Slam Dunk has, sadly, come and gone for another year. The exceptional festival this year boasted dozens of bands across two days with unbelievable headliners The Offspring, Enter Shikari and The Hunna.
While festivalgoers will no doubt know intimately how Slam Dunk days go – the queuing for food, bathrooms, waiting around for your favourite band to start while you reapply sun cream – what are the standout moments for the bands who play the festivals?
There’s no doubt a lot of waiting around, sound-checking, and all kinds of technical guff that we’ll never truly know the ins and outs of, but – surely – they have a chance to have some fun, as well?
For American punk rockers Destroy Boys, this was their first experience at the festival – and they couldn’t have been happier with how it turned out.
The trio were given a tough midday slot – but they were pleasantly surprised with the unbelievably stacked turnout. “It was really cool,” singer and guitarist Violet grinned. “It was nice they showed up early to watch us at noon!”
Drummer Narsai agreed: “We never played that early ever, and it went great! American festival crowds tend to not fill up until later in the afternoon, so it was really cool to see people show up and be really receptive.” Violet added: “We didn’t expect it to go so well.”
The Hunna were also newcomers to the festival. Slam Dunk 2023 was the rockers’ first foray into the line-up – and they made quite an impression. They headlined the Key Club Stage after releasing their exceptional self-titled album back in October.
Ahead of headlining their first day at Slam Dunk, The Hunna’s frontman Ryan confessed: “We couldn’t be more excited to play! We’ve got a lot of new [songs], and old ones as well. It’s our first Slam Dunk, and to be headlining is just dope.”
With that, Ryan added that the band weren’t feeling any extra pressure over being newcomers to the festival. “We like being the underdog,” he explained. “We always have that mindset when we get on stage – and we love playing on stage, that’s where we have the most fun. And, for us, we’ve gone around so many festivals and had not many people know of us. We go on and do our thing and we give our passion and energy and we make tons of new fans. That’s what it’s all about.”
Slam Dunk isn’t just a great experience for newcomers to the festival, though.
Rock icon stalwarts Kids in Glass Houses came out of live-performing retirement to grace Slam Dunk stages over the weekend. And bassist Shay felt the love emanating onto the stage.
“The shows are always great,” Shay said of having played Slam Dunk “about three or four” times. “Slam Dunk shows are always fantastic. The kids are always well up for it, and I feel like they’re always really grateful you’re doing it.”
PVRIS star Lynn Gunn also had touching memories of Slam Dunk at the forefront of her memory during the sunny Hatfield day.
“Back in 2018,” Lynn reminisced. “It may have been in Hatfield, I remember at the end of the night there was still a couple of bands playing, but basically a couple friends and me found a little opening in a field and everybody sat down in the grass and there was a thunderstorm going on.
“We just sat on this grassy hill and we could see the festival on one side and then this open thunderstorm [on the other]. It felt like when you were a kid and you go watch the fireworks or something, it was really nice!”
Real Friends star Kyle Fasel did yearn for the quieter days of the band, however. “The festival is awesome now,” he revealed. “I do love it… but I do kind of miss the charm of the earlier ones where they took over a whole school!
“It was cool, you’d play in a school gym and I kind of liked that… there was this anticipation.” With that, he added: “I understand why the festival is the way it is now, because it’s so much bigger.”
Slam Dunk will return in 2024.
