Following speculation and excitement surrounding its return to Australia this year for the first time in more than a decade, the Vans Warped Tour 2013 lineup finally landed last Wednesday night, with The Offspring, Parkway Drive, and Simple Plan topping the list of acts playing the punk and hardcore festival.

But just two days after the lineup was given its grand unveiling, one of the bands was pulled from the lineup. New York punk five-piece H2O were among the 19 bands confirmed for the touring festival, hitting the East Coast this November and December in a bill put together by promoter AJ Maddah in collaboration with Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman.

H2O can no longer be found on the official marketing and website for the Warped Tour, with serial twitterer Maddah giving the explanation that the punk band were never confirmed for the festival in the first place.


H2O guitarist/vocalist Todd Morse certainly thought the band were playing the Australian return of Warped, taking to twitter to tell his more than 6,000 followers of H2O’s appearance on the 2013 lineup.


But further comments from Maddah suggest that negotiations between the band must have broken down at some point, with their name bandied about in the planning stages but that they were not intended to go out as part of the 2013 lineup announcement.


The H2O drop-out recalls the number of band members and issues that unfortunately plagued Soundwave 2012 earlier this year, with the lineup seemingly cursed by cancellations, replacements, and Spinal Tap-esque drummer issues. Hopefully Maddah’s bad luck with Soundwave won’t befall Warped Tour, which coincidentally features the return of pop punk veterans The Offspring, returning to Australia after playing the February festival.

Other bands playing Warped include New Found Glory, who were the only band on the lineup to feature on the last Australian tour of 2002, as well as The Used, who recently played the South American Warped lineup. “It’s about time they bring the Warped Tour back down under and we couldn’t be happier to be a part of it,” said The Used frontman Bert McCracken in a recent interview with Tone Deaf.

Aside from Parkway Drive however, the Warped 2013 lineup doesn’t follow Maddah’s previous claim that there’d be “lots of locals” on the Warped 2013 lineup, but the promoter has said that more Aussie bands will turn up in the “supplementary announcements,” tweeting to “expect another 4 or 5 internationals as well as a load of locals” to be added to the lineup.

Maddah has previously noted that a ticket to Warped will be the only chance to catch any of the lineup as there won’t be any sideshows for the festival, noting in a tweet to a fan query about possible sideshows: “not this year. I’d like to wait til we have re-established the festival in Aus 1st.”

That is except for Perth, who will be getting some performances from Warped Tour artists to compensate for missing out on a full leg of the festival. Maddah explained that the WA State Government and financial logistics were to blame for the lack of a Perth leg. “To be quite frank, the past few years, Perth hasn’t been particularly kind to punk bands or to punk events,” said Maddah. “Perth is great for P!nk and what have you, but it’s not so good for punk rock.”

Tickets are $90 (+ GST & b/f) and go on sale Thursday 18th July from the Vans Warped Tour Australia website.

Vans Warped Tour 2013 Lineup

The Offspring
Parkway Drive
The Used
Simple Plan
New Found Glory
Hatebreed
Tonight Alive
H2O
The Summer Set
Kids In Glass Houses
We Came As Romans
Man Overboard
Crown The Empire
The Dangerous Summer
For All Those Sleeping
Veara
Anarbor
Mallory Knox
RDGLDGRN

Vans Warped Tour 2013 Dates

Friday 29th November
Brisbane RNA Showgrounds

Saturday 30th November
Coffs Harbour

Sunday 1st December
Barangaroo, Sydney

Friday 6th December
Exhibition Park, Canberra

Saturday 7th December
VENUE TBA, Melbourne

Sunday 8th December
VENUE TBA, Adelaide

For more info head to: facebook.com/WarpedAU and http://vanswarpedtouraustralia.com/

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