Alright, guys. Get out your eyeliner and Fall Out Boy wristbands because the Warped Tour is coming to town. Yes, the holy Mecca of emo music, The Vans Warped Tour, is making its 24th trip around the country spreading screams and angst to hundreds of thousands of punkers and goth kids. But this year’s edition brings some bad news: this will be the last Vans Warped Tour ever. For undisclosed reasons, Kevin Lyman, the creator of the Warped Tour, announced on the tour’s blog that this year’s tour will be its final run. Although the ending of the Warped Tour could be another indication of rock music’s seemingly imminent demise, I’m instead going to focus on how the Warped Tour became an integral part of rock music in the 2000’s.

The Warped Tour began in 1995 as a small tour of punk bands with the ska punk legends Sublime as its main attraction. No Doubt, the ska band fronted by Gwen Stefani, also played on the first tour, but were an unknown act at the time.

The tour began as a punk tour, but as the new millenium came in, so did a new wave of rock music. Emo music found its roots in pop punk bands like Blink 182 and Green Day, and later evolved into bands like Jimmy Eat World, My Chemical Romance and Paramore. Warped Tour became a traveling community of punk and emo bands that performed during the day and partied through the night. Many bands found their musical identity on the Tour, and gained popularity through playing their music year after year for attendees.

This last Warped Tour has pulled together a diverse group of artists that span the entire musical identity that the tour has developed over the years. Some of its most notorious past performers, such as pop punk band Sum 41 and skate punk band PENNYWISE, are also playing the tour on select dates. The very last Vans Warped Tour will be making its way to Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View on June 26th.