By Jase Walker
Well Jera On Air 2025 is off to a bloody fantastic start with camping with a huge group of friends and then interviewing the lovely lads from Polaris! Couldn’t wish for a better way to kick things off.
Anyway, down to brass tacks with South Arcade being my first band of the day, following on from their great set supporting Bilmuri in Ütrecht a short while ago! They remark on being blown away by the turnout on one of the main stages at 3:45pm on a Thursday, humble but worth the show of support from the Jera crowd.
Their infectious pop punk style that reminds me a bit of Don Broco booms throughout the tent, a real pleasure to see a young Brit band getting such a fantastic response. With South Arcade killing it and having a ton of fun on stage that shows very visibly, I definitely feel like I’m truly at home in a field with (okay) beer and good music blasting in my face.
South Arcade really has “it”, the feeling that they look so natural on a large stage like this and totally own it too. The whole pop vibe along with massive riffs is something I really vibe with lately, the likes of Vukovi and Don Broco epitomizes this sort of thing and South Arcade will no doubt end up on such a pedestal before long too.
Hot Milk opt for the ÜK national anthem to kick off their walk on before going straight for the throat with their riffy punky goodness. You want a high energy show? You got it with Hot Milk!
Manchester’s finest duo, coming out swinging for Jera On Air today and they’re gonna do it in style. It doesn’t take long before Hannah decides to throw her beer everywhere after losing her cool on stage in the best way. These aren’t a band that care much for subtlety, it’s pure balls to the wall fun and they demand your participation. The rammed tent makes it pretty obvious that Jera’s crowd are all over this, the way they shift gears from uplifting pop choruses to meaty punk riffs resonates with everyone here considering every song ends up in a huge crowd in the middle smashing into each other and having an incredible time.
This is what it’s all about though isn’t it? Utterly unbridled fun with incredible music and Hot Milk gladly play the role of conductor. Hannah ends up singing off someone’s shoulders with a flamingo inflatable on her at the same time, if this doesn’t show what a silly show Hot Milk does I dunno what will. Outstanding.
Opening with ‘Nightmare’, Polaris get their set off to an incredible start, they mean business and have a short time to kick off a set that’s all killer, no filler. With a properly orchestrated balcony video because they’re smashing the mainstage this year, it’s a big one for them to go all in with a proper big production that demonstrates that they’re a band that’s worthy of massive stages over on the other side of the world.
These guys sit on top of the wave of overwhelming deluge of Australian metalcore and every single time never fails to impress. Picking ‘All Of This Is Fleeting’ as part of their set is a genius move that shows their flair for mixing emotionally heavy lyrics with incredible riffs. ‘Parasites’ is another example of their massive bangers that puts another great entry on their short festival set, there’s no need for flow or careful design in this set. Just sheer balls to the wall riffing, that’s all Polaris needs to do here.
‘Hypermania’ is enough to get me started and fully on board with giving myself whiplash trying to headbang harder than everyone else here! There is never a time I’ve ever been disappointed by Polaris and today was another notch on the bedpost of every time Polaris have blown my tits off.
Now time for one of the silliest bands from Germany in a long time, The Butcher Sisters. These guys riff hard but sing stuff about sunglasses, pizza, and becoming a monkey. Opening with ‘Nudeln’, the group that I’ve unwittingly persuaded to join me are already looking at me like I’ve took them to the worst show they’ve ever seen yet can’t take their eyes off it. Unbelievably silly in the most German way but yet so fucking hard, brutal riffs deliver the most ridiculous lyrics and I fucking love it, the ÜK has no idea what it’s missing.
‘Freitag’ ends up with a full line of people who’ve crowd surfed to the front doing a line dance arm in arm across the front of the band. I had my expectations that this might be a bit of a silly show but this is just ridiculous; there’s no real rules here other than “go mental” and “dont fuck with the band”: anything else goes.
‘Bierdurst’ is another big hit that recalls the German love for beer because why not eh? I like to think your average Brit feels the same. They end up tossing out one of the biggest beach balls I’ve seen at a show which immediately goes flying out of the tent, much to the amusement of the people outside that have no idea where this came from and try tirelessly to put it back in the tent. Amazingly silly and worth every moment of watching them, headline show soon hopefully!
After some time it’s Motionless In White time, a premier metalcore band that I’ve been wanting to see for quite a while now. We can see that the main stage has been steadily amping up their production and for the pre-headline show we’ve got two levels of stage showing up for their production. What an epic show they’re rolling with and the main ‘Eagle’ stage is already looking massive, I don’t doubt that the final show here is going to be a huge show but I’ll be off to see Letlive later because there’s not a chance I’d miss them for their farewell. This is my first time getting acquainted with Motionless In White and I cannot overstate just how much I’m enjoying them. For a band that was often described as just another emo band, it sells them short as possible. These guys have such immense performance chops that it’s hard to put into words how immense their stage show is. Incredible pounding riffs, a crowd that clearly adores them and songs that dance between immensely heavy and the line of emo with brilliant expertise.
There’s little wonder that Motionless In White captured the imagination of so many people around the world given how they’re dominating the ‘Eagle’ stage at Jera On Air. Honestly I’m kicking myself for missing these so many times over the years. They’re a fantastic example of metalcore now over the waves of post-hardcore considering how they’ve steadily moved into increasingly riffy music in the later years of their career and more power to them for it.
And finally for tonight, I’ve opted to see possibly the last ever show I’d ever get to see of Letlive! A small introduction considering that Bullet For My Valentine are hammering out ‘The Poison’ on the main stage, but in this case there’s little option for me. Sadly a sudden cut in sound puts their show to a sudden stop barely a minute into their show but the crowd doesn’t seem to be too downcrest over it given the whoops and cheers. After a brief moment, the issues are cleared and we’re back on the road. People getting up on stage after crowd surfing up? Yep they’re dancing with the band, they don’t care, it’s groove time. There’s few rules at this point, have an incredible time and go wild really, as long as you don’t stop the band going then it doesn’t really matter eh? Even giving a shout out to The Ghost Inside who’d played just before them, there’s no holding back here.
This is a band that has stated that they’re over and doing one last victory lap before saying they’re done and I wasn’t going to miss it. Letlive are one of those groups that put blood, sweat, and tears into a scene that fostered many of the bands that I revere today. It’s clear from the performance that they’re putting across today too. They do not refrain from putting it across that the safety of women at shows and in general is not absolutely paramount to them, a truly sacred part of the experience that women can experience on their own. They don’t even need to try to get the crowd to sing along to their choruses, no prompts, everyone here is going to shout the words back whether Letlive likes it or not.
Letlive themselves aren’t rolling with a big production here, one large backing flag in addition to the band themselves. All we have is a band, a crowd, big riffs and a vibe that everyone here is fully into. This wraps up the first day of Jera On Air 2025, Thursday is off to the best start, another two days of this.
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