The full lineup for the Australian return of the Vans Warped Tour drops tomorrow and excitement is reaching peak position with not one, but two bands leaking their confirmation on the 2013 bill ahead of its official reveal.
But while Australia’s east coast stirs with excitement for the return of the eminent punk music festival, arriving this November and December thanks to Warped founder Kevin Lyman in association with Soundwave/Harvest promoter AJ Maddah, Western Australia is left green with envy as the Warped Tour skips Perth for its first visit in over a decade.
After his souring experience fighting local council and government over the Perth leg of Soundwave in February this year, AJ Maddah explains that the decision to curtail the WA capital for Warped is as much about avoiding red tape-induced headaches as it is a financial one.
“To be quite frank, the past few years, Perth hasn’t been particularly kind to punk bands or to punk events,” the outspoken promoter tells TheMusic. “For example, I had a bill of Panic! At The Disco, All Time Low, Yellowcard and somebody else [at Counter Revolution] that couldn’t sell 1,000 tickets in Perth,” he adds. “Perth is great for P!nk and what have you, but it’s not so good for punk rock.”
Maddah reasons that it is State Government regulations that have suffocated Perth’s music and festival scene, with noise complaining residents and conservaitve pollies cheating the youth out of cultivating an enriching music culture. “With the expense and the time it would take out of every band’s itinerary we decided not to do Perth this year.” – AJ Maddah
“State laws have made it just about impossible to do all ages shows, and what’s that done exactly is that a whole couple of generations of kids have missed out on going to shows when they’re young,” he said. “Therefore [they] have grown up being into shit music, quite frankly, in terms of what’s on at [Mix] 94.5fm and various other stations in Perth.”
The decision to skip Perth for Warped Tour was also a logistical one, with Maddah previously describing Warped as “about mayhem & DIY punk rock spirit,” meaning less lavish and expensive travel options to transport bands and equipment, making the stretch to Perth a financial burden Maddah and Kevin Lyman couldn’t justify.
“It’s just the fact that we would need to have x number of days off going there and x numbers of days off coming back,” explains Maddah. “It means we would have to try and extend the tour to get there on a weekend date, and it just didn’t add up.”
“With the expense and the time it would take out of every band’s itinerary we decided not to do Perth this year, but if we find that the support is there, we’ll consider it for next year.”
Support was something the promoter didn’t receive from Perth politicians for this year’s Soundwave Festival, Maddah claiming the power cuts that brought an early finish to headliners’ sets at the RAS Claremont Showgrounds were a “cheap political stunt” pulled by the WA State Government, acting on behalf of local Claremont council, who have made life difficult for festivals in the past, including imposing a 10pm curfew on the event after a single resident made a noise complaint over Soundwave 2012.
The full Vans Warped Tour 2013 lineup is scheduled to drop tomorrow, to be announced on Triple J’s Short.Fast.Loud program, and will be the first appearance of the long running punk festival on Australian shores since 2002.
Vans Warped Tour 2013 Dates
Brisbane: Friday 29th November
Coffs Harbour: Saturday 30th November
Sydney: Sunday 1st December
Canberra: Friday 6th December
Melbourne: Saturday 7th December
Adelaide: Sunday 8th December
Lineup and ticket info to be announced Wednesday 10th July
