Hello people! Welcome to the When In Yorkshire Podcast, I hope you’re all well and if you’re listening close to the release of this episode I hope you’ve managed to get out and enjoy some of the September sun!
It’s been 2 weeks since slam Dunk festival in Leeds and Hatfield.
It has been amazing seeing the reaction from those who attended, performed at and created the festival.
Before we get into the conversations I want to use this introduction to talk about a couple of points. Firstly I was incredibly grateful to be at the festival this year - it was my first live music event and first public event since March 2019. The fact that Slam Dunk went ahead this year should not be taken for granted - this was rescheduled multiple times, took place in September instead of May, went through many line up changes and yet still managed to include sets by U.K., international and bands that for all intents and purposes, don’t exist anymore! The amount of work that has gone into this from the Slam Dunk team, which is no where near as big as you might think, is impressive. They have taken financial and reputational risks to keep the festival going and pulled it off whilst still keeping the scale and both north and south legs.
Secondly it was brilliant to see how the festival has evolved and grown from the one I first attended in 2006 which had one stage in millennium square of Leeds and featured the last time I saw Capdown prior to this year. Having previously taken over Leeds city and many venues, this 2nd outing held in the original site of Leeds festival took me back to memories of early festivalemorie - this felt like an extension and development of the concrete jungle stage which is where I first heard bands like reel big fish, bowling for soup, the Ataris, the crockets and Alkaline trio.
From what I remember as a club night and and some fantastic gig at the now closed cockpit in Leeds during the early 2000s it was amazing and a little emotional to see what the team created - not just a solid line up in difficult times after many last minute changes but the atmosphere which was full of energy and positivity.
It was a busy day of conversations but also great to catch some brilliant sets and also meet up with friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in person for 2 years.
https://www.holdingabsence.com/
https://www.slamdunkfestival.com
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