Slam Dunk 2025 - Review

And the start of festival season has finally arrived!

Slam Dunk is traditionally always the first festival of the season for me and being a one dayer, it's a great way to ease yourself back in!

As always with Slam Dunk, there was a level of running between stages to try and make the most of the unbelievably stacked line up!

One great part of the South set up is how flat and easy to navigate the site is! Makes for easy movement between stages, even if we did only manage partial sets from a few bands to try and maximise the amounts of bands we saw!

First up was Kid Bookie on the Key Club stage who was great live despite informing the crowd he was playing with a new band who had to learn his set pretty sharpish! You'd never know if he hadn't told us!

There were unfortunately a lot of issues with Key Club stage this year, resulting in very late running. This then of course had an effect on the timings for not only those bands but also impacted people's ability to plan accordingly! This led to bands being missed due to the timing changes, but of course these things can't be helped!

A stand out band, away from the big names and headliners were Winona Fighter! Having played locally in Southampton prior to the festival, and absolutely smashed their headline set. I was excited to see what they would bring!

They were honestly one of the best bands of the festival! Their incredible energy, and absolutely infectious tunes led to a very full tent by the end of their set! Lots of people asking who they were due to missing the start of the set/the times being off!

I would love to see them back over in the UK sooner rather than later with more headline dates and more festival slots!

The ultimate in nostalgia came from The Used on Main Stage East! They were playing "In love and death"! An album which holds so many memories for myself and so many other "elder emos" of our generation!

Classics such as "Take it away" and "All that I've got", will always be so special to me, and hearing them live all these years on will be a performance I won't be forgetting in a hurry!

Couldn't talk about Main Stage East this year without talking about everyone's favourite Germans! Electric Callboy!

I unfortunately missed these guys at Download Festival last year as they had to pull out due to their lead singer being unwell, so was very excited to see them on the Slam Dunk line up!

Drawing a huge crowd, they bought their signature pyro, fire and confetti show!

Opening the set with the huge song "Elevator Operator" and closing their set with the equally huge "We got the moves"! A great performance which I would argue was the best set of the day!

The final mention band wise, of course has be the mainstage headliners - A Day to Remember! A set and a band which I know a lot of people had been looking forward to!

For me, these weren't my favourite band of the day! I know a handful of their songs but they're not a band who I've deep dived into in the past! Perhaps that should change! A tight performance with lots of recognisable songs!

A great day at Slam Dunk as always. But I don't feel this was their finest hour overall unfortunately!

A mix of traffic getting onto site and a lack of sign posting for the car park, which we didn't experience last year combined with more toilets being needed and excessive food and drink prices. It feels we are coming to a point whereby it is out pricing itself for a lot of people, and will cause punters to question whether the day is value for money with the exuberant prices being charged on site for necessities.

With all this in mind though, I'll be interested to see who they pull in for their 20 year anniversary next year!