Whereas my sinuses are grateful to have left the desert warmth, I’m reeling with a particular kind of comedown from this 12 months’s When We Had been Younger pageant. It’s two days of the 12 months I spend relishing an amalgamation of gut-wrenching nostalgia pangs, and realizing how a lot of my mind’s storage has been put to work holding onto Relient Ok lyrics as a substitute of my social safety quantity. And I’ve so as to add, there’s actually nowhere else I really feel extra seen and understood than in a crowd of people that, identical to me, hoard Good Dye Younger merchandise and by no means draw back from a pyramid stud. In fact, this 12 months was no laughing matter when it got here to emo music icons, and creating moments the place all the Warped Tour worlds may collide.
And collide they did, after which some: from hip-hop legends to pop-punk royalty, audiences have been consistently stunned as they stood within the crowd at every of the 4 phases all through the weekend, watching Lil Wayne singing “Life of the Wealthy and Well-known” with Good Charlotte, seeing Avril Lavigne crash the All Time Low set, and Steve Aoki collab with Yellowcard. Inexperienced Day kicked the whole weekend off with a Dookie album play, and in lockstep with blink-182, every introduced a 2024 stadium tour and carried out new music that had but to be performed reside on the pageant. Alongside the greats, thrilling youthful acts hit the desert too this 12 months, artists who we’ve seen so astutely interpret this nook of alt music we’ve all the time beloved in fashionable and insightful methods — from Jean Dawson to the Wrecks, EKKSTACY to KennyHoopla.
Although it’s simple to get emotional, no pun meant, that the weekend’s a wrap, we will at the very least revel within the items it gave us, and look ahead to the 12 months forward, stuffed with anniversary album performs, our favourite bands hitting the street, and new music — breadcrumbs that may fulfill that nostalgic itch all of us have, at the very least till subsequent October.
