2019 marked a key moment in the thirteen year history of Slam Dunk Festival Leeds. Long has this popular pop-punk one-dayer being confined to the constraints of a city centre. Whether it’s a giant pop-up stage in Millenium Square, the labyrinthine rooms of Leeds University campus or venue hopping around the city’s various musical spots, Slam Dunk has predominantly required punters to tread concrete to see their favourite acts perform. All that changed this year as the team behind this increasingly popular alt-rock celebration transported the entire Slam Dunk experience to Temple Newsam Park, one-time home of Northern fest-giant, Leeds Festival. The location change carried with it a host of pros and cons that weren’t immediately apparent until the festival actually arrived. With that in mind, here’s our take aways from Slam Dunk Festival Leeds’ biggest year yet..
Travel
The immediate problem with moving Slam Dunk out of the city centre was always going to be travel. As Slam Dunk grew, the festival team had perfected a pretty seamless system for getting fans into the event with minimal wait time – but that was when stages were just a stone’s throw from Leeds’ train station. Cut to 2019 and the venue itself is a twenty-five minute drive away – without traffic. Thankfully, the festival had arranged a shuttle bus system for ticket-holders – but the queue to board it spanned a good few blocks. It wasn’t great – especially if the band you were desperate to see were first on the bill. Meanwhile an Uber would set you back around £40 and the better part of a forty-five minutes. Still, it’s important to remember that this is the festival’s first stab at orchestrating an event of this size and teething problems are to be expected. With any luck, they’ll have it nailed by 2020.
Site
Travel issues aside, once you arrived, the newly revamped Slam Dunk Festival got you in and to the bar with minimal fuss. To say that the event has grown in recent years is an understatement – so to see it fit so comfortably in a site the size of Temple Newsam Park is a testament to the passion its growing audience have for the festival. From the expansive main stage and the fest-within-a-fest that is the Punk in Drublic stage, to the dual-sided Jagermeister and Impericon stages and circus tent Key Club Stage – it’s a stark change from the venue-hopping style of previous Slam Dunks, but it undeniably works. The side-by-side Dickies and Marshall Stages somehow manage to capture the intimacy found in the festival’s city centre predecessors and their alternating line-ups provided more music for your money. If you can forgo cellular data droughts, intermittent card payments and some mid-afternoon showers, there was little not to like.
Music
It’s the reason we all came and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Slam Dunk line-ups have always managed to hit a sweet spot for fans of the genre and this year’s was no exception. While you could have happily spent your day down at Fat Mike’s Punk in Drublic stage, oblivious to anything else going on around you, the rest of the fest was alive with sets from the likes of Tiny Moving Parts, Real Friends, Microwave and Milk Teeth, just to name a few. Main stage performers Boston Manor managed to pull an enviable crowd, as did Brit pop-punkers Neck Deep, who surely held the record for most popular band tee shirt of the day among attendees. Those hiding from the rain in The Key Club Stage were treated to a surprise performance from Busted (AKA Y3K) while Pennsylvania’s The Menzingers saw off the last of the mid-afternoon drizzle over on the Marshall stage. All Time Low provided an inclusive headlining slot at the festival’s Monster Energy main hub, sharing the crowd with punk legends NOFX who reminded us why they’re deserving of their very own stage. All in all, another jam-packed year of pop-punk goodness.
Words by Simon Bland. (@SiTweetsToo)
