Movements Capture The Hearts Of Slam Dunk Festival South 2025

For those who missed out on their recent EU run with Sweet Pill, this weekend was the patiently awaited make-up for it. Following later on from Sweet Pill’s killer set as the first band of the day, at 2:30 pm, Movements came bounding in with spades of enthusiasm for the perfect post-lunch dessert to play Main Stage West at Slam Dunk. Having been mentioned as a long-time bucket list festival for them, and them likely being a long-time bucket list band to watch for many in the crowd, their joy to be present for this set was reciprocated across the festival. They had a set ahead full of grateful reflections, rousing the crowd for all they could, and Patrick Miranda accidentally unplugged his microphone in a very funny split moment, bounding across the stage. Movements is a band that has such a solid discography that it truly is hard to complain about any setlist they could curate for a show. Their new songs are beloved and their older songs even more, so their setlist, being one of a well-weaved variety, reeled people’s attention in. 

Easing us in with their energetic and bouncy 2024 single “Afraid To Die”, they got the energy building very quickly, as you could see the smiles of fans popping up one by one in the very large and very enthusiastic crowd they were able to pull. First song of the set, and you were instantly reminded of the talent of these musicians, with them sounding just as great live as they do on recording, filling such a large stage and portion of the park with their resonant sound. Next, we were smacked in the face by a “Lead Pipe”, not of pain and a hospital visit, but absolute fun from their brilliant 2023 album “Ruckus!”, which I must say is often very underrated by older fans and goes very hard in a live setting- not that I don’t understand the comparative adoration of their legendary heart-string pull of an album “Feel Something” because it truly is a one of a kind album.

Miranda was able to lead the crowd with ease and spend the rest of the set building everyone up with gorgeous vocals and so much encouragement to let loose and jump along to the tracks with the band- “when I bounce, you bounce!”. But the audience was simply catapulted into a frenzy of excited emotions, as Miranda shouted, “If we play some old songs, are you going to get wild with us?”. We were taken back through classic tracks such as “Full Circle” and “Colorblind” from their aforementioned legendary album “Feel Something”. Right at the end of “Colorblind” was also when, in a very enthusiastic pan back from singing out into the crowd, Miranda accidentally unplugged his microphone. This was a silly, laughable moment that swiftly became a heartwarming one as, without prompt, the whole crowd finished the last line for him at the top of their lungs. Right after this, everyone was surprised by an appearance from their brand new track “Where I Lay”. They let us know that this was the largest crowd they had played to on this entire tour, so they expected the crowd to give them the loudest singing to this song so far. Whether we achieved that, no one can be sure, but everyone sure gave it their all, and they seemed very pleased with the response.

After that, the show came to what we thought was a close with their most widely impactful song, “Daylily”. As always this was a very emotionally packed part of the set, with people on shoulders, some tearing up while singing along with a hand gripped to their heart and even a huge crowd of people backstage passionately swaying along. The words “You’ll be just fine” rang out through people’s aching souls in a true moment of cathartic singing, which was finalised with the line “I think it’s time you found another, reason to stay for awhile”. Since the band traditionally like to end the night on this track, everyone thought that was it; however, that day, they decided to hit fans with a curveball by closing on the rager “I Hope You Choke!” and requesting one final circle pit for a proper send off in true Slam Dunk style. 

Movements will always be a pleasure to see live and review, and if you want to hear more from them, then you can check out their page on the Fearless Records website here for all things from the band. Some personal recommendations to anyone new to them would be to, of course, delve into their 2017 album “Feel Something”. Every song on this is brilliant, but specifically give these tracks a listen: “Daylily”, “Third Degree”, “Full Circle” and “Suffer Through”. For their 2020 album “No Good Left To Give”, I would recommend: “Skin To Skin”, “Seneca” and “Garden Eyes”. Then, for their most recent 2023 album “Ruckus!”, I would start with: “A.M.P.”, “Lead Pipe” and “Fail you”. And, not to leave out their brand new song previously mentioned, “Where I Lay”, which you can listen to right now here.