If there’s one thing that I’ve discovered over my years as a music critic, it’s that every festival has its own personality.
Some festivals are painfully cool, some feel like networking events with guitar riffs on either side, and some are so big and overwhelming that you spend half a day walking between stages, wondering why you aren’t being paid for this extreme amount of cardio.
But Slam Dunk isn’t any of those. Slam Dunk is one of the few where its personality shines through as clearly as the sun on a hot spring day. You feel it from the moment you walk onto the grounds: the smell of fried food drifting from food trucks, far-off shouts of reunion, and explosions of laughter floating over from groups sprawled on worn-out picnic blankets. The festival fields are dotted with old vans and foldout chairs, people circling maps and swapping sunscreen, sneakers already dusted white from trampled grass. Slam Dunk is a family gathering in Vans, and as we get older, we lean towards the more… comfortable Vans.
It’s the kind of festival where you see someone you haven’t seen since the last Slam Dunk chugging beer while crowd surfing at 12 pm, someone else you met three Slam Dunks ago crying to the anniversary of an album that meant everything to them in their teens and still has that hold over them, and a group of 30-somethings debating which band actually defined their teens and twenties as if it were a historical conversation at Cambridge.
Honestly, that’s why I love Slam Dunk. It feels like home, probably helps that the group I’m with has managed to become my home away from home.
This year marks twenty years of Slam Dunk, which feels somewhat surreal for a festival that still runs on the same energy it did when it started in Leeds in 2006. The scale has grown (Hatfield is huge compared to the early days), but the spirit is still very much the same: guitars, nostalgia, and crowds who treat sing-alongs like a competitive sport. Slam Dunk’s twentieth anniversary feels especially significant at a time when the entire pop-punk scene is having a resurgence. Across the UK and the US, old-school emo and pop-punk festivals like When We Were Young and Emo Nite are selling out fast and drawing huge crowds back to bands from the 2000s. Among these now-legendary lineups, Slam Dunk is recognized as one of the few UK festivals that never lost its identity and has actually grown stronger with every burst of nostalgia. What started in a Leeds club two decades ago is now part of something much bigger, with Slam Dunk still right at the heart of it.
So, when Slam Dunk rolls around every year, there are a few things I know I’m always going to look forward to.
THE EARLY ARRIVALS AND THE COMMITTED FEW
Slam Dunk never really begins gently. The gates open, people are still orienting themselves, and before you’ve even figured out which direction the stages are in, guitars are already cutting through the early air.
Bands like Trash Boat, who are confirmed to be playing an anniversary show for Nothing I Write You Can Change What You’ve Been Through, are on my short list of possible openers for this year’s Slam Dunk, along with Youth Fountain. (As of now, set times haven’t been released, so this is my best guess based on past years and the announcements so far.) And as one of those that DGAF about sleep or time in general, if Trash Boat does happen to open the day, you can put money on me being there, coffee in hand, lyrics memorized, and singing loudly. Your girl’s got to keep her singing voice for the next 12 hours.
Sunblock on, beverage in hand, stretched out — I turn 34 this year, let’s be real. But I’m there.
LOST SIGNAL AND SCENE HISTORIANS
By the time the first bands finish their sets, the field shifts fast: the queue at the food stalls triples in minutes, the cluster at the main merch tent spills out towards the fence, and the queues for the signing tents are longer than the ones for the toilets. Suddenly, you find yourself spotting more band shirts in the crowd. You start bumping into people you only ever seem to see at Slam Dunk, either lingering at the toilet queues or gathering in the bar.
Cartel performing Chroma in full is one of those moments that I’m predicting now will unlock something in the audience. Chroma carries a beautiful kind of nostalgia, and I’m excited to see how they’ll fit into the release schedule when it’s released.
Origami Angel is also performing at Slam Dunk (fucking pinch me), and this might be one of the sets I am most excited about. Their 2024 album, Feeling Not Found, is all killer, and the same goes for their earlier releases, too. I’m really curious to see which songs they’ll choose for their set.
LET’S GO
Sometimes I wonder if, by trying to catch every moment and skip between every stage, I’m pushing myself too thin to actually feel anything deeply. Is there a point where you stop being present in the pleasure and just become a spectator in your own nostalgia? Maybe. But maybe that’s what makes it fun—the uncertainty, the constant chase to soak it all in.
At some point in the afternoon, the entire mood of Slam Dunk always changes. You can feel it coming before it even happens, the crowd shifts a little closer to the stage. Conversations fade out. Someone somewhere tests the pit’s boundaries to see if it will open.
Then the heavier guitars arrive.
And here’s where Dying Wish will fit in. Now, I have never witnessed them live, but I have people in my life who have, and they have said amazing things about their live performances. So I might try to check out a few songs to get a feel for them.
Perhaps not long after, Dashboard Confessional will almost certainly turn the entire field into a giant sing-along.
Chris Carrabba has that rare ability to make thousands of people feel like they’re sharing something personal. His songs don’t need massive spectacle. They need a crowd that remembers the words. And judging by how many people my age still has Dashboard lyrics permanently embedded in their brains, that part won’t be an issue.
After a quick lunch break, that’s when Slam Dunk really thrives. The crowd is thicker, the queues are longer, and the sun usually sits a little higher overhead while every stage seems to be running at full volume.
At some point, Boston Manor will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of their album Be Nothing. And the last time I saw Boston Manor at Slam Dunk, in ’23, they played late afternoon — around 4 pm. So, I’m sticking with a late-afternoon slot for them again.
Is Angel Du$t a late-afternoon band? Are they an evening band? I wouldn’t know — but I will after Slam Dunk and report back. The reason I’m fixated on their time slot is that timing really shapes the crowd vibe. Put them on just before sunset, and you might get a warm melodic sing-along; put them on later, and the energy could tip the crowd toward full pit chaos. Their music sits somewhere between hardcore energy and melody, which means the audience rarely agrees on one behavior. There’ll be people flying across the pit, and people at the back — likely me — just nodding along.
BUT let’s not forget Set Your Goals.
Now it’s time to fuck around and find out exactly what that band can do.
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN WANDERING AND DISCOVERING
While I do show up with a plan — because your girl needs things in her boxes or I feel completely lost — there are always a few hours where nothing is set in stone.
That’s when I wander. Sometimes friends are like, “let’s go see this band you’ve never heard of,” and I’m like… haha, okay. And it usually works out. Sometimes those accidental detours turn out to be the best part of the day.
If you want a tip from someone who’s learned to love being a little lost, try purposely blocking off an hour with nothing scheduled. Just drift. Follow the loudest cheer. Check out a band name you don’t recognize. Every year, those off-the-cuff moments give me my best memories — and usually introduce me to a new favorite band or a ridiculous story to tell later.
That’s where bands like Deaf Havana, Stand Atlantic, and Guilt Trip might sneak up on me.
Deaf Havana, I’ve never seen. But I like their music enough that I’ll probably wander over for a few songs and see how their set lands.
Stand Atlantic, on the other hand, I’ve seen once before — in Hamburg in 2024 with Honey Revenge and Slowly Slowly supporting — and that show was ridiculously fun. If they bring even half that restless pop-punk energy to Slam Dunk, the crowd will slowly creep closer to the stage without even realising it.
Then there’s Guilt Trip.
I’ve seen them twice already — first supporting LANDMVRKS at Pumpehuset in 2024, and then two weeks later when they made their Slam Dunk debut that same year. Both times, the feeling was intense in the best possible way. Their kind of hardcore wakes a crowd up instantly. One minute, people are watching politely; the next, the pit opens and the entire field shifts gears.
I fucking love that band, so that one is a must.
THE SETS I’M ALREADY EXPLORING
When the sun starts to dip, the energy in the crowd gets heavier — in a good way.
Saosin: post-hardcore pioneers turned cult heroes. Yes, I’m calling them a legacy act. I said what I said. Their influence runs deep, and seeing them on this lineup feels like one of those moments when the scene’s past and present collide.
If you’re into it, The Home Team could be the band that keeps people moving as the sun lowers. With their catchy songs, they feel like a perfect “keep the party going” act.
PUNK SONGS FOR PEOPLE WHO MADE IT OUT OF THEIR TWENTIES
My one wish — well, one of the three I normally have for Slam Dunk — is that The Menzingers get a late slot.
I love The Menzingers. They obviously love me too — it’s a very mutual relationship. But I need to see them live as the sun goes down.
I saw them in 2023, and something about that set rewired my brain slightly. Their songs land differently once you’ve made it out of your twenties and realized life is messier than you expected.
My next wish is that Motion City Soundtrack doesn’t clash with them.
Because that would stress me the fuck out.
I’ve loved Motion City Soundtrack for twenty years. A school friend once came over with a mixtape that included “Perfect Teeth,” and from that moment on, the band quietly stayed in my life.
Not dramatically. Just in that subtle way, certain songs refuse to leave.
So yes — please do not make me choose between those two sets. I am emotionally unequipped for that decision.
WHEN NOSTALGIA GETS LOUD
Once the evening settles in, Slam Dunk leans fully into its nostalgic heart.
Enter Taking Back Sunday, celebrating twenty years of Louder Now.
I personally refuse to believe that album is twenty years old. That feels like a personal attack on my sense of time. But Taking Back Sunday have always understood something important about festivals like this: subtlety is unnecessary.
LET’S OPEN THE FUCKING PIT
Of course, Slam Dunk wouldn’t be Slam Dunk without the heavier side reminding everyone that this scene still knows how to throw down.
I saw Knocked Loose at Roskilde Festival in 2025 and remember thinking, very clearly, that maybe my dentist shouldn’t have removed my plastic braces after my infamous 2024 Slam Dunk fall. Because if Knocked Loose shows up the way they usually do, things are going to get wild.
THE POP-PUNK COUSINS RETURN
If Slam Dunk is a family gathering, then Good Charlotte are the cousins who show up every few years and immediately take over the party.
They famously headlined in 2018, and their return for the twentieth anniversary feels like the right kind of full circle.
The Young and the Hopeless was one of those records that followed people everywhere. Burned CDs, battered iPods, playlists guarded like personal manifestos.
Standing in a Slam Dunk crowd, I already know how this plays out.
The opening chords hit.
Someone shouts the lyrics too early.
Then suddenly, the entire field remembers every word.
For three minutes, nobody pretends they’ve outgrown the music that raised them.
Honestly, that’s the part of Slam Dunk that keeps pulling me back every year.
Not just the bands or the anniversaries. It’s the strange little ecosystem the festival has built over twenty years — where people grow up, get older, buy slightly better shoes… and still show up ready to scream along like they’re sixteen again.
By the time the last guitars fade out across Hatfield, my voice will be gone, my phone battery will be hanging on for dear life, and I’ll already be replaying half the sets in my head.
And knowing Slam Dunk, I’ll probably run into someone I haven’t seen since the last one.
We’ll hug, laugh, complain about our knees, and start arguing about which band actually stole the weekend.
Because that’s Slam Dunk for you.