Location: Dieburg (Germany)
By: Nina Mende
What a perfect weather it was for an open air festival. So off we went to Dieburg to enjoy the Traffic Jam festival. Many people had the same plan so you could see the crowds walking towards the festival ground and the parking lots being crowded everywhere. You could also see many people carrying their camping stuff and walking towards the camping entrance. At the main entrance there was a long queue and the first bands have been playing already.
After getting the wrist bands the masses spread out on the festival ground. Amongst food stands you could also find a merchandise tent, beer tents and promotion tents of cigarette companies. Most people at this festival seemed to be teenagers, and even though the festival had just begun only a few hours before, several kids seemed drunk already. And that in the burning heat.
| I arrived right as 47 Million Dollar feat. Madness performed on stage, a local band that seemed to enjoy being on stage with everybody around. During the end of the show they had many people from the audience up on stage. Also did the band include some Hip Hop in their performance and made the audience go along on every beat. They demanded everyone to do stuff. Not everybody was following though. |
| Slowly but surely the festival ground was filling up with many people, mostly hardcore fans that love to mosh and crowd surf. The next band was Bleed From Within. Bleed From Within is a Scottish deathcore band founded in 2005. With distorted vocals and fast double kick on the drums they bawled across the festival, getting everybody’s attention. The kids moshed in the audience and bawled back, shouting along to the songs and headbanged along to the music. Many people seemed to know the music of Bleed From Within. |
| Up next was the band that replaced Dead By April: Six Reasons To Kill. Six Reasons To Kill is a German metalcore band from Koblenz, founded in 1999 and soon to release their new album. Their performance was very energetic and powerful, the singer jumped around on stage and in the photopit, getting close to his fans and have them sing together with him. You could tell the guys are doing this for a while already. They had a big fan base on the festival ground as well, so nobody seemed too disappointed that Dead By April had to cancel. Their performance lasted for almost an hour with everybody rocking and moshing along. |
| During the change over the security sprayed water on the audience and the organizer made a quick announcement that basically everybody had to re-park their cars. That was probably the reason why The Bottrops did not have such a big audience in the beginning which was growing back to normal size throughout the end of the show. The Bottrops is a punk band from Berlin. Their music was funky and entertaining, spreading a good mood. The lyrics were taken out of life and mostly in German. Many people sang along, and if they didn’t, the band reminded them to. It was getting dark and the light effects they used on stage were getting visible. Pretty interesting to watch. Some of the lights looked like fireworks projected onto the backdrop. |
| Up next was Evergreen Terrace. The audience was gathering in front of the stage ready to rock it big time. Evergreen Terrace is a five-piece melodic hardcore/metalcore band from Jacksonville, Florida. Formed in 1999, they are named after the street in which The Simpsons claim residence. The band’s fifth studio album Almost Home was released on September 29th via Metal Blade Records. Everybody banged and moshed along. many kids did crowd surfing and the band even convinced the audience to get a circle pit going. Evergreen Terrace performed songs off all their albums with such a power nobody could stand still. The band was jumping around all over the stage, getting the audience to go along big time. Evergreen Terrace rocked the stage for about an hour without getting tired, and neither did the audience. What an amazing show. |
| Up next and also the last band for the night was a band, that didn’t really fit to the other bands: Combichrist. But there were still very many people anxiously awaiting them to enter the stage and perform. Combichrist was formed in 2003 by Norwegian Andy LaPlegua (founder of the band Icon of Coil) as an aggrotech project. Around midnight the band entered the stage as was welcomed with loud applause and cheering. The band put up an extremely energetic show from the very first second until the very last. None of the band members was standing still for even a second. Neither was the audience. Everybody danced, jumped and shouted along to the music. Combichrist played songs off all albums. The sound was great, so was the light. An amazing show that you just had to watch and go along to. They played for about an hour. After their last song the drummer and percussionist threw their equipment across the stage again, luckily without anybody getting hurt. Combichrist is always a gorgeous show with a lot of action going on onstage. A definite must for everyone to check out at least once. |
Too bad I couldn’t come the second day as well. It has been an awesome festival. Many thanks to everybody working there. See you next year.
Links:
Traffic Jam Website
47 Million Dollar MySpace
Bleed from Within MySpace
Six Reasons to Kill Official
The Bottrops Official
Evergreen Terrace Official
Combichrist Official
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