[Report] Coone: The Aftermath (BE)

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As you all may have noticed, Fear.FM has been following Coone on his journey to create an album in 30 days with the help of a handful of huge DJ's from the Jump and Hardstyle scene.

On Friday the 1st of April (no joke), Coone finally completed his Challenge and to celebrate, he had organized a "small" party for his biggest fans. 300 fanatics were invited to the Salle Noire in the Noxx in Antwerp, Belgium.

Fear.FM was there to celebrate Coone's victory in style. I've never been to the Salle Noire, but it was a pretty awesome location. Not too small, not too big. Just the right size to give the party a nice "family" atmosphere. With the huge Funktion One soundsystem, there was enough sound to blow anyone off their feet - luckily for me I had my ear plugs in and my feet firmly planted on the dance floor. The LED wall which spanned pretty much half way around the hall was so cool! I have to say it blinded me more than a few times, but made for a spectacular show element.

The night started off with sets from Fenix, who played some Jump/tek and Unloaders, the new kids at Dirty Workz who laid down a pretty decent set including some very nice tracks which helped build the atmosphere towards Coone's set.

Of course, everyone came for Coone and at 01:00h the 300 party people went absolutely wild when Coone dropped his first track of the night - "The Challenge". This is when the party really got going and everyone went completely crazy, it was so awesome to witness. I noticed that MC Villain was quieter than usual, or maybe I wasn't really paying attention, but I really like his MC'ing style so it was cool to have our little MC Gangstah in the house to fill the place with his vocal touches - he even took over the decks for a few seconds now and then.

Coone gave the crowd what they wanted and treated us all to a barrage of all the amazing tracks we've seen fly by during the daily video blogs during his "Challenge" episodes. What really surprised me (and I'm sure surprised Coone as well) was that everyone knew the words to every track he dropped. It was pretty unbelievable and felt like the tracks had been out for a few months. I'm certain this gave Coone a healthy dose of goosebumps.
I have to say that the track which (again) gave me goosebumps was the collaboration between Coone and Scope DJ "Traveling". That was absolutely amazing! The track created such an amazing atmosphere and I'm standing by my thoughts that this track will be an absolute summer hit.

Here's a small preview from where I was standing

Other tracks like the B-Front collaboration (which gave us our dosage of a 'nice' dark atmosphere complemented with brutal kicks) and the Zatox collaboration, were also among my favorites of the night.
Two tracks which surprised me were the Deepack collaboration (what an absolutely awesome kick) and the Ruthless collaboration which, although it is a jump track, had such a brutal kick and atmosphere that it sounded more rough than a normal Hardstyle track. It sounded great!

Unfortunately, I was not able to stay the whole night and missed sets from Ambassador Inc, Psyko Punkz and Ruthless. Apparently, Ruthless played a massive Hardcore set, which was very much appreciated by everyone and is a great finale for the more than successful Aftermath party.

Besides partying I was able to sneak in a small chat with both Coone and Kevin (the camera guy) and both were very down to earth guys. Granted, Coone was a little busy with his fans, his set(s) and just having a great time he did sum up the party in a nutshell, when I managed to talk to him:
"You know, everyone here is here because they're fanatics and love the music".
Got to give it to him, that's a nice quote to sum up his journey and the party!
Kevin, the camera guy, was a really cool guy. I was even surprised he enjoyed the Fear.FM articles so much - which was great to hear of course! And I've again got to give him my compliments for being able to carry around that huge camera all night long between the sea of dancing fans.

Just have a look at the epic work this guy does for the aftermovies! As usual, awesome effects, great footage and... hmmm, is that me at 56 seconds? Looks like I was having a blast!
For those interested, the track in the Aftermovie is Ambassador Inc (Coone & Fenix) - Come take my Hand (if it's called that). It's basically a Re-Amp of "2 Brothers on the 4th floor - Come take my hand"