Matt Collyer knows Warped Tour is a festival like no other. For the Planet Smashers frontman, it is part summer camp, part punk rock boot camp, part family reunion, and part survival test. It’s also one of the reasons so many bands from the punk, ska, hardcore, and emo worlds were able to find each other, tour together, and build scenes that reached far beyond their own hometowns.
So as Warped Tour weekend returns, Collyer is going in with the right attitude. Not expecting it to be exactly what it was, but ready to feel that old energy again.
“I’m very excited,” he says. “I mean, it’s not the same Warped Tour. So if we go in thinking that it’s the same Warped Tour as it was 20 years ago when we did it. It changed through those years too.”
Still, what made Warped special was never really the lineup, but the movement. The feeling of sprinting from one stage to another, catching only 15 minutes of a band before racing off to see someone else. It was discovering your new favorite group by accident, watching heroes and unknowns share the same parking lot, the same heat and chaos.
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The Planet Smashers’ first Warped experience was as DIY as it gets. Collyer remembers playing Québec City in the festival’s early days, before the band fully understood what they were walking into.
“We played on the flatbed of a truck,” he says. “And I was like, ‘This is different’. And then we had to do our own merch, but we didn’t know you were supposed to bring a tent. So we were that band in the sun with just a table, and the sun was just pounding down on us.”
They had copies of their early releases, one Planet Smashers shirt design, and no real plan. The shirts sold out almost instantly. Then, an icon walked up. “I just remember Tim Armstrong walked up and I’m like, oh my gosh,” Collyer says. “And he stopped and goes, ‘Hey, are you guys that band that does that song ‘Pierce Me’? I’m like, ‘yes. How the fuck do you know?’”
That, to Collyer, was the magic of Warped Tour. It flattened the hierarchy.
“There was equality throughout the tour, which was really cool,” he says. “Everyone got 30 minutes, no one got more time.”
Nick Farkas, Senior Vice President of booking and events at evenko, who are co-producers of Warped Tour’s Montréal stop, also remembers his first Warped Tour. Back then, he was a young, DIY booker, having co-founded Greenland Productions in 1993. “It really takes me back to the beginning of my career. It was the first real festival we ever did, and we always had an amazing time,“ remembers Farkas. That first year, the festival was being held at the now-shuttered Blue Bonnets horse racing track. “We had sold 3000 tickets, but about 6000 people showed up without tickets, and we hadn't set up a different line for people without tickets. Security had to sort people and create different lines, we were walking around with change and selling tickets directly in the line.“
“That they chose Montréal over another Canadian or American market tells you how important punk rock is to Montréal,“ says Farkas, who is also behind some of Canada's biggest festivals, including Osheaga and Lasso.
Warped Tour also helped bands build real networks between local bands and international ones. Before social media made every scene feel connected, you had to meet people in person. “You met them at Warped Tour. And you just made friends,” Collyer says. “And suddenly you go, oh, I’ve got a friend in Atlanta now. Oh, I’ve got a friend in Charlotte. Oh, I’ve got a friend in Washington. Now you’ve got a tour.”
Despite the fun, surviving Warped Tour as a band was not an easy feat. It was hot, exhausting, smelly, and chaotic. The glamour level was low. Collyer remembers vans, RVs, overnight drives, terrifying highway moments, and trying to find a usable shower only to discover that someone had ruined it for everyone. He also remembers losing his voice in Miami because of the heat and the culture of staying up late, yelling, laughing, and hanging out.
Matt Collyer of The Planet Smashers
So what is his advice for surviving the weekend?
First, the obvious one. “Hydrate. You’ve got to stay hydrated,” he says.
He means it. One year, water was hard to come by but energy drinks were everywhere. Their drummer Scott started drinking too much Monster and ended up with a painful inflamed heart sac that bothered him for months.
Second, sunscreen. It might feel basic, but Warped Tour is well-known to be a sunburn factory.
“Obviously, the sunscreen is going to be a lifesaver. I know it’s the end of the summer, but it’s going to get you eventually,” he says.
Third, do not gamble with the bathrooms.
“If you feel you need to go to the washroom, don’t wait,” he says. “Go as fast as you can, they can get pretty nasty very quickly.”
Fourth, buy merch early. Bands, especially those traveling across the border, can only bring so much. If you wait until the end of the day, your size might be gone. “When it’s gone, it’s gone,” Collyer says.
Most importantly, pace yourself. The urge to see everything is part of the fun, but you need to survive long enough to enjoy it. “If you find a slot where there’s a band that you know, a time when there’s no one you’d want to see, take that moment,” he says. “Take a little nap and then go back and get them.”
And if you see band members walking around, be cool. That is part of the point. Warped Tour was built on accessibility, community, and Kevin Lyman’s famous attitude that there is “no room for rock stars.”
Warped Tour returns to Montréal starting tomorrow, featuring The Planet Smashers, Simple Plan, Sublime, and many more.
