Warped Tour is back to being an international tour! With a recent stop in Montreal and an upcoming date in Mexico City, it's important for us to acknowledge that the scene doesn't belong only to the States, or even the English language.
Punk and pop-punk didn't stay in English. While you were memorizing the lyrics to your favorite Warped Tour staples, an entire parallel scene was building out in Spanish, arenas selling out, decades-long careers, bands that share stages with the names you already know. If you're catching Warped Tour in Mexico City this September, or just want your radar to extend past the usual English-language lineup, here are the Spanish-speaking acts worth your time.
Think of Allison as Mexico's answer to bands like Jimmy Eat World, emotionally-heavy alt-rock that fills arenas instead of clubs. Fronted by Erik Canales, they've been a major part of the scene since 2002, with tracks like "Frágil" and "Me Cambió" turning into full-crowd singalongs back home. They've even shared stages with Yellowcard, so if that name's already on your Warped bingo card, Allison should be too.
Out of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and active since the late '90s, División Minúscula blends alt-rock, funk, and desert rock into something most English speakers have never encountered before, which is exactly why they're worth seeing live. Deep catalog, loyal following, the kind of band that rewards you for showing up early.
The solo project of Pedro Regalado, who you might not know by name, but he's Allison's touring guitarist and musical director. Pedro y el Lobo is his own outlet, bedroom-pop energy meeting alt-rock songwriting. If you're into artists like Rex Orange County, who blur the line between bedroom project and full band, this is your Spanish-language equivalent.
Their EP is literally titled "Como Si Fuera 2005" ("Like It's 2005"), and that's the whole pitch right there, pop-punk built on nostalgia for the genre's mid-2000s peak, made for a crowd that grew up on exactly the kind of bands this festival is named after. One of the local acts our own Warped Tour Mexico City coverage already flagged as a must-see, catch them before the bigger international names on the bill overshadow the set time.
ON THE HEAVIER SIDE
Aguascalientes deathcore, active since 2007, formed by brothers Tore and Deivis González. If you know Suicide Silence or Whitechapel, you know the lane HCTK is driving in, brutal, technical, with a sound that will make you want to throw it on again the second it ends.
A brother duo out of Hermosillo, Sonora, bringing pure pop-punk energy. Don't let the Beatles-adjacent name throw you, this is a band for the crowd that came to Warped for the pop half of pop-punk.
BEYOND MEXICO
Bogotá, Colombia's biggest rock export, active since 2003. Frontman Diego Pulecio has cited Blink-182 as a direct influence, and it shows, tracks like "Miénteme, Prométeme" and "Castillos de Arena" carry that same melodic, hook-first DNA. They've sold out arenas across Latin America and picked up an MTV Europe Music Award along the way. Not a small band by any measure.
Buenos Aires street punk, going since 1987, before Warped Tour itself even existed. If Rancid or NOFX are your reference points for old-school, no-frills punk, 2 Minutos is the Argentine branch of that same family tree.
THE PLAYLIST
Want a head start before you're standing in the crowd? Here's a playlist I put together myself, pulling the most popular tracks from every band on this list. Growing up in Mexico, a lot of these bands were the background noise of my own life, and it's honestly a little frustrating watching them stay invisible outside the Spanish-speaking world for so long. If this lineup does nothing else, I hope it gets a few more people outside Latin America to finally give these bands the recognition they've deserved for years.