Fear.FM Harder

[Report] Ground Zero

2011 saw lots of changes in the festival season. Tomorrowland sold out in a record time, Defqon 1 changed its venue for the first time and, probably the most shocking one, the only night-time festival in Holland turned into a daylight meeting. Ground Zero always had this advantage compared to other festivals, but apparently gave in under pressure of local residents of the Bussloo recreation area. Another risky decision, was the fact that the date had been moved forward by about a month and to top things off, this put the event in direct competition with Harmony Of Hardcore. 

Needless to say, visitor counts were lower at both festivals and divided the crowd. For us, the Bussloo recreation area is an exclusive location with its forest, beach and oldschool boat. Therefore, we decided to once again give Harmony Of Hardcore a miss and check out what a daytime Ground Zero entailed. After an almost two-hour drive, we arrived in Bussloo where the parking area was again quite far away from the festival grounds. 

A first downer turned up when we went to purchase some drinking coins. 5 coins for €14 or €2,8 a piece, another price increase which became the talk of the town and wasn’t quite well-received with the visitors. When walking around the festival grounds, our ears were immediately drawn to the early hardcore stage, where Delirium was playing. The huge plastic flowers and such were again used as decorative pieces and luckily, the early hardcore had been moved back to its original location: in between the trees. 

The sound was very good and when Viruz and his fellow contest winner were announced as two DJ’s who would perform a tribute set for the late 3 Steps Ahead, it was fantastic to hear tracks like “Money In My Pocket” and “It’s Delicious” on this sound system. Too bad the tracks were mixed out quite fast and that it wasn’t an entire tribute set, more like 10 minutes and then they continued with lots of hits, ending with the magnificent “Bzrk Feelings”. Although the atmosphere was good, we decided to go check out the industrial area, hosted by Club R_Aw.

Rude Awakening played his own remix of “We Have Arrived” in a great setting, with drum cans hanging from the camouflage netting. Too bad the sound wasn’t all that. Props however for the fact that on both sides of the area, a small tent was constructed for any rain. Turns out this wasn’t an exaggeration, as a few minutes later it started to rain harder and harder and even turned into hailstones. One person was courageous enough to face the weather and keep dancing, earning respect from visitors and artists alike. 

When the air cleared, we went back to the early hardcore area where Tellurian and Chosen Few battled for an hour and a half with tracks like “My Dj Cutz”, “Used And Abused” and “Guyver (Outside Agency Remix)”. Chosen Few attempted to MC, but failed as did his mixing as usual. Also, a little change in record choice now and then couldn’t hurt and mainstream hardcore doesn’t really fit an area like this. We would have thought an experienced DJ like himself would get that, but were sadly mistaken.

Because no real eye-catchers were in the timetable, we thought we’d check out the oldschool boat. Unfortunately, this year also saw the end of the patrol boat and put the artists back on solid ground among the food stands, where the bonfire with its chilled out music used to be. When we heard DJ Spider playing a slow and weak version of “I Like It Loud”, things didn’t exactly improve. 

We took a glance at the hardtrance tent where Scot Project was entertaining a handful of visitors, one of which was wearing a knight’s outfit from medieval times. Fun to watch, but it didn’t top the weird outfits in the goa area a few years ago. Contrary to other years, the main stage was now solely dedicated to hardstyle music. Normally, a mixture of artists and genres meant you always had something interesting to see here. This was obviously not the case now. Although the stage looked great (an Indian or “native American” head, videos being played on the screens in his eyes) and was located in the water again.

Off to the frenchcore and terror area for Nasenbluten’s Mark N. We were rushing, thinking we’d be a few minutes late but it turned out Igneon System from Belgium was still performing. There were obviously some technical difficulties with the turntables and about 15 to 20 minutes too late, Mark was given the ok to finally start his set. And what a set it was! We expected him to play some breaks at least, but were pleasantly surprised when the majority of the tracks were darkstep drum & bass like the exquisite “Peter Kurten, Katharsys & Dj Hidden - My Favorite Sin “, “Current Value – Interstellar”, ”The Dark Lord (Necron & Peter Kurten Remix)” to conclude his set with his own “Race Against Time”. Lots of scratching and tricks came into play, and gained him well-deserved ovations and shouting. Igoa, who would play next, was a good sport and didn’t mind Mark nibbling 15 minutes off his act to make up for lost time. Probably the best set of the day in our opinion!

Of course, we had now missed the first part of Enzyme-X, who was playing (and this is no joke) at the early hardcore stage. Really surprising and so we were very curious what this meant in record choice. After visiting the Enzyme party in Germany a few weeks ago, we hoped for some of those tracks to be played again. And yes, after arriving to the tunes of “Sound Of Da Record”, Seizure (who was the artist behind today’s performance of Enzyme-X), pointed to us when playing “Punishment Beyond Death”, as we had requested it in Germany last time. Afterwards, two incredible Nosferatu tracks were played, “Raythered” and “Soul Entrapment” together with Hamunaptra. Another top performance for the history books, although the crowd wasn’t that convinced.

Time for some darker sounds with Stormtrooper in the industrial area. Judging from his recent productions on Rebel Scum, he has taken a shine to dark drum & bass and confirmed this suspicion by playing “Scintillate”, “Lowroller – Mixbreed Soldier” and his own “Planetary Anima” in an incredible set, supported by a drastically increased sound volume compared to Rude Awakening’s set. Too bad he didn’t play past the 22.00 closing time. After grabbing a slice of pizza for two coins, we spent the last hour in the hardcore tent with Delta 9 playing tracks like “Echte Hardcore En Anders Niks”, “Stickhead & Don Demon – Demonhead” and again the sped up “Pussy Motherfuckers” track by Endymion. The stage was decorated with a skull on a kind of totem pole that would have suited an old Viking ship and the sound was quite good but not consistent. 

All in all, Ground Zero added another great edition to its list, but felt the wrath of the date clash with Harmony Of Hardcore an the emphasis on more and softer styles of music, which didn’t have the appeal the organization had been hoping for. Maybe the main stage still salvaged a bit, because the crowd looked more “regular” than usual and were higher in numbers than the audience in the hardtrance tent, or the weak response to the canceled oldschool boat. Hopefully, the organization can keep their promise of retuning as a nighttime festival next year, after successful meetings with local residents.

Check out the pictures of our photographer here.