FESTIVAL REVIEW: Slam Dunk Festival 2018 – South

Slam Dunk Festival – South. The weather was good (at least to begin with), the spirits were high and most people were arriving at the new Hatfield site with a certain excitement at the unknown. Previously, the southern date for  Slam Dunk Festival had been held at the Hatfield campus of The University of Hertfordshire and the associated Forum venue; this year things had changed. The entire festival was moved to Hatfield Park, a vast field of green that made the relatively small festival feel more like Download or Warped Tour. As soon as the gates opened, people flooded to their respective first stages. We headed to the Impericon Stage…

Opening the Impericon Stage were LOATHE (7), the seemingly unstoppable experimental metalcore machine that bring out the spin-kicks and huge moshes from the outset. The tent is busy and unsurprisingly so, LOATHE’s debut LP The Cold Sun is still propelling them to new highs; see them at Download festival on The Dogtooth stage.

The Rock Sound Breakout Stage was now graced by HOLDING ABSENCE (8). The tent is packed – for a band STILL yet to release a full length album, the turnout is impressive. The band are able to fit their whole back catalogue into their set which isn’t altogether a bad thing, it results in nearly every word being sang back to Lucas from the front rows. Energy abounds – their upcoming album will send them places, it’s evident.

Retiring from the Rock Sound Breakout Stage we find our way back to the Impericon Stage to find Louis Gauthier of BRUTALITY WILL PREVAIL (6) being carried through the crowd. Absolute scenes.

A short walk around the festival lands us back at Rock Sound Breakout Stage where DREAM STATE (7) give a performance worthy of a much larger stage. CJ (vocals) also gets her time atop the crowd, singles White Lies and In This Hell are received with an interaction that is a sure sign of things to come.

Meanwhile, ASTROID BOYS (8) tear up the Rock Sound Breakout Stage. The band’s mix of grime and metal results in an eclectic crowd, but one that jumps around all the same. Appearing without vocalist Traxx, the audience picks up the missing parts. For THE FAIM (7), the tent is pretty full – the band are still finding their way but hot off the tail of their recent appearances with LOWER THAN ATLANTIS, plenty of people show up for their wild set.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (7) are Slam Dunk Festival veterans having played the festival multiple times before but they still give their audience the same energy that they have in previous years. Assistant To The Regional Manager has bodies flying and voices screaming, breaking – a cacophony of 00’s metalcore at its nostalgic best.

Over on the main stage, a huge crowd gathers. CREEPER (8) run on and break straight into Black Rain – the crowd explode into a summery dust storm of proper festival goodness. It can be reiterated here that Slam Dunk Festival South, now at this new site, feels HUGE. Open air stages and a clear blue sky – is this truly a UK festival? CREEPER’s set leaves the crowd thoroughly satisfied, emo punk still lives.

Returning once again to the Impericon Stage, the tent is practically full. COUNTERPARTS (7) are an entertaining proposal at 4 in the afternoon. Their angst infused metalcore carries out a competent balancing act between emotive, melodic, nouse and the sort of bludgeoning, metalcore fury that you can expect from the Impericon Stage. It’s an assured, if not inspired, performance from a band that know the ropes by now.

COMEBACK KID (8) are one of the day’s major highlights. Their pacy metallic hardcore goes down a storm with the band’s trademark off-kilter melodic sections constantly maintaining the impact of the head-down sprints through the SLAYER riffs. It’s an assured performance from a veteran band who, quite frankly, show no signs of today being particularly trying. This is just business as usual for COMEBACK KID.

ROAM (7) send out STAND ATLANTIC on inflatables on the Signature Stage whilst Luke Rainsford (7) pulls a significant crowd on the Key Club Acoustic Stage – there’s so much going on at this year’s festival, and it’s all so accessible. In years past there was a good chance you might not be able to see the band you wanted to owing to a stage already being at capacity, no risk of that here yet and all of the stages are at just the right distance from each other to be able to walk from one to another in very little time at all.

It’s over to the Main Stage, then, for FRANK CARTER AND THE RATTLESNAKES (8) who delivers a punk rock set with his usual level of gravitas; swaggering onstage dressed as a prize fighter. As brilliant as songs like Juggernaught, I Hate You and Fangs are, it’s Frank who’s the real star of this show and is going to propel this band onto ever bigger stages. While there’s still an inevitable intensity about Carter’s performance it’s one that transfers to a large audience much better. Even when he’s climbing into the crowd, or inciting circle pits around the sound desk, he’s never sprinting. It’s all done with an inexorable sense of purpose. A sentence that could equally describe THE RATTLESNAKES‘ continued rise to the figureheads of UK rock music.

Frank Carter and Mike Duce both crowd surf as well, it seems this year’s Slam Dunk Festival is the year of the surf – what’s perhaps more surprising is the small-ish crowd for the short resurrection of ME VS HERO (8). For an occasion such as this we’d expected the crowd to be like sardines, alas it peters out before the sound desk. Nevertheless, ME VS HERO deliver to those that knew what they came to see, a band that haven’t played together for years bringing back memories of pop-punk days past. Over on the Fireball Stage, things are a little more subdued with the ska and reggae vibes from REEL BIG FISH (8) providing some respite from the jumping and moshing.

PVRIS on Main Stage, NORTHLANE on Impericon and AS IT IS on Signature, there’s simply too much good music on at the same time, if only we could be in multiple places at once, eh? We settle for NORTHLANE (7) who put in an assured performance. New(er) songs from latest album Mesmer have really rounded out the live set. Vocalist, Marcus Bridge, has really grown into the role over the past few years and is the natural focal point of the performance now. There’s a very slight mid-set lull after the highlight of Heartmachine but this is quickly rectified with an absolutely ferocious rendition of Citizen.

EVERY TIME I DIE (9) round out Slam Dunk Festival on the Impericon Stage as a (predictable) highlight. Combining the best parts of COMEBACK KID’s pace (with an added dose of ferocity) with FRANK CARTER’s sheer gravitas it’s a set that doesn’t dip. For a second. Keith Buckley is the frantic ringleader inciting the circle pit into ever more wanton acts of destruction while sibling Jordan Buckley is a constant blur of movement. Andy Williams acts as the solid centre for the band around which the various arms of destruction rotate. An early showing for Underwater Bimbo’s sees the circlepit matching the sheer insanity of the band onstage while a closing Map Change even sees one fan scaling a pillar of the Impericon tent while Jordan Buckley aims the closing bars of the songs at him. It’s the sort of performance that would be a highlight for most bands but really just seems like business-as-usual for EVERY TIME I DIE.

Words: Rhys Haberfield & James Halstead

Check out our extensive photo gallery from all the action at Slam Dunk Festival 2018 from Rhys Haberfield Media here: