Outbreak festival is the UK’s preeminent hardcore event. This has been true for a while, but the festival has really cemented its place in the last few years. Last year it graduated to the Bowler’s Exhibition centre in Manchester and this year it moved to the even larger venue of Depot Mayfield (also in Manchester) with a capacity of around 10,000. There was a slight shift in the band profile across the bill this year and although some may argue last year’s 10-year anniversary lineup was stronger in terms of established and legacy bands, it is hard to believe that anyone interested in hardcore or the more alternative or aggressive end of the hip hop spectrum couldn’t have found plenty across the 2 stages to keep them very happy. As I’ll explain in more detail over a few reviews.

The festival kicked off before 1pm on the Friday with Pest Control. Maybe not the slot many would have chosen, but Pest Control clearly weren’t worried. Their hardcore-infused take on thrash got people moving pretty quickly. A good start. Immediately after them on the main stage was Sunami. A band whose name appears more and more these days as the California hc scene goes from strength to strength. A lot of those bands are good-time bands. Sunami are far more aggro than that. In your face, unapologetic and responsible for at least a few of the first physical injuries of the day. But hey, they’ll all have a cool anecdote and a scar to go with it. Sunami came to riot and did it well.

C4 were the first band I saw on the second stage. It’s worth pointing out that the entire venue is a quasi-underground space with a kind of warehouse or car park feel to it. There are arched brick ceilings and recessed lights, weird little platforms, loading docks, a fully functioning skate park and lots of peripheral outdoor space. And yet the second stage was in a long, narrow area which meant it was ideal for channeling people into pits and it could feel super busy even when there might have been relatively few people there. That wasn’t an issue for C4 though as the Boston group brought gritty, street vibes to what felt like the perfect venue for it. People went nuts. As you would expect, windmilling, spinkicks, stage dives, etc aplenty. Great fun.

Back to the main stage, I watched KOYO. Given how metallic some of the bands had been thus far, I was initially a little worried for KOYO’s more emo-inflected alt-rock, but I needn’t have been. There was hand-waving, singalongs and the set ended with the first full stage invasion of the weekend. Genuinely heart warming stuff. The response to KOYO made me less concerned about No Pressure, though pop punk on the same stage as Sunami, an hour or so apart? Well, the open-minded attendees of Outbreak clearly care about quality and not genre labelling, as No Pressure were treated to a rousing response. As something of a pop-punk apologist, I can’t pretend I was upset to see that, either. Up next on the main stage was Militarie Gun. A band with a bit of buzz around them, only heightened by the fact that they had dropped their sophomore record Life Under The Gun that very day. I don’t know if it was actually a negative by-product of that fact, but there were portions of the set where fans’ reactions were decidedly muted and I guess this may be down to playing songs the crowd were less familiar with. Either way, the record is good, so check it out.

One Step Closer was a real party. This Place You Know released in 2021 is a great record and the set predictably leant quite heavily on it. If you’re not familiar, we’re talking a cross between Have Heart and Fiddlehead. When you consider the day’s profile, this was a bullseye. Wild, good vibes. Sufficiently so that even I took to the stage before swiftly and acrobatically making my exit. The band have subsequently described the show as maybe the best they’ve ever played. Tells you a lot, though I accept not many hc bands will frequently play to 10k people. After this, I headed back to the second stage to watch Pain of Truth. Their upcoming record’s tracklist and absurd quality/quantity of features (vein.fm, Terror, 200 Stab Wounds, TUI, etc) had been announced days before and predictably, this got pretty rowdy. Beatdown hc done with a gleeful twinkle in the eye, knowing that, to coin a phrase, big things are coming soon.

Back to the main stage for the final 3 of the day. First up was Defeater. A band with a big fan following, but one who’s ‘glory years’ if that’s not too reductive a term, were around the turn of the 2010’s arguably. That said, I’m a huge fan of 2015’s Abandoned and there was clearly a lot of excitement in the room. Defeater fed off of that excitement and did rely most on the classic material, though they’re way too young to have classic material, frankly. The self-titled from 2019 was really good and I’m hopeful for more from them soon.

To Friday’s denouement. Converge followed by Bane. Converge took the stage to a true hero’s welcome. There could be few more worthy of it given the nature of the festival and the legacy the band have. They set about demolishing the place with their customary combination of immaculate craft and nihilistic abandon. Every member is captivating throughout; their musicianship and artistry beyond question and yet still one of the hardest bands of the weekend. Exceptional. All one could hope for. It was then over to Bane to close out the day’s proceedings. It’s fair to say that Bane are an occasional band these days. Having disbanded in 2016 and then popped up a few times since then for a couple of shows. They played well, they had a real connection with a portion of the crowd, but the slight pivot in the overall booking of this year’s lineup may have not played to their fanbase per se. With a lot of newer bands and acts outside of hc, there did seem to be a dip in energy in comparison to Converge, though that might be expected anyway. It is Converge, after all. But leaving the venue, every person I encountered knew they’d had a damn good time from front to back. Day one in the books.