Fear.FM Harder

[Report] Frequence 2011 (NL)

On Saturday the 17th of September, First Vision finished the festival season with the rebirth of Frequence at the beach of Aquabest. After 5 years, more than 20 international top artists brought this historic festival in Brabant back to life. Jochen Miller, D-Block & S-te-Fan and Mightyfools took care of a nostalgic and banging return of Frequence together with Marcel Woods, Showtek and Marco V.

At 15:00 we arrived at the festival grounds. Parking was close to the entrance and the festival grounds looked great on the first impression. It was some sort of water park including some nice attractions on the other side. It wasn’t that crowded at the Mainstage and Rare stage at that time. We didn’t know any of the deejays at those stages during that particular time so we walked over to the Headliner stage and watched Dutch Master spinning the discs for half an hour. Main and Rare were quite close to each other, the Headliner stage was a bit further which was a good groundplan, we thought. When we walked to the Headliner stage we passed a carnival-like place with food stands and on the other side, two beach houses where you could buy some sponsored drinks. This, together with the great decoration overall gave a great vibe to the place. This decoration really did fit in with the beach on one side and the attraction park on the other side. Enough about the festival grounds though, let’s discuss some of the sets we experienced!

Dutch Master 14:30 – 16:00
We had never before seen Dutch Master perform so this was our first time. I have to say that he brought an original mix between his own productions and some other mostly euphoric tracks. This stage was almost packed already in contrast with the main and rare stages. Some said this probably was because Frequence was a bit more hard focused in the past, although the last edition was in 2006. Some cool tracks I noticed were a new ‘5am remix’, ‘Cosmic Destination 2011’ by Bioweapon and of course Dutch Master's newest track : “You Are the Sound” which seemed to work on the dancefloor. A surprise for me was that he spun: Digital Punk – Inevitable, a really cool track of course!

Jordy Lishious – 15:30 -17:00
After some nice hardstyle by Dutch Master we decided to check out Jordy Lishious at the Mainstage. He is upcoming in his scene with performances at the Privilege before and after Tiesto and having his track: ‘Lump’ spun by Armin van Buuren at Queensday in Amsterdam for around 300, 000 people. This piqued my interest, so I decided to check out a part of his set, especially since I really dig his newest track together with Mitch Crown – ‘Last Night’. I didn't recognise a lot of tracks which he spun because I’m not that experienced with house and progressive but I really got into the bootleg he spun from Avicii – 'Levels’. It gave a cool harder vibe to the original track which is in my opinion the best track from this summer. Overall I can say that his mixing was really cool, no mistakes and great use of the effects during the tracks. It was a bit more crowded than before and those who were there really seemed to enjoy his set.

D-Block & S-Te-Fan 16:00 – 17:30
We enjoyed Jordy Lishious a lot, but our roots are in Hardstyle, so we decided to check D-Block & S-Te-Fan after fifty minutes at the mainstage. The first thing we noticed was that it was totally packed and it seemed like they had raised the sound volume a bit. Our glasses were trembling because of the bass at the front! The deejays played some nice new tracks by themselves but also ‘Lonely’ by Wildstylez and the new hit by Brennan Heart and Wildstylez :’Lose My Mind’. I think this track could turn out as one of the biggest hits of 2011. Another cool track we heard during their set was a great mashup of “Rockin ur Mind”, “Loopmachine” and “The B-Side”

Marcel Woods 17:00 – 18:30
Since we heard D-Block & S-Te-Fan last week too, we decided to check out frontier blowing Marcel Woods at the mainstage. Again, the mainstage was a bit more crowded than before, still not packed but crowded enough. One thing we noticed at the mainstage was a really cool female MC. I never saw one before at a party, but of course besides that she really stood her ground! To speak about Marcel’s performance, he spun some really awesome tracks. Especially “Don’t Ditch” and “The Bottle” mashed with “Mush Mush”. A funny thing we concluded was that the crowd at mainstage was significantly older than the crowd at the Headliner stage, maybe it is because of the different genres, but for me it was great to see some more mature people enjoy festivals like this too!

Showtek 17:30 – 19:00
After three quarters of Woods, we decided to go to the Headliner stage again, where Showtek had already been performing for fifteen minutes. When we walked in we heard a great new edit or remix of ‘Hold Us Back’. A little while after that they played a track which really blew my mind, it contains the following vocals : ‘Tonight we bring those memories back’. This track had a great melody, vocals and vibe to it, but the most surprising for me was that it was a bit harder then we usually expect from Showtek. You really need to hear this track to notice what I’m trying to explain here, so I hope they will release it quite soon! A cool thing Showtek usually does nowadays is that Walt spins most of the records and Duro MC’s a lot and fires his CO2 gun at the crowd. This makes the performance of Showtek a bit more of a show than what usual artists do in my opinion and it gives a nice extra touch to it. Other tracks which made this set awesome were: “Fuck All the Haters (some sort of Partylover follow up it seemed to me)”, “Her Voice (Headhunterz Remix)”, “Raise Your Weapon edit, by Deadmau5”, a mashup of “Infinity, Colours of the Harder Styles and Follow Me (Derb rmx)”, a great edit of “Loopmachine” together with The Bloody Beetroots ft Steve Aoki – Warp”. But for me the highlight was “Marcel Woods – The Bottle (Showtek rmx)” with another epic sitdown moment in it. Overall this set had a great variety of songs and was entertaining for me. They closed their set with a new edit of Partylover which contained the melody of Marshall Masters – 'Don’t Touch That Stereo' in the mids, a nice touch!

19:00 – 20:30 Tatanka
Now it was time for the Italian master Tatanka to kick off. He started with the ‘Rebirth’ anthem of this year by Ran-D & B-Front which made me smile immediately. He brought a lot more raw tracks than we were used to, but the crowd was really ready for it when I took a look around. Highlights for me and the crowd were : ‘Put it On’, ‘Unborn’, ‘Psycho' by Chris One and he closed his set with ‘Shiverz’ by D-Block & S-Te-Fan ft High Voltage. This really made my day bceause it has been a while since we last heard it live!

20:30 – 21:45 Josh & Wesz
For me it felt like Tatanka and Josh & Wesz could’ve switched times because usually J&W are a bit more euphoric oriented compared to Tatanka. Despite that, Josh and Wesz proved otherwise and turned around their set and the crowd to their advantage. Starting your set with On The Go and Godz Power really makes an impression if you ask me. Their set was perfectly fitted to their time, with highlights like : ‘Sucksess’ ‘Mindgame’ ‘Faster ‘n Further’ and a cool mashup of ‘Hardbeat Market’ and ‘Her Voice’(Superbass mix). Both of these Builder tracks resulted in a big smile on my face, especially when you have the guts to close off the hardstyle part of the day with three of your own tracks in a row! Those tracks were ‘G-Force’, ‘I’ve Lost You’ and especially ‘Fucking Posers’

After their set we decided to leave the place as we were not interested in Vince since hardcore is just not our thing. We heard Jochen Miller at the mainstage playing a cool edit of Sweet Dreams, and it was a bit more packed than before over there, and the same went for the Rare stage. To conclude the music part, I can say that the line up was greatly varied and top-notch if you see were these artist performed before and what they brought today.

Besides the music and the decoration part, everything about this party seemed greatly organized, and I would like to give First Vision a big thumbs up for that. There was no waiting line at the entrance, no queue at the bars and the food stands part was really cool to see and enjoy. Also the placing of the toilets was perfect and there were no rows over there either. To sum everything up, adding the great sound systems and nice weather (it wasn’t that cold, and there was no rain at all during the festival) this was a perfect edition I think! The total package of this party reminded me a bit of earlier Defqon events at Almere Strand, but then a bit more cozy and regional. It seemed like all house, trance and hardstyle lovers from around Eindhoven gathered to make this a great day, for both young and older!