Wine Lips, The Bug Club And Dreamwave Close Out Down Stokes Festival

Wine Lips | The Bug Club | Dreamwave

Down Stokes Festival, Bristol

19th October 2025

Photography by Anna Hatfield

George Ward

Freelance journalist and online editor for CLUNK. Can be found out and about in Bristol, finding cheap records or having a pint on King Street.

Migrating from Stokes Croft to Old Market, we headed over the Trinity Centre for Bristol’s Dreamwave, Wales’ The Bug Club, and Canada’s Wine Lips

After Saturday’s punk takeover of Bristol’s Stokes Croft, Down Stokes festival had three more bands for us on Sunday Night.

Up first were Dreamwave, who played with far more confidence than you would expect for a band with only one EP to their name and a new member, only a handful of shows deep. Their sound varied throughout their set, with the chaos of early Squid in their more energetic moments and lush shoegaze at other times. We’re excited to catch Dreamwave again around the city over the next year.

Up next were The Bug Club. Fresh from the release of their new album ‘Full Grown Man,’ The Bug Club delivered one of the funnest sets I’ve seen in a while. The beauty of releasing so many snappy, short and sweet tunes is that they can cram their setlist with as many as humanly possible.

Opening with a soundcheck in the form of song, The Bug Club wasted no time to show off their talents, with a huge drum solo, showcasing each part of the kit as vocalist/bassist Tilly Harris nonchalantly calls each name out. The Bug Club are an unassuming band but beneath the friendly faces and silly lyrics (which we love) are huge guitar solos, surprisingly complex basslines and mad drum fills.

Pulling mainly from their last two albums, the band rattled through song after song, making time for a couple of older fan favourites, including ‘Marriage’ and set highlight ‘Suck It’. The latter injects such a huge hit of energy into the setlist towards the end, with lyrics frantically announced over a driving drum beat, interspersed with Sam Wilmott occasionally ripping an insane guitar solo every now and again.

Closing off the night, and the festival as a whole, were Wine Lips, all the way from Toronto. Another band that don’t mess about with wasting any time, Wine Lips hit so hard, from the second they enter the stage to the second they leave. There’s something so inherently satisfying about a line of two guitars and a bass, firing punk straight at you, a wall of noise relentlessly crushing you, over and over.

I was unfamiliar with Wine Lips’ game. Their set is made up of countless no-nonsense garage rock and punk tracks, with every guitar solo, riff and chorus perfectly executed. This is a seriously tight band and you can feel how much fun they’re having. With a mosh pit now fully formed, photographer Anna dived in, fans launching themselves off stage onto the crowd, narrowly missing her. It was the perfect heavy finale to a heavy weekend, we can’t wait to be back.