Slam Dunk South festival review: Fantastic celebration of emo, pop-punk and alternative music

One of the few disappointments is a lack of diversity, with a lineup comprised mostly of white, male acts

(EPA)

​When you think pop-punk, emo and alternative rock festivals - you’d probably think Reading and Leeds, however it’s Slam Dunk, which also shares the same genre USP, that is quietly overtaking the former's reputation for curating such lineups.

Taking the very best of the genre (Taking Back Sunday, Jimmy Eat World, Every Time I Die and many more) and a new, much bigger site in Hatfield, Slam Dunk South was a welcome throwback to angst-ridden nostalgia and a good old emo singalong – cue the eye-liner, chequered vans and Avenged Sevenfold hoodies. Jimmy Eat World frontman Jim Adkins puts it poignantly “It’s (Slam Dunk) a little narrower in scope with a lot of rock and punk, it’s not trying to be everything, and that’s what makes it so cool.”

Australian emo rockers The Faim kicked off proceedings with an emphatic performance pairing insatiable guitar riffs and drawn out, emotive vocals harking back to emo of old. Fairly new on the scene, they are fast becoming part of the emo revival that is threatening to make waves.

Having recently signed with BMG Music working with John Feldmann, who has previously worked with genre favourites the likes of Blink-182, All Time Low and The Used, the band are well-placed to go far. From the new to the old, post-punk veterans Say Anything took festival revellers down memory lane with a nostalgia filled set including favourite “Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too” whilst newly reformed The Audition didn’t miss a beat, giving fans something to look forward to.

It wasn’t all punk-pop and emo however: Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes provided a welcome break from the angst with a loud, brash and full on rock performance that left heads and ears ringing. Dressed in nothing but his tattoos and a pair of orange shorts, the ever enigmatic, former Gallows frontman Frank Carter had the crowd in the palm of his hand; directing giant circle pits, orchestrating female only crowd-surfing and leading chants to choruses on “Devil Inside Of Me” and “I Hate You”.

Long Island natives and stalwarts of the emo scene Taking Back Sunday made their welcome return to the UK festival scene, frontman Adam Lazzara said: “Here you have the festivals figured out much more than they do in the US!"

Knowing full well their status as one of the ‘old timers’ of the genre, he also jokingly acknowledged the age of some of their tracks throughout the set – debut album Tell All Your Friends was released in 2002 after all, and explaining the key to their longevity, Lazzara quipped: “We’re just real stubborn and we don’t know how to do anything else... we don’t have a plan B.”

The passion Taking Back Sunday evoked from their fans was almost tangible as the band stormed through a set including (arguably the biggest emo song of all time) “Cute Without the E” before closing with the as equally heralded “MakeDamnSure”.

Clashes are part and parcel of the festival season and Slam Dunk was no different, as American heavyweights Good Charlotte and Jimmy Eat World went head to head, but an almost 50/50 split of the crowd meant that both bands had decent sized audiences to play to.

Good Charlotte launched their set with an explosion of streamers before jumping straight into “The Anthem”, while Jimmy Eat World closed the festival with an electric performance of songs old and new. Pathetic fallacy was poetically at play as a lightning storm thundered on in the background, particularly poignant during the brands rendition of the atmospheric, heavily instrumental “23”, before the band closed the set with emo anthem, “The Middle”.

Slam Dunk has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a club night in Leeds, with three sites across the UK and an increasingly bigger line-up each year it’s well on its way to rivalling the more established Reading and Leeds festivals. However, there’s still some way to go in establishing itself as one of the major festivals on the circuit, detractions namely the lack of diversity - the line-up was almost exclusively white and male – still need to be tackled.