Sublime got a blue street sign from Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson on June 25, 2025. Anyone hoping to take a photo beneath it still has a fair question: which corner? Richardson pledged to name a street Sublime Way without identifying a block. As of November 7, 2026, the name still doesn’t appear on the city’s street map.
The pledge came at Grow Long Beach, the mayor’s annual economic forum, where Richardson had invited Jakob Nowell to help announce that Sublime would play the Vans Warped Tour on the downtown waterfront. “There is no band that is more qualified to represent the LBC,” Richardson said. The city’s recording captures both the performance and the sign presentation. Jakob starts playing around 55 minutes in, and Richardson holds up the sign at the one hour mark.
Jakob had a piece of Long Beach music history in his hands before the sign came out. As the Long Beach Post reported that day, the guitar he used for his acoustic performance of “What I Got” had belonged to his father, Bradley Nowell. Bradley formed Sublime in Long Beach in 1988 with bassist Eric Wilson and drummer Bud Gaugh. The three played the first Warped Tour in 1995. Bradley died the following year, before the release of Sublime, the album that carried “What I Got” far beyond their hometown.
On July 26, 2025, Richardson introduced the band again, this time to the Warped Tour crowd. Jakob, Wilson and Gaugh opened with “Garden Grove.” When they got to “What I Got,” the song Jakob had played alone at the mayor’s forum became a waterfront singalong.
The street tribute is the part still waiting on a location. Long Beach Public Works updated its street map data on November 6, 2026. It lists no street with “Sublime” in its name. A search of the city’s public meeting records through November 7 also turned up no vote approving the name. Fans can watch the mayor hand over the sign, but there’s still no confirmed intersection to visit or dedication date to mark on the calendar.
