For LØLØ, Warped Tour existed for years as an urban legend. The Toronto-born singer-songwriter, whose earnest and catchy pop-punk songwriting has earned her tens of millions of streams and a growing audience and tours with bands like New Found Glory, Against The Current and Simple Plan, never attended the festival as a fan. By the time she was old enough to go to shows, the newly-revived festival had already stopped its full North American treks.
“My mom never wanted me to go to concerts, especially by myself, because she was scared I was going to go deaf,” LØLØ says with a laugh. “But now I ended up being a musician, so joke’s on you, Mom.”
When Warped Tour returned to Canada for its Montréal stop at Parc Jean-Drapeau this past weekend, its first time back since 2014, LØLØ was among the newer generation of artists sharing the bill with acts she grew up listening to.
“I heard that Warped Tour was coming back, and then I was like, ‘Hmm, am I cool enough for this?’” she recalls. “And then I was asked, and I was very honored. And then I was very scared.”
Her concern was less about performing than about fitting in. LØLØ describes herself as “an outlier” on a lineup that leans heavily into punk, hardcore, emo and alternative rock. But Kevin Lyman, the founder of Warped Tour, sees precisely that kind of emerging artist as part of the festival’s purpose. He points to the Canadian singer, born Lauren Mandel, as an artist he believes Warped can help develop, praising both her talent and the team around her.
“I love LØLØ, not only as an artist and as a person,” Lyman says. “She’s very kind and very talented.”
Lyman is already thinking beyond this year’s festival. After bringing LØLØ back for a second year, he says he plans to keep booking her as her career develops. “I’m gonna book her next year too,” he says. “You come back as long as we just keep working together, 'til hopefully you’ll be that next big headliner.”
That support gave her exactly the experience she had hoped for. She found an audience willing to take a chance on artists they didn’t know yet. “It ended up being amazing, and it was the best crowd ever,” she says. “Warped Tour is the most family-like vibe, the most accepting. They just want to discover new music.”
Clearly, there was nothing to worry about. On top of her own perofrmance, she performed with All Time Low and joined Simple Plan onstage, a particularly meaningful pairing given that she grew up listening to the Montréal pop-punk veterans. Despite having already toured with them, she says the experience still gets to her.
“I still freak out every time,” she says. “Because the little girl inside me just comes out.”
Now four Warped Tours into her career, LØLØ has also developed a different understanding of what it means to perform live. Touring, she says, has taught her to stop chasing an impossible standard of perfection.“I think that people don’t want perfection,” she says. “They just want to see a live show and be a special moment.”
The Toronto rising star will return to Toronto and Montréal in September for headline shows.
Matt Collyer of The Planet Smashers