Every Summer, Forever: the tagline that adorned wristbands at this year’s Slam Dunk Festival.
It’s a promise that no doubt many a music fan will hope is kept, particularly after the uncertainty of the last couple of years.
Slam Dunk 2023 hosted a bumper line-up of bands across genres such as pop-punk, ska, metalcore, and more. Taking place across two sites on the late May Bank Holiday weekend, the haven-of-alternative festival sold out on both days, making fans more desperate for re-sale tickets than ever before.
We headed to Hatfield, Herts, on Saturday, May 27, for the South edition of the festival, on a record-high temperature for the year so far. The first stop of the day was the Dickies Stage to see Millie Manders & The Shutup, whose riotous brand of punk did the trick of waking up all the early birds. Manders possesses an incredible vocal range, and she showed it to the growing crowd before her.
Next on the agenda was Girlfriends, a pop-punk band with a previous life—lead singer Travis Mills, formerly known as the rapper T. Mills, is now cutting his teeth in the alternative scene. The pathway from rap to pop-punk seems to be one often traveled lately, and the output transcends both genres to create something entirely new. Girlfriends are a great example of this, and their set at Slam Dunk proved their worth tenfold. Their infectiously fun stage presence combined with their veteran chops was a match made in heaven over on the right side of the Key Club Stage.
It was then over to the left side for Emarosa, a seasoned rock band hailing from the United States. Their proficiency was evident throughout their short set, and they got the crowd moving with their cover of ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),’ an excellent choice to match the summer sunshine overhead.
Lolo followed back on the right side of the stage, bringing girl power into the equation with her pop-tinged rock hits, effortless style, and commanding stage presence. This year’s Slam Dunk had a notable amount of female artists, something that a lot of the major festivals fail to achieve, so it was refreshing to see such a stark change—Lolo, for example, was then followed immediately by Scene Queen, who has made a name for herself with her self-coined ‘Bimbocore’ style. The metalcore subgenre that features feminist themes has seen tracks such as ’18+’ skyrocket to fame in the scene, which revealed itself in the number of people singing along during her set.
Philadelphia’s Grayscale had long since graced stages in the UK before their Slam Dunk performances (and the The Band CAMINO tour on either side of them)—their last scheduled UK tour was canceled due to the pandemic. Their fans came out in droves to show that they missed them; the piercing screams when lead singer Collin Walsh hit the stage only drove home the fact. The material in Grayscale’s set predominantly came from their latest album, 2020’s UMBRA, but the audience was also treated to some old gems such as ‘Atlantic.’
Back over on the Dickies stage, it was time for Flogging Molly, the iconic Celtic punk band famous for tracks such as ‘Drunken Lullabies,’ which, of course, was a feature of focus in their set. Their high energy, maximum impact performance had the crowd doing the most, from screaming along lyrics to frantically dancing and working up a sweat in the blaring sun. It was a stark contrast from The Academy Is…, who followed soon after in the Kerrang! tent for one of their first UK shows since reuniting but ultimately offered quite a lackluster performance.
The Maine always put on a good show, and their set at Slam Dunk was no exception. John O’Callaghan has fine-tuned what it means to be a frontman, giving the crowd exactly what they want even if they don’t know they want it.
Remember when Yellowcard broke up? Apparently, it didn’t stick, as we were pleasantly surprised to stumble across them playing in the Kerrang! tent. Our view wasn’t brilliant—we were outside the tent itself due to crowding—but the band played several classics that had everyone singing along. It was a gratifying trip down memory lane, a certain calm (sort of) before the storm of the headliners…
Enter Shikari or The Offspring? What a decision! We decided to go with the latter, as Enter Shikari are often on the festival circuit, and The Offspring was a first for us personally. Nostalgia was vital with the punk rock titans’ set, with several songs coming from their 1994 album Smash, including fan favorite ‘Come Out and Play.’
The large crowd gathered for The Offspring’s set was eclectic, with no doubt some just present in the hopes of hearing ‘Pretty Fly (For A White Guy),’ the song that shot the band to commercial fame in the late ’90s. Regardless, the support felt by the band was evident to everyone in the audience. This just aided in making the set the ultimate success, with the stage presence of the 39-year-strong band being something that merits a mention. Besides having a molecular biology Ph.D. (no, for real), lead singer Bryan’ Dexter’ Holland also knows a thing or two about commanding a crowd.
The Offspring’s encore comprised another famous track of theirs, ‘You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid,’ and Smash‘s second single, ‘Self Esteem.’ It was the perfect way to bring the evening to a close, but the cherry on top of the icing was the outro of Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’ as the band left the stage and festival goers were left to find their way out of the busy park. What a nightmare that was!