Vehicles
Why go to a cirque du Soleil show and be disappointed by the music when you can go see Concrete Vehicles and be flabbergasted?
The saxophone player’s instrument is amplified by a microphone shoved down its gullet, all the while trailing a chord around the stage. There’s a dude with a small console instrument bouncing and head banging about. There are no fucks to be given in the Concrete Vehicles camp.
The bassist, sporting a drug church shirt comforts me with his grungy attire while the guitarist, sporting a ”Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath” shirt, makes me feel right at home. This whole recipe combined with the powerful sun cooking my brain just stunned me. And since we’re talking fashion, the singer was wearing a t-shirt with horses on it. My 7 year old daughter would have approved.
If that doesn’t help you understand this band, then I don’t know what will. They’re a 7 piece band playing super groovy progressive hardcore? Or *squints* indie?
Cheers to the Toronto dudes from Noisey who were like the Dupont et Dupont of underground music for turning me on to this band.
Initiate
It was now time for a healthy dose of hypertension and be blasted away by Orange County’s Initiate.
Like gasoline combusting and provoking pistons to motion, Initiate ripped open the festival with hard riffs and chainsaw vocals. It’s female-fronted something-core with a floral twist.
Where Concrete Vehicles was like an elevated, fancy appetizer drenched in indie sauce, Initiate was more like taking a bite of a live rattlesnake. A significantly wilder experience, they certainly set the tone for the Hardcore aspect of the weekend with gusto.
Also, this was my first show at the ‘’Ghost’’ stage. This wider area of the festival grounds was entirely covered by synthetic grass. A material which was predictably ripped to shreds in several places over the course of the weekend.
Pennywise
Pennywise like to talk a lot during their set. Might be a California thing. NOFX used to be talkers too. Well, Fat Mike and Hefe, at least. I once saw NOFX in Japan imitating Japanese people. It was cringy, but that’s what made it funny. Nobody laughed except me.
Pennywise are North American Punk Rock icons.
Every song they played, from ”Society” to ”Straight Ahead” and ”Bro hymn”, or their cover ”Stand By Me”, are pillars of skate punk. In my opinion, their set was undoubtedly the most intense punk show of the day. That intensity draws it’s power from a vast collective memory, the memory of their fans. So many of us have listened to their music to various degrees. Their impact is incontrovertible. Their music has become a template. And like their fellow Hermosa royalty The Descendants or Circle Jerks before them, they’re a part of that Californian punk pantheon.
And judging from the possible thousands of people attending the Pennywise show, I’d say their presence is as strong as ever.
Angel Dust
This was certainly one of the best bands of this generation that I saw play at the 2026 Warped Tour.
They had instances of harmonious vocals. Some tracks had a ska/new wave shuffle to them. Others are circle pit soundtracks. One of the last songs sounded like a slowed down thrash song with hardcore breakdowns. It’s hardcore. Little bits in the vocal delivery reminded me of H20. It’s just s full course meal.
At one point, they slowed the tempo down to a crawl and the band did a little toke marathon before continuing the set.
In regards to Angel Dust, I had noted: ‘’Hands down best dancing pit of the festival.’’
Look at how caring and gentle the security look in the above picture. Go see Angel Dust if you can. 5 stars.
Read More:
>> Goldfinger at Beanfield Theater, Montreal
>> Bloc Party at Beanfield Theatre, Montreal
>> Coheed And Cambria at Hard Rock Live, Ottawa
This year’s Warped Tour certainly took me by surprise. I felt like I reconnected with a lost part of myself that gets bogged down by the everyday routine. It was a punk rock retreat, a spa if you will, where the waters of other bodies clinging to your clothing in pits of mosh.
After 2 days of that, my body was aching and my feet pulsating. Despite that, it only took a few days of work for me to think: ”Ok, I’m ready for another Warped Tour.”
