Following a big return in 2025 for a 30th Anniversary celebration, Warped Tour is back again for 2026 with a five-city weekend schedule across the United States, Mexico, and Canada. The summer festival kicked off once again in Washington D.C., and unlike last year, fans were treated to the true Warped Tour experience complete with conflicting set times all day, unbearable heat, high humidity, and long walks to get merch, food, or water.
We arrived at the festival excited to get full coverage of both headliners and upcoming artists, but were unable to document many of the sets we had planned to throughout the weekend due to a last minute media access cut for photographers at the festival. Instead, we focused on catching up with artists backstage and photographing what sets we could gain access for thanks to some generous band members, tour managers, PR folks, and one security guard at the Beatbox Stage who was a huge fan of our publication and let us in to shoot anyway.
Early on Saturday the media tent was a busy as ever for Warped Tour – on one side of the space you could see Warped Tour legends like Hawthorne Heights sitting down for a formal interview on camera and on the the other you could spot GWAR in full costume harassing media and even shaving off a journalist’s hair.
In the middle of this chaos we chatted with Sleeping With Sirens ahead of their set on the main stage. The band was excited to be back at Warped Tour and had actually just played a surprise acoustic set the night before at a local record store to celebrate the release of their new album. After we and the band were briefly distracted by GWAR buzz cutting someone’s hair in the media tent behind us, we dove back in to our conversation and talked about what it was like to be back at Warped Tour the day after releasing their new album. The band was quick to say:
“Yeah, it feels like a bit of little full circle moment, right? The record is kind of us going back to our roots a bit. Why not? No better place than to celebrate that or our roots kind of reside at Warped Tour.”
When we asked who they were most excited to see on stage at Warped Tour this year, Kellin Quinn was the first to answer with an excited “Third Eye Blind,” and the rest of the band seconded that – “GWAR” was mentioned as well but that could have also just been second hand excitement from the haircuts going on behind us all.
Backstage was a revolving door of activity all weekend long in the media tent. After catching some incredible sets from Jinjer, GWAR, and Suicidal Tendencies – we bumped into Crown The Empire for a quick chat over some ice-cold bottles of water as the temperature in Washington D.C. climbed past 94 degrees. Our first question for them was what they were most excited for this weekend:
“Obviously great to be on the surface of the sun today. We’ve always wanted to play a show here. I’ve always wanted to see Third Eye Blind, and unfortunately we play at the same time, so I get to look at them directly across from us playing our whole set.”
After laughing about the fact that everyone seemed most excited for Third Eye Blind, we asked what it felt like coming back to Warped Tour after it “ended” a few years back:
“We were on the last one, and we were like, damn, it was the end of an era. Like, we thought that was it, but when we heard it was coming back – we’re like hell yeah! We played it last year, and as soon as we walked offstage, one of the people that work here – the higher ups – the horses that work, were like ’they asked for you guys to come back next year.’ So, you know, that’s all we’re here to do is have a good show and let it rip.”
We headed out into the heat after our chat with Crown The Empire to catch an incredible set from our friends in Sleeping With Sirens at the main stage – which drew one of the largest crowds of the day. Across the entire festival there were amazing up-and-coming artists to check out as well, including killer sets from Vana, Beauty School Dropout, and Tillie. Warped Tour’s core has always been its strength in finding the next big artist. It was great to see so many acts we’ve covered over the past two years getting some spotlight at the festival. The lineup also did a fantastic job this year of bringing back legacy acts that didn’t play last year, like Gym Class Heroes and The Ghost Inside.
Day 2 started with a throwback set from the 2010–2014 Warped Tour era as Breathe Carolina hit the stage for a massive crowd of new and old fans alike. As a photographer I have fond memories of capturing them on Warped Tour 2014 and to be back in the pit for them was a surreal moment. Again, with the difficulty we had getting access to some sets it was great to be allowed access for set of this nature as the band hasn’t played Warped Tour in well over a decade since I last saw them on stage in Scranton.
In the early afternoon we caught up with a Rock Documented favorite and Summer of Loud 2025 alumni, The Devil Wears Prada, and asked how that tour last summer went for the band:
“We had a great time. We are friends with most of the bands that were on the tour even before it. and became friends with most of the ones that we didn’t know. Yeah. So it was just a really good community backstage and all that.”
When asked what it was like to be back at Warped Tour, the band said:
“Everything kind of ebbs and flows, and the waves come and go. When We Were Young kind of kickstarted the whole thing – but we’ve also done like 2 Emo Boats too.”
The summer heat was intense on Day 2 of Warped Tour in Washington DC and despite access to covering sets being even more locked down than the day before – we were able to cover Grandson thanks to some good fortune as he put on a very powerful and emotional performance on the side stage.
Before the day wrapped up we sat down for a lengthy chat with Story of The Year to talk all things music, Warped, and more -wrapping up our backstage coverage for the weekend. The band had a good laugh when asked who they were most excited to see and lead singer Dan Marsala was quick to answer:
“I just had the honor to sing guest vocals with MXPX, and I’ve loved them since I was, like, 16. So I was like, oh shit, you guys want me to come sing? So that was awesome. Their set was great.”
The rest of the band quickly chimed in asking “Did you see them on stage?” And without missing a beat, Marsala replied:
“I saw them. I actually looked at them while they were up there, so I did see them. That was super cool. My day is already going good.”
The band also mentioned that they had come from watching their friends in Hoobastank and were all collectively excited to head back over to catch Machine Head after our chat. As our conversation about Warped Tour continued, we asked what the festival meant to them as a band. Marsala answered first:
“Still hot. Yeah you get brought right back to all the bad things about it. When you get here, you’re like, damn it, I don’t know if I did love this. No, it’s super awesome for us. That sounded terrible. Sorry – I’m fucking excited to be here! I really am. I love it. I’ve just been walking around seeing friends all day.”
As the conversation continued and we really dug into what it means to be at Warped Tour, Adam Russell explained it perfectly:
“It’s like a class reunion in that sense, but the coolest part to me is that the difference between this and other bigger festivals is that, you know, Warped has always been about discovering new bands or having, you know, as a teenager, having that experience where it’s you and three other people watching a band that you feel like no one in the world has ever heard of. And, we talked to Kevin Lyman a couple years ago before this started up again and he was really focused on that. Of course, bringing back all the legacy bands, but then cultivating new fandoms for younger bands and the same kind of experience that we had that’s been missing for so many years.”
Warped Tour DC was a perfect mix of the old guard and the new era of music meeting in one weekend, and if the past five years have given us any indication of what is to come, it’s safe to say that this scene isn’t going anywhere. Warped Tour may be 31 years old, but it feels just as relevant as the first year it burst onto the scene as a touring circuit.
