By Jase Walker
It’s absolutely bloody blazing in the Netherlands (for once) and after taking an extended train ride to Deurne and shuttle to Ysselsteyn, I’ve arrived at Jera On Air! This is a fantastic small festival in the Netherlands with a pretty consistently fantastic lineup that boasts band bookings that you’d expect at a festival at least twice the size.
I’ve pitched up alongside some lovely people I’ve met in Antwerp this year and now the festival grounds are open and I’ve taken this chance to have a look around and get a properly nice cold beer from the guest area bar and chillout for a bit before everything kicks off at 5pm.
My clashfinder is sorted, I have a stupidly massive itinerary as seems to be the usual thing for me and this weekend is an absolute buffet for someone that’s into this stuff. A somewhat shorter day as it’s the first day of the festival but I’ll be topping it off with Germany’s Electric Callboy and I couldn’t think of a better way to introduce myself to Jera.
It’s finally time to kick things off with Knosis! The crushing riffs, pure aggression and getting a circle pit going before they’ve even started is how you properly kick off a festival like this. The turnout for them so early in the festival is pretty damn solid too, people here aren’t going to fuck about, it’s party time so let’s fucking go. I do miss Ryo in Crystal Lake but the man writes some absolute filth in Knosis so what’s not to love? You want some facemelting stuff but REALLY FAST? Knosis are it. Even playing some of their slower songs for a more emotive set, the unexpectedly mixed set was on the whole the best sort of way to kick things off for me, hopefully won’t be long before I see them again!
And of course, being a dirty little tech death fan, there’s no chance I would miss Shadow Of Intent. Vocals that sound like the arse end of your bathtub draining matched with riffs that are every bit as melodic as they are savage. Smashing out a good mix between ‘Elegy’ and ‘Melancholy’, I’m admittedly a bit bummed about the audience response other than the dedicated pit in the middle. I think my favourite but is where the double bass pedal drums are going at like 200 bpm and their singer is growling like a complete monster while the bass drop is going so hard it makes your chest shake. Truly representing the tech death/deathcore scene at Jera this year and I couldn’t be happier. Now if I could just not miss another headline tour, that’d be great. Holy fuck though they played ‘Embracing Nocturnal Damnation’ – I don’t think I could have had a more unexpected surprise that’d make me so happy!
A small break and next up is pop punk all stars Movements, with their latest album Ruckus! behind them that was a big chunk of my listening last year so I’m happy to see what they’re about! Admittedly the sound is a bit weak compared to earlier acts but at least the lovely melodies for these guys shine through really well. I’ve been hoping I can finally catch a headline set but this will do for the time being. Overall the crowd doesn’t seem to quite be awake for a bit of a ruckus just yet but seeing these melodic punkers do their job on stage just fills me with even more need to see them in a jam packed venue for a bit of chaos from a crowd that’s paid to be there specifically for them. I’m glad I got to catch them but I don’t think their sound today really did them justice which is a bit of a shame. Not quite a ruckus on this occasion.
A brief campsite break and it’s back to one of the larger tents for a bit more pop punk in the form of Hot Mulligan and I can hear them booming from the tent as I approach, pretty good sign for the sound if I do say so. I’ve been here barely five minutes and there’s already a pretty constant stream of crowd surfers for these good time vibe sparkly pop punkers. This sort of upbeat stuff is probably in the minority these weekend amongst a sea of pretty angry hardcore and metalcore but a welcome change nonetheless. Hot Mulligan sound fantastic, they perform fantastic and on the whole it’s a beautiful yet short set. If you like your sparkly music then Hot Mulligan is the one for you. I also don’t think I’ve seen a photographer ballsy enough to do their job whole crowd surfing before.
This festival is already mental.
A large break and it’s time to wrap up day one with Electric Callboy, opening up with a video countdown before opening with ‘Tekkno Train’. Swathes of people rush by me trying to get closer to the front for one of the hottest bands out of Germany right now. They’re not fucking about with the pyrotechnics either, fire and fireworks right from the start as well as an assault on the senses with videos and more lighting than you could shake a stick at! Even the Dutch want to rap along to ‘Spaceman’: they may not like the similarities but they’re fully on board! Their cover of ‘Every Time We Touch’ goes down a storm as well, there is little to be weird about seeing thousands of metalheads all screaming the same pop song at once.
I can see down the front that someone is tossing shoes around which admittedly is probably one of the lesser weirder things I’ve seen but they’re throwing them around with a bit of force. It’s quite impressive seeing so many Dutch people happily singing along in German but I may have underestimated the German population at this festival as it’s almost at the border anyway. Also there is nothing I love more than a drum solo over Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’, what a perfect break for a band like this!
You’d also probably be not surprised about the crowd quite happily doing the chant for ‘Hypa Hypa’, especially the guy hanging off the speaker pillars! Admittedly I didn’t expect them to play ‘Ratatata!’, the song they did with Babymetal considering I saw Babymetal play this a couple of weeks ago! And in addition to unexpected songs, they’ve even covered the Frozen song, ‘Let It Go’, which is apparently just foreplay, leading into ‘I Want It That Way’.
Electric Callboy really are a complete enigma with how they’ve rocketed through the ranks of playing such high slots almost overnight, but watching this sort of show really highlights how incredible their performance is. It’s bright, it’s energetic, it’s silly, it’s fun, but at the most basic part, it’s fucking great. ‘Pump It’ starts off with a weird AI singing version of both singers before hitting the song properly and the crowd goes absolutely fucking bonkers when it kicks off properly. And closing toward the end, ‘We Got The Moves’ sees the crowd go absolutely apeshit: fire, streamers, fireworks, screaming crowd… everything is firing at 110 per cent and Electric Callboy wouldn’t do this any other way.
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