NJ’s Bamboozle festival returns this year for the first time since 2012, in celebration of the festival’s 20th anniversary. In November, they revealed the phase one lineup, then they gave an update saying that headliners were not announced during phase one, and then they gradually rolled out phase two on social media the week between Christmas and New Year’s. The fest’s founder John D’Esposito then issued a statement that walked back the headliners comment, saying, “Bamboozle headlines this years festival. The festival will not have high priced headliners, as we brought it back to how it started. It starts with a scene. Warped Tour nor Bamboozle ever relied on a headliner, the headliners will rely and want to be part of Bamboozle!” And with that, the full lineup is here, and it’s… interesting.
Because they revealed the festival’s return with a nostalgic mock Myspace page and the slogan “the awakening of an emo revolution,” you might’ve thought they were hopping on the same emo nostalgia train as festivals like When We Were Young and Emo’s Not Dead, but Bamboozle hasn’t been a strictly emo/punk festival in a while (big names at the last two editions included Bon Jovi, Foo Fighters, Incubus, Motley Crue, Mac Miller, Lil Wayne, and Wiz Khalifa), and this new lineup is similarly all over the place.
As for the “emo nostalgia” that it does have: Saves The Day (performing In Reverie for its 20th anniversary), Say Anything, Saosin, Finch, I Set My Friends On Fire, Mayday Parade, The Spill Canvas, Boys Like Girls, Valencia, and We The Kings mostly fit that description. There’s also nu metal nostalgia (Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, and Flyleaf, who are back with original vocalist Lacey Sturm), a handful of cool new hardcore and post-hardcore bands (Scowl, End It, Mindforce, The Callous Daoboys, Kaonashi), some good hip hop (Joey Bada$$, Rick Ross, Ice Spice, BabyTron, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Ski Mask The Slump God, Trippie Redd), some deathcore (Chelsea Grin, Carnifex), some huge mall-metalcore bands (Motionless In White, Bad Omens), and other things like superstar DJ Steve Aoki, rapcore vets E.Town Concrete, sad clown belter Puddles Pity Party, punk-rapper DE’WAYNE, and more, and there are still a few more artists TBA.
The fest goes down May 5-7 in Atlantic City. Tickets to Bamboozle go on sale Friday (1/27) at noon. Full lineup and poster below.
Bamboozle — 2023 Lineup
A Boogie Wit da Hoodie
Alex Sampson
Attila
BabyTron
Bad Omens
Blackbear
Boys Like Girls
Cane Hill
Carnifex
Chelsea Grin
DE’WAYNE
Diablo
E-Town Concrete
Ellise
End It
Finch
Flyleaf w/Lacey Sturm
Freddie Dredd
Gideon
Gridiron
Hollywood Undead
I Set My Friends On Fire
Ice Spice
Jax
Joey Bada$$
Kaonashi
Kayzo
Killboy
Left To Suffer
Limp Bizkit
Mayday Parade
Mindforce
Motionless In White
Oz Pearlman
Palisades
Papa Roach
Pardyalone
Poorstacy
Puddles Pity Party
Rick Ross
Saosin
Saves The Day
Say Anything
Scowl
Shallow Pools
Ski Mask The Slump God
Steve Aoki
Sueco
Tallah
Teddy Swims
The Callous Daoboys
The Driver Era
The Garden
The Spill Canvas
The Wrecks
Trippie Redd
Valencia
We The Kings
WHOKILLEDXIX
Yung Gravy