Vans Warped Tour 2016 lured parents and teens alike with plenty of throwback acts from the ’90s and early 2000s. The annual traveling festival showcased music from legacy pop-punk bands like Sum 41, New Found Glory and Yellowcard.
Colorful hair, choker necklaces and band tees galore — PNC Bank Arts Center was any pop-punker’s paradise Sunday. This year’s lineup also featured performances from Warped Tour veterans The Story So Far, Mayday Parade and We The Kings, among more than 60 other bands.
Sunday’s shows mark the tour’s last stop in New Jersey this year after it traveled to Camden’s BB&T Pavillon on July 8. Here’s what you missed at the sweat-soaked summer festival.
HIGHLIGHTS
– The energy of Sum 41 fans was so infectious that even the crowd gathered at the nearby Journey’s Right Foot stage to watch pop-punk outfit Real Friends sang along to the Canadian rockers’ 2001 jam “In Too Deep.”
The throwback headliner’s crowd was the rowdiest of all in Holmdel, and during“Fat Lip,” frenzied fans thrashed, crowd surfed and threw their fists in the air, an appropriate reaction to one of the most rocking bands on the bill.
“13 Voices,” Sum 41’s first new album since 2011, is set for release on October 7.
Still, that album’s lead single “My Friends Over You” proved to be a fitting finale. Dozens of fans crowd surfed to the stage to shout the famous line to frontman Jordan Pundik — “Though you swear that you are true, I still pick my friends over you.”
-After nearly 20 years together, Warped favorite Yellowcard is set to embark on its final world tour in October. But lead singer Ryan Key didn’t let the news of the band’s breakup put a damper on its wild Warped Tour set.
They saved their 2003 calling card “Ocean Avenue” for the finale, of course, but Key played a few other songs from its namesake album.
“Only One” proved to be one of the most emotional performances of the day, as Key wailed “Here I go, scream my lungs out and try to get to you!”
– “The Vans Warped Tour is officially punk-rock again because I’ve seen unsolicited circle pits,” Less than Jake guitarist Chris Demakes told the crowd as he took the stage. The ska band earned lots of laughs from the audience as members smacked beach balls into the crowd with baseball bats, drenched the closest showgoers with a water gun and unleashed toilet paper streamers on the them.
Even parents in the crowd went wild for the band’s 2003 hit “Look What Happened.”
– Before The Story So Far began its set, band members tossed giant inflatable whales into the audience. By the end of the first song, crowd surfers had figured out they could ride the whales to the front of the stage.
The California band’s frenetic energy was spurred by lead singer and pop-punk powerhouse Parker Cannon, who jumped, kicked and punched his way across the stage as he wailed honest songs with anguish and aggression.
“You have no idea how unproductive it is to fall in and out of you as often as I do,” the crowd screamed along with Cannon on the wild finale “Roam.”
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This story originally appeared on NJ.com.
Sydney Shaw 