that time of year has come once again. the weekend where music fans of all shapes and sizes can finally come together to listen to what they love listening to most of all – Music. Slam Dunk has returned to Leeds for another festival, and this past weekend i also returned to Leeds for another festival, specifically Slam Dunk. my last time here was in 2023, and i have since eagerly awaited my opportunity to listen to music again as i found myself quite fond of it last time

despite labeling itself a "punk" festival it did for some reason have stalls peddling slavery and murder products, so i brought an assortment of stickers (courtesy of Things I Care About Shop) to place around the festival. i usually have some form of Evil Compassion Propaganda on my person when i go out but i feel a need to double down if i'm being challenged to enjoy myself in the presence of persistent corpse stench

i'd planned on seeing Lake Malice, Greywind and Winona Fighter early on, but my train was delayed a couple hours so i missed out on them. the first band i got to see a little of was Home Grown. i was expecting rain throughout the day due to it being a festival taking place in England but miraculously most of the bands i wanted to see were situated in a tent this year

i went outside to see Landmvrks next who were awesome whenever the guy wasn't speaking french. i apologize that i make zero effort to stop bobbing my body up and down whenever i take video footage. if you would like to see better footage of Landmvrks please type "landmvrks" into your favorite search engine, and if you start seeing photos of statues and pyramids please double-check your spelling

songs played: "Creature", "Death", "Blistering", "A Line in the Dust", "Sulfur", "Lost in a Wave", "Rainfall", "Blood Red", "Self-Made Black Hole"

back in the tent i caught some of The Aquabats. i don't think i've ever heard a full song of theirs or been saved by their heroic deeds but i heard they put on a good show live. i was lead to believe there would be some manner of crimefighting happening onstage, but if there was a bad guy i couldn't hear them. there were giant inflatable slices of pizza being passed around the crowd, and no it wasn't vegan either because there were humans on top of them

songs played: "The Shark Fighter!", "Super Rad!", "Red Sweater!", "Pizza Day!", "No Rewind!", "Look at Me, I'm a Winner!", "Super Show Theme Song!", "Cat With 2 Heads!", "Where Is Walter Fang?!", "Martian Girl!", "Fashion Zombies!", "Pool Party!"

next up was my favorite band Zebrahead. i have an almost identical recording to this from a couple years ago just not in a tent, yes everyone in the crowd was the same. they have a habit of requesting the biggest circle pit known to man (which rapper Ali joined us for), as well as the most crowdsurfers during a single song known to man. the rest of the day my body cursed me for attempting to entertain these lofty aspirations of theirs. i'll be seeing them again in August so hopefully i'll have recovered by then

songs played: "When Both Sides Suck, We're All Winners", "We're Not Alright", "Hello Tomorrow", "Falling Apart", "The Perfect Crime", "Drink Drink", "Homesick for Hope", "Rescue Me", "All My Friends Are Nobodies", "Anthem"

managed to catch the entire Streetlight Manifesto set afterwards, even after realizing my bottle of water had somehow ejected itself from my bag, and i went out scouring the festival grounds for more. was horrified to learn the water stand was not a fountain but in fact refills, and a bottle of water cost £2.75. i won't even mention how much the alcoholic drinks were, and i definitely won't mention how much i spent on them. the weather forecast turned out to be a lie otherwise i would have simply looked up and opened my mouth. whatever the show was good

songs played: "A Moment of Violence", "The Three of Us", "Watch It Crash", "We Will Fall Together", "Forty Days", "With Any Sort of Certainty", "Here's to Life", "Somewhere in the Between"

Less Than Jake was on afterwards and they played the Animaniacs theme song and nothing else. they spent a minute building up that they were about to play a cartoon theme, though i wished that would happen for every song as the sound was not very good in this tent. a band could play for 20 seconds before i could tell what song it was, and it would be one i really like. anyway i love LTJ but hopefully i can hear some other stuff from them next time i see them

songs played: "Animaniacs Theme", "Animaniacs Theme", "Animaniacs Theme", "Animaniacs Theme", "Animaniacs Theme", "Animaniacs Theme", "Animaniacs Theme", "Animaniacs Theme", "Animaniacs Theme", "Animaniacs Theme"

the biggest clash of the day for me was between Alkaline Trio and A Day to Remember, but i opted to see the trio and check out the remainder of the day afterwards. i learned my lesson regarding making totally sure which clashing band i think i'd enjoy better when one year i chose to see Bowling for Soup over Billy Talent, and i later decided i really like Billy Talent meanwhile BFS played the Phineas and Ferb theme song then sung about penises. they were great though. Alkaline Trio i mean

songs played: "Time to Waste", "Armageddon", "Emma", "Bad Time", "Stupid Kid", "Calling All Skeletons", "Cringe", "Fatally Yours", "Sadie", "Mercy Me", "Warbrain", "Maybe I'll Catch Fire", "Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs", "Private Eye", "Radio"

A Day to Remember was the only band playing at the end of the festival so here's your big sweeping everyone shot. i had no idea so many people were into music! they had a girl surf on top of a guy surfing the crowd, and there was also a short break to attend to an accident of some kind. probably unrelated events. what a show! i'd definitely call this, a day to think back on fondly

songs played: "The Downfall of Us All", "I'm Made of Wax, Larry, What Are You Made Of?", "2nd Sucks", "Right Back at It Again", "Bad Blood", "Paranoia", "Have Faith in Me", "Walk", "Since U Been Gone", "All My Friends", "You Be Tails, I'll Be Sonic", "Mr. Highway's Thinking About the End", "Resentment", "LeBron", "Feedback", "Miracle", "All I Want", "Sometimes You're the Hammer, Sometimes You're the Nail", "If It Means a Lot to You", "Flowers", "All Signs Point to Lauderdale"

i missed the last train home because i just had to stick around for ADTR's one-thousand-song set, so i headed to an afterparty in the city where there was a band called The 900 covering the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater soundtrack. got real drunk and tried to fall asleep in the train station bathroom. a good night overall but i really have to stop putting off my lack of a means of travel as "future zephie's problem". fellow music likers will understand that sometimes those tunes are just too hard to resist!

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