Retiring at 24 years-old is usually a good thing, but not in this case. Since 1995, Vans Warped Tour has banded together rock ballads, hip-hop beats and pop-punk confessions with all music lovers. This celebration came to an end this summer but it did not disappoint its avid fans at each destination.

Like many of my generation, Warped has been and will remain a staple of my childhood and teen summers. Warped Tour was the one time of year that bands I actually listened to came together to perform in the same festival. The music festival was characterized by suffocating heat, uneven sunburns, near dehydration, other people’s sweat on my shoulders and the bands that I loved.

Warped Tour was truly a unique experience. However, as uncomfortable as the heat may have been, it was easy to forget while screaming my favorite song lyrics at the top of my lungs, braving the mosh pits or courageously crowd surfing.

Thousands of sweaty kids — some with black hair teased into nests and secured with hairspray, others donning the most comfortable clothes to maximize their circle pit endurance — all joined in one space, all headbanging to the same songs.

My first time experiencing Vans Warped Tour in San Diego, California was during the summer of 2010. Easily, the chaos of the multiple stages scattered around an open lot was exhilarating. Over the years, that same chaotic mess became the only sense of normality of my troubled youth.

It is a bit overwhelming at first having to run from stage to stage to catch all the bands I wanted to see. I learned the ins and outs of how to make the most of my Warped escapades. I discovered that a sharpie, water bottle, sunscreen and a backpack were the prime essentials to survive the 12-hour adventure.
In this last and final Warped Tour, I felt a sense of nostalgia. Deja vu engulfed me as I walked in to see the same vendors. Even the setup to view the set times on the giant Vans inflatable was a dead ringer to every other Warped experience.

Of course, there was a sprinkle of up-and-comers to the tour but, for the most part, the lineup was a flashback to years of early adolescence.

The finality of this being the last Warped Tour set in when Simple Plan — the final band of the tour — played “Welcome to My Life.” It was the song that I danced and cried to hundreds of times in my room as an angsty teenager.

That sudden and startling realization almost stopped me in my place; was this really the end? How could it be when I still have more punch to attend the next one — even before this one ended?

Tears filled my eyes thinking about the youth who would never find a home each summer at the Warped Tour in their city. The end of the song drew near — “Welcome To My Life,” I screamed. As melancholy as I was, I realized that no matter the circumstances of Warped Tour’s final run, music festivals like this will always sprout and house generations to come.