This years Slam Dunk see’s hordes of new and returning acts, picking out the artists to watch is a task and obviously every band are ones to watch, however, there isn’t enough time in the day and as with all festivals, there are bound to be clashes so we’ve come up with some of our main ones we think you should go and see
Madina Lake’s reformation and first performances in the UK since the reformation, Enter Shikari’s headline set, the pop-punk kings of the old generation Bowling For Soup are definitely acts you should be going over to the stages to see.
WE ARE THE OCEAN
Sadly, this year’s Slam Dunk festival will see We Are The Ocean take to the main stage for their last ever performance before parting ways. Although the band have pulled out of the Hatfield date, those of you attending the North and The Midlands dates are in for a treat; as the band have said ‘this is one last chance to celebrate the past, the present and the future’. So, if you want to scream your lungs out to songs from Cutting Our Teeth, Go Now And Live, Maybe Today, Maybe Tomorrow, Ark and the Self-Titled EP one last time and celebrate their farewell you know where you need to be.
VUKOVI
This year’s line-up is full of pop-rock heavyweights and it’d be easy to forget about the exciting new acts gracing the smaller stages around the venue and one of those being Vukovi. Who have made themselves unavoidable after dropping their riotous debut album earlier this year!. The Glasgow bunch have been making quite a racket on and off the record. Armed with their heavy riffs, super-charged tempo and front woman Janine Shilstone’s sizzling vocals, the four-piece have been tearing up the UK’s live scene, setting a precedent for their first ever Slam Dunk set so make sure you’re there to witness it.
DEAF HAVANA
Deaf Havana have had it rough in the last few years. In the wake of their Old Souls record, the band were dropped from their record label, fell into debt, and even fell out of love with their craft.
Miraculously, the band have made their return with an momentous new album, All These Countless Nights, which was unveiled earlier this year. If their recent headline shows across the UK are anything to go by its proved the band have found a new lease of life both in their material, and in their live show.
V Festival have annouced their two headlinders for this years festival and its none other then P!nk and JAY Z along with a storm of other artists to grace the festival over the weekend.
Tickets on sale 9:00am Friday at vfestival.com and all other information regarding Tickets can be found below.
Slam Dunk Festival line up is starting to fill up with even more acts annouced…..Now where do we start?!!
Firstly We Are The Ocean who haved been playing the festival more times than anyone else, will say their goodbyes as they will be making these SDF dates their final ever shows.
Slam Dunk Festival have alredy annouced thier headliner this year will be Enter Shikari, but who else will be joining the festival this year?
The first set of bands have been annouced, First up, Bedford Rockers DON BROCO, who will be making it their only UK festival of 2016. Now if you remeber back in 2011 SDF brought you the first UK Less Than Jake and Reel Big Fish double bill. Well they're doing that again, and on top of of that making their Slam Dunk debut will be the Texas Rockers Bowling For Soup it's going to be one hell of a party!
Slam Dunk Festival announce thier headliner for 2017; Enter Shikari will be headliner at the festival with an exclusive celebration of 10 years since the release of their groundbreaking debut album "Take To The Skies".
Tickets now on sale so make sure you grab yours. Ticket links will be listed at www.slamdunkmusic.com
On 29th May the Genting Arena in Birmingham opened up the doors for Slam Dunk Festival. Each year the SDF team promises to make the event bigger and better than before and with the Midlands venue being shifted from Wolverhampton Civic Halls following their refurbishment, to the far larger Genting Arena it’s set to be bigger and better for their 10th Anniversary.
Initially, when entering the main arena it is jam-packed full of fans, various traders, band merchandise stalls and eateries. Once you finally managed to gather your bearings, there’s lots of talent on offer across the eight stages.
Early starters Coldrain were set to take to the stage at 1:20pm but after waiting around it was announced that they wouldn’t be performing due to technical issues beyond their control so they had to cancel their performance and quite a crowd had gather to watch the band open up the Atlas stage.
Next up on the Atlas stage were the boys in The Word Alive
Set list: Dreamer Face To Face Made This Way Lighthouse Grunge Trapped Life Cycles
Then it was a mad dash over to the Main Stage for Young Guns lucky enough I made it with five minutes to spare before they took to the stage. They kicked things off with “ Daughter Of The Sea” followed by “Speaking In Tongues” which had the arena in one massive sing-a-long. Their set was full of high energy and you could see why they were part of the main stage bill.
Set list: Daughter Of The Sea Speaking In Tongues Bulletproof Rising Up Winter Kiss Brother In Arms Bones I Want Out
Next were indie rockers Mayday Parade, their set offered uplifting speeches and infectious energy contrasting with the songs we all had featured on our MySpace pages back in the day. The band set nostalgic memories across the room as the fans dance and sang along to every word.
Set list:
One Of Them Will Destroy The Other Jamie All Over When You See My Friends Keep In Mind, Transmogrification Is A New Technology Three Cheers For Five Years Hallow Oh Well, Oh Well Black Cat Jersey
We Came As Romans came out strong on to the Atlas stage with heavy riffs and even seen Kyle Pavone get in with the crowd to mix things up abit. Once again another mad dash over to The Key Club Stage to see As It Is. I’ve seen this band previously and they never fail to put on a good performance with high energy and antics. The room was full and so was the photo pit, it was all very tight squeeze. From the word GO! The room was bouncing and people were crowd surfing their little pop-punk hearts out, we even got to see Alex Costello of Roam join the lads on stage for “Cheap Shots & Set Backs”.
Set list:
Concrete Cheap Shots & Set Backs (with Alex Costello of Roam) Can’t Save Myself Horoscopes Silence (Pretending’s So Comfortable) Winter’s Weather Speak Soft Sorry Dial Tones
Another nostalgic moment was up next on the Main Stage with Yellowcard playing their album Ocean Avenue in full but not with minor set backs with equipment not working, it seemed a few bands were having technical difficulties over the weekend but lucky enough stand in drummer Rib Chianelli from We Are The In Crowd managed to fix the issue and get the show on the road with the crowd erupting from start to finish while the band bounces from side to side like ping pong balls on stage.
The Amity Affliction
Set list: I Bring The Weather With Me (Live Debut) Open Letter Lost & Fading The Weigh Down Death’s Hand Pittsburgh Don’t Lean On Me
Mallory Knox never seen to disappoint their fans. The stage lighting was dark tonal shades of blue and green, highlighted with the well know MK logo creating atmospheric silhouettes.
Set list:
Beggars Wolves Wake Up Hello 1949 Ghost In The Mirror Death Rattle Creeper / Oceans Lighthouse
New Found Glory were set to take to the main stage next and I’ve got to say no matter what venue they play they always get the crowd hyped up with there influential back catalogue showcasing that Pop-Punk is not dead.
Set list:
Hit Or Miss Understatement Selfless All Downhill from here Truth Of My Youth Resurrection Listen To Your Friends Ready, Aim, Fire! Ready & Willing Kiss Me (cover) Situations Dressed To Kill Vicious Love The Promise – (requested by a fan) Forget My Name Head On Collision Sonny My Friend’s Over You
Finally the one of the main bands people were waiting to see where finally about to take to the stage. Panic! At The Disco for me stole the show, being easily the best of the night. You wouldn’t of thought that the band had already played a show earlier that day in Exeter with the amount of energy and showmanship on display even though Brendan announced to the room he was “totally fucked” before lying down on the floor. Urie is one of the world’s true showmen as he changes his attitude, persona throughout the set to fit the tracks he’s playing. He also showed off his vocal range and high-notes with a mind-blowing cover of Bohemian Rhapsody and fire erupts from cannons and a confetti explosion ends the event in style.
All American Rejects set the fans in to a world wind of cheers, screams as they hit the main stage in the civic hall yesterday. They came out playing all the classics like, Dirty Little Secret, Move Along and Gives you hell. Tyson Ritter had such a stage presence, throughout the whole set keeping banter with the fans and even taking a trip into the crowd when he got down off the stage and walked around the barrier into the screaming fans while still singing away.
Gracing the Main stage as well was pop rockers We Are The In Crowd, I was really psyched to see this band after hearing good reviews before hand and the build up various publications were producing, but I couldn’t help notice that Tay Jardine voice sounded a bit “Horse” and after speaking to a few fans they thought the same. That aside they had a good set that got fans singing along.
Here’s what some fans had to say.
Steve Brand Said: I enjoyed seeing We Are In The Crowd, Downside for me was that the stage lighting was crap, It was mainly shining it into the crowd which really ruined the view because you could barley see.
Viktoria Kohajdova: The festival has been fun and I loved seeing We The Kings and The All American Rejects overall I really enjoyed them the most. I got to go to a few signings too, but it was a shame that we the kings didn't do one but I did get to meet Tyson Ritter from TAAR and that really made my day.
The Monster stage had a lot happening and it was definitely the place to be with some killer bands they had performing on it.
Headlining band Bury Tomorrow came out to the stage with a huge amount of fans waiting for them. They played there newest track Man On Fire off the new album RUNES which dropped that day, they played plenty of older tracks including scepters which set the fans surfing and even had a couple of fans climbing up a tree and hanging off it screaming lyrics back at the band.
Also on the Monster stage were I Killed The Prom Queen they came out with big choruses and even bigger breakdowns, playing a mixture of old school tracks as well as new material from beloved. The Devil Wears Prada blew me away with the sheer number of people that had turned up to see them play. The band’s set was tight with elegant clean vocals and guitar parts blending together with the aggressive vocals.
Over at the UPRAWR DJ stage MC Lars was ready and waiting for Chunk! No Captain Chunk to finish their set on the Monster stage. While waiting a good size crowd started to grow turning up in merchandise, you could tell these were big fans of his work. As soon as Chunk! No Captain Chunk finished seamlessly MC Lars started his set playing tracks, Download This Song, Space Game. The crowd grew and everyone starting to dance and really vibe off the set, he was definitely one of my favorites of the night.
Before finishing up I spoke to one last visitor to the festival who had this say.
Amanda Fry: This was my first time at Slam Dunk and it was great, I'm already contemplating for next years line up". I enjoyed seeing We The kings, We Are The In Crowd and All American rejects. I didn’t like that Roaring S#!T.
Just when we thought all the artists and guests had been annouced Slam Dunk knock out other surprise with Sean Smith from The Blackout who will be making an appearance as a guest DJ and the main stage compere!
Slam Dunk have also announced their annual T-shirt design competition. Basically, you could be in the running of designing the official shirt that will be sold across this year’s festivals! Not only will you get your design idea produced, but the winner will also bag 4 tickets to the festival of their choice! So why not give it a try get your creative juices flowing and get designing! More details can be found on the poster below:
So Slam Dunk Festival kicks off in a couple of weeks starting at Leeds university then onto Hertfordshire and Wolverhampton but who should you check out while your there, Well……………..
This year’s headliner is The All American Rejects and Slam Dunk will be their only UK performances of 2014, No doubt they will be playing hits from their four albums, including ‘Dirty Little Secret’, ‘Gives You Hell’, ‘Swing Swing’ ‘ Move Along’ and more. So while they’re across the pond make sure you get yourself to the main stage to check out the Alt Rockers.
For the first time the Aussie boys in, I Killed The Prom Queen will be tearing up the stage at Slam Dunk Festival. A few months back they released new album " Beloved " which is full of heavy hitting tracks as you would expect and there is a good chance they will be playing " Thirty One & Sevens ", To The Wolves" and not forgetting older tracks like " Memento Vivere", " Sharks In Your Mouth " for all you metalcore fans out there. Plus IKTPQ have said that “ we will be seeing more of them in 2014 “.
Plus this year will see the return of Jason Butler (Letlive). Whose live shows are always full of energy and surprises. Jason Butler, The singer of Letlive made a surprise visit to Slam Dunk in 2013 by performing with Pierce The Veil, and he must of had such a good time, he's bringing his own band back. These are defiantly worth checking out with such energy and interaction with the fans it’s one band not to be missed.
Also it will also see the return of the Southampton boys, Bury Tomorrow, whose brand new album RUNES will be release on the day of Slam Dunk Midlands. That in mind will the boys play any new material to there anticipating fans. Already fans have heard their first released track “ Man On Fire “ off the new album but will they give us any more new material? Only way to find out is by making sure you check this band out on the day.
Finally last but no means less, We Are The In Crowd are set to be one of the favorites of the weekend with Taylor Jardine recently taking over @SlamDunkMusic twitter account! To answer all of your questions, to go back and see what was asked search #SDF14! On twitter.
The dates for Slam Dunk are listed below, and tickets are still available HERE
