What's Hot

Not everyone can play the Warped Tour 16 summers straight. Here we look back on some of the ghosts of Warped Tour’s past and reveal what they are up to today.

Photo by Lisa Johnson

Band: Midtown

Who were they?: Before New Jersey became a hotbed for mainstream emo acts, Midtown were a group of suburban teenagers attending Rutgers University, alongside the members of Thursday. However instead of focusing on the political and personal rage that powered their one-time scenemates, Midtown pioneered a brand of pop-inspired emo rock far before that genre was particularly profitable.

After putting out a handful of small, independent releases the band signed to Drive-Thru Records in the early ’00s and released now beloved albums like 2002’s Living Well Is The Best Revenge. They followed that with their major-label debut, Forget What You Know, which contained one of the most un-emo sentiments ever on it.

During the song “Is It Me, Is It True?” lanky frontman Gabe Saporta (pictured above with members of New Found Glory) opined, “Sex is old and boring.” Which, presumably, was not true if you weren’t getting any. The band played the Warped Tour multiples times, starting with their initial run in 2000.