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After one last Dallas thrash, we say R.I.P. to Warped Tour

Gary Wiseman, drummer for Denton's Bowling with Soup, sat in the band's tour bus looking disillusioned. His band was playing a prime 6:45 p.m. slot on the final go-round of the Vans Warped Tour.

"This tour helped remake and rejuvenate our career," Wiseman says. "It's definitely a sad thing to see it go."

Bowling for Soup guitarist Chris Burney kisses his guitar as the band performs as part of...
Bowling for Soup guitarist Chris Burney kisses his guitar as the band performs as part of the Warped Tour at Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas on Friday, July 6, 2018. (Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer)

Wiseman's feelings were echoed by bands and fans on Friday at Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas as a large contingent of metal and punk fans came to witness the final time the tour would come to town. Many of these fans have grown up with the tour, braving 100-degree temperatures for more than two decades.

"It is like when you are a kid and it's the last day of summer camp," Wiseman says. "You are happy to go home, but sad to see everyone go."

Since 1995, there has been some form of Warped Tour. It is the largest traveling music festival in the United States and the longest running festival in North America. Despite the disadvantages of touring outdoors in the middle of summer, especially through hot states like Texas, many bands see it as a rite of musical passage to be included.

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See fan photos at Vans Warped Tour in Dallas

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Ben McCracken of the Dallas band From Parts Unknown was equal parts excited and bummed.

"It's pretty surreal to be playing the tour for the first time," McCracken says. "It's definitely a 16-year-old bucket-list moment for me. But the tour is something that I never thought would stop happening."

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Bass player Chris Parrish shared the sense of honor in getting to perform on the final tour. "If I were to go back in time to when I was 16 and you told me that I was going to get to play the last one," he says, "I would call you a liar."

A concert goer cools off with a cup of cold water at the Warped Tour in Dallas.
A concert goer cools off with a cup of cold water at the Warped Tour in Dallas.(Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer)

As young people and their parents roamed the vast stretches of concrete, buying T-shirts, backpacks and all manner of merch, they slowly made their way to one of the many stages. They seemed anxious to hear the thunderous roar from any one of nearly 100 acts. The cooling, afternoon rain shower brought temporary relief from the heat as bands such as The Used, Unearth and The Maine performed intense and thoughtful sets that got even the dampest mosh pit going full force.

Parents unwilling to witness the goings-on sat blissfully unaware in the Parent's Tent, where one tour employee cheekily told them, "We don't want to bore you."

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Judy and Rosemary Phillips, a mom and daughter who had driven from Mississippi, were attending their first and last Warped tour. "It's pretty depressing that it's the last one," Rosemary says. "Perhaps it's not really the last one." But such optimism was not widespread; the organizers say Warped Tour is really over.

So as the daylight receded and exhausted fans trudged toward the parking lot, the final musical notes faded into the air of Fair Park as workers cleaned up Dallas' Warped mess for one last time.