[Report] Bassleader 2011 (BE)

Magazine

On Saturday the 14th of May it was time for one of the most known harddance events in Belgium, organised by Bass Events and Art of Dance, Bassleader!
With it's 4 areas, Hardstyle, Tek&Jump, Classics and Hardcore, it was a night not to forget quickly!.

At the entrance you entered the big main hall, where there were food and drink stalls, merchandise stalls and in the middle of the room, the Classic area, covered in a circle of black cloth. In the classics area there was a giant robot with illuminated eyes, and a big led screen on his belly. On each sides there were 3 rectangle shaped led screens. We couldn't wait to see those in action, but the Classics room started at 21:00, so we still had to wait one hour for that.

The Tek&Jump area was in my opinion one of the best decorated rooms of the event. With its huge led wall filling the whole width of the room, great laser and light shows, and a stage that could move forward and backwards by an amazing system on the roof. No wonder everyone wore sunglasses.

The stage in the Hardstyle area was decorated with lasers pointing to huge discoballs, which sent the beams in all possible directions, and some big led walls.
And last but not least, the Hardcore room. This room also had led walls, and in the middle of the stage, a huge sword handle, decorated with an epic skull, in the theme of Masters of Hardcore.

The first hour of the event, we walked around a little bit to get our bearings, so we heard some parts of the sets from the Unloaders, Mode Seven and Exotane. The music wasn't really loud at that moment, so we kept walking around a little.
At 21:00 it was time for the first set at the classic stage, by DJ Massiv. We went there and finally could see those led screens in action. In one word: amazing! The sound was blocked by the black cloths surrounding the stage, which made an optimal hard sound. DJ Massiv started our evening with some classic jump tracks.

After his set, we went walking around a little more, and when it was time for The Pitcher's performance, we headed to the Hardstyle room. There we could enjoy the first awesome intro we saw that evening! We stayed during The Pitcher's awesome set and then watched the first half hour of Frontliner. At 22:55 we headed to the Hardcore area, because I didn't want to miss the first part of Dj Mad Dog's set. I heard a lot of good songs of him on Youtube, but never saw him before, so I really wanted to hear some live songs from him.
After another epic intro, he started his set with the song "A night of madness" which really got me in the mood. After 15 minutes we rushed back to the Hardstyle.

The Hardstyle room was packed from front to back, so we pushed ourselves through the crowd, heading to the Vip deck. We just found suitable spots on the Vip deck, when Frontliner played his last track.
The lights went off, the led screens turned on, and it was time for one epic intro. Everytime we heard bass, the whole Vip deck rattled, that was just amazing. The intro came to its peak, and then Coone appeared from behind the mix tables. The whole crowd just went crazy. With the support of Mc Villain the whole room started clapping hands on the beat, giving one of the most epic moments on this years Bassleader. Coone played a lot of songs from his new album 'The Challenge'. Songs such as 'The Challenge", "Travelling", "Audio Attack", and many more. He ended his awesome set with another song from his most recent album: "Come Take My Hand". All sweaty, we went to the Tek&Jump area to see the last half hour of Lethal MG's set. With all kinds of Tek songs, he got the crowd in a nice flow.
When he ended his set, it was time for one of Belgium's most know Tek artists: Teka B Live. They played all their most popular songs, and the most awesome moment was, when their stage just started flying toward the back of the room, to end just in front of the Vip deck. For about 15 minutes, the Vip wasn't in the back, but at the first row.

When Teka B's set came to an end, we took a sniff of the atmosphere in the Classics room, which was again great. We slowly headed back to the Hardstyle room, where Psyko Punkz and Headhunterz where playing "Bass Boom". We went to the first row to see them from a little closer, and you could see that the mood on the stage was really good! When their set came to an end, we stayed for the intro of Scope Dj, and when his first song was filling the room with some sweet hardstyle, we headed to the Hardcore room to see the Evil Activities Live set. Again, we went to the first row, a mistake we won't make again in the future. The mood was great without doubt, but the basses just didn't came in right when you were too much in the front. While "Nobody said it was easy" was playing, we headed to the Vip deck, where the sound was much better. On the deck we witnessed of one of the best intros (in my opinion) of the evening, the one of Dyprax. He started his set with the Masters of Hardcore Anthem, which got the whole room dancing like crazy.

After a half hour of epic hardcore, we went to the Classics room in the main hall where we could enjoy Ruthless's set with all kinds of classics. The sound in this room was the best, accompanied with the great led walls and light show. When Ruthless ended his set we quickly went to the Tek&Jump room again to see half an hour of Davoodi Live. After that we went to the Hardcore room to see Angerfist live. They gave a refreshing set, which boosted us a little bit more again, because our bodies were getting a little tired. At the end of their set, they asked everyone to put their lighters in the air, so the room was filled with little flames, and that was a pretty awesome sight! When their last song ended, and the intro for Amnesys vs Tommyknocker started, we quickly ran to the Hardstyle room Vip deck, to enjoy the last half hour of Zatox's set. In my opinion, this was the best hardstyle set I heard that evening. With epic tracks such as "Irreplaceable" and "Hard Bass" he filled the room with Raw Hardstyle. This was the sound I paid for. Just epic.

When Zatox's set unfortunately came to an end, we went to the Classics room to see the last half hour of Pavo. It was a calm but good set, where we got to rest a little. When his set came to an end it was time for another last highlight of the evening: Darkraver!
After a long, nice intro, Darkraver, announced by Mc Apster, jumped from behind the mixing table, and started playing some nice commercial remixes. For the last hour we gave it our all.

At 5:45 we decided to leave, to stay ahead of the crowd. We quickly went to the merchandise stalls to get ourselves a few t-shirts and then went to the tram stop, where we could think back to an awesome party and a successful night!