Festival review: Slam Dunk Festival North 2024 at Temple Newsam, Leeds

Nothing perhaps illustrates the old adage that it is grim up north quite like the contrast in weather fortunes for the bands and artists who make the trek up the M1 to Leeds’s Temple Newsam grounds this spring bank holiday weekend.

After scorching temperatures and suntans galore at their South leg at Hatfield, grey skies and steady drizzle occasionally given to biblical downpours greets all in West Yorkshire this Sunday; the sloping turf beneath Capability Brown’s masterpiece does not resemble verdant grass so much as mud-slicked mulch before it has even been further trampled underfoot by 25,000 or so punters.

Slam Dunk Festival North is fast approaching twenty years on the emo-punk scene, founded by the Leeds-based label that helped break a slew of genre artists both from home and abroad into the British cultural consciousness after their formation in 2007.

This event, a flagship jamboree for dip-dyed haircuts, fishnet tights and Dr. Martens in full festival regalia – plus a handful of lads dressed as the Blues Brothers – shares the unfortunate date this year with Leeds United’s loss in the Championship Play-Off Final.

A handful of bedraggled Whites fans hang pensively on the edge of slots for energetic favourites Set It Off and reggae-bouncers The Skints; they, at least, ultimately leave with grins and hair plastered to their faces when the curtain falls here instead.

Floridian post-hardcore stalwarts The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus draw an early crowd on the Go Pro Stage at the far end of the festival site, with fans sliding into barriers as they attempt to navigate passage to their performance. A lively cover of blink-182 staple All the Small Things proves inspired between scene hits False Pretense and Face Down for the group, though in terms of raw energy, they struggle to match Merthyr Tydfil’s The Blackout, whose 2022 reunion appears to be one of the most inspired returns in recent years, powered by a ferocious sense of fun from vocalists Gavin Butler and Sean Smith.

Difficulties are found for Mallory Knox on the Slam Dunk Main Stage mid-afternoon though, and not just because Adam Armstrong is busy breaking audience hearts at Wembley. Sound issues batter the reformed Cambridge outfit, and they are barely able to go a song without an interruption to their lively performance. Frontman Mikey Chapman is apologetic, but the crowd carry them higher, as they do for Against the Current under the tented roof of the Kerrang Stage, where the Chrissy Costanza-led rockers from Poughkeepsie also fight against technical gremlins.

Flashes of a clearer evening are cruelly dashed shortly before Pale Waves follow them, and the heavens truly open as a flash-flood storm drenches all not under cover to the bone. The end result is that more than anticipated possibly crowd into the big top for the Mancunian four-piece, who seize the chance to show their full emergence from dreamy Dirty Hit stylings to riotously fun noughties pop-punk energy, capped by a delirious singalong for Jealousy.

More touching might be the swift performance from Funeral for a Friend; the unexpected exit of vocalist Matthew Davies-Kreye last December leaves Holding Absence frontman Lucas Woodward to fill the void, with almost immediate results, bringing a pinch-me poetry and joyous verve to staples like Into Oblivion (Reunion) and History.

The All-American Rejects have been away from British shores long enough for Slam Dunk to fold the Midlands leg of their festival, which they last played in 2014, which might account for a sub-headliner booking they sometimes struggle to live up to. Still, with songs like Dirty Little Secret, Gives You Hell and Move Along in their back pocket, they turn their show into a send-off for touring keyboardist Scott Chesak in his final show with the band, ending with the latter sent crowdsurfing to The Last Song.

Few bands are as readily synonymous with Slam Dunk as You Me at Six. The Weybridge pop-rockers opened up the 2007 festival in one of their first notable slots, and headlined on their fourth appearance in 2015. Now, billed as the band’s final festival performance before their dissolution next year after a spring farewell tour, they arrive almost fascinatingly rejuvenated as a live act, with the kind of near-flawless career-spanning performance that leaves many wishing this wouldn’t be the last time.

Frontman Josh Franceschi earns great cheers for his frequent rallying cries against the incumbent government, and between Reckless, Lived a Lie and Underdog, muses about running for office himself. “Thank you for the best 20 years of our lives, Slam Dunk,” he says before the climactic Beautiful Way. “It’s been a pleasure.”

As fans troop back towards the city, the feeling appears assuredly mutual.