The Vans Warped Tour has spent the better part of the past two decades bringing summer mosh pits, mohawks and mayhem.
North America's longest-running music festival, Warped, will be celebrating its 15th anniversary at 8 p.m. in the form of a two-hour movie playing tonight at the Regal Gainesville Cinema 14 on Archer Road. Tickets are $12.50.
The film, titled "Warped Tour 15th Anniversary Celebration," will take a look into the tour's history and life, and will feature live performances from 3OH!3, Underoath, NOFX, The All-American Rejects, The Aggrolites, Bad Religion, Ice-T, Katy Perry, Ozomatli, Pennywise, The Decaydance All Stars, Rise Against and a surprise appearance from blink-182.
The live portion of the film consists of performances filmed at a charity event at Club Nokia in Los Angeles on Sept. 6.
The footage from the concert was edited in about seven days, Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman said.
The historical content of the film will feature members of some of the most influential acts.
"I wanted to have a taste of the history from bands like Bad Religion and Pennywise but still cover that middle ground too with artists like Underoath and Rise Against," he said.
Warped Tour, which began as a traveling summer showcase of 16 punk bands, now features more than 100 acts that range anywhere from grind-core to gangster-rap.
"A lot of people think of Warped as a punk rock tour, but if you dig through the lineups, you'll see it is actually pretty eclectic," Lyman said.
Lyman's tour, which started in 1995 as celebration of Southern California's skate culture, has helped launch the careers of some of the biggest names in music in the past 15 years, presenting the then up-and-comers with their first taste of a large-scale national touring experience.
"It's something that, through the years, bands have played at the beginning of their careers," Lyman said.
"People usually think Bad Religion, NOFX and Fall Out Boy are the types of success stories we have," he said.
Although there are numerous punk bands that managed to use Warped as a catapult to successful careers, other notable acts that hit it big following Warped include No Doubt, Eminem, The Black Eyed Peas and most recently, Paramore and Katy Perry.
Most of the bands on this year's Warped Tour were in middle school listening to bands like Bad Religion and NOFX when the tour began 15 years ago.
"It's definitely become second generational," Lyman said.
He said they are starting to see parents who went to Warped when they were younger come back with their children.
"It's a great way to find a common ground with their kids for some people. We never expected that, but if we can do it, it's kind of a really cool bonus," Lyman said.
This film has essentially been in production for the past 15 years but didn't really come to fruition until recently.
Lyman said they started having serious discussions about doing a movie more than four years ago.
With less than two weeks to film, edit and distribute a full-length movie to more than 400 theaters around the country, this one-night event is unlike anything Warped has done before, he said.
"It's pretty ambitious what we are trying to do with this one, but even 15 years later, we're still trying to push the envelope with Warped and see what we can do," Lyman said.
