[Report] Hard Classics Indoor

Magazine

After two succesful editions of Hard Classics On the Beach, Free2Party decided to organize an indoor edition in The Sand in Amsterdam, a nice venue in the industrial part of the city. A party with one area, only Early Hardstyle, I had high expectations.

We arrived at 23:15h and needed to stand outside in a queue, quite cold and rainy but luckily it didn’t take too long. Hopefully for the other visitors who arrived later the queue was the same. When standing there I already heard Supercell playing "R.I.P." which made me want to go in even faster. When inside the checking of the tickets went fast and the lockers weren’t crowded at all, perfectly organized. Then a quick pitstop at the toilet which sadly enough was another 2 euro’s for a stamp for the whole evening or 50 cents each visit. I would prefer this in the ticket price but that probably isn’t possible at The Sand. I visited it once before and back then it was just the same. I can't say that much about Supercell's set, the sound wasn’t at the highest volume yet and I only heard 15 minutes, including Tricky Nation which was a nice entry for me and my friends. His mixing could be better though and he once hit the cue button during Loving You, but shit happens.

23:30 Trilok & Gizmo
Then it was time for the first headliners of the evening, Trilok and Gizmo. I expected some nice DHHD classics but only heard "Funky Shit" and "30 minutes". Maybe I missed some but they filled it up with other great early hardstyle tracks like "Go Go GO", "Power 2 da People", "Hardstate Channel", a great mashup of "Derb", "Acid Nightmare" and "Beatz In Time". Overall this set was good with a variation of hits and lesser known tracks. Gizmo spinned some tracks I didn’t know ("Ravers On Dope - Hardcore Vibes (Avancada remix)"), I’ve heard him do better sets before but this one was decent too in my opinion. They closed their set with "Age Of Reverse Bass" and a mashup of "The Prophecy/Here’s Johnny" great tracks of course, but I felt like these were actually a bit too hard for that time of the evening. But that was an overall remark about this party, there wasn’t really a buildup, more on that later. The sound during their set didn’t reach its full potential yet, later on the volume was up full blast and the quality was great.

01:00 Cold Fusion
I only knew this name thanks to an old Q-dance release, so I didn’t really know what to expect from them. Their set was great though, again a combination of hits and lesser known tracks with personal highlights like "Techno Noise", "X2X" (Deepack remix), "Outlaw – Execute", "QT13", "Smack My Derb", "Motherfuck" and again "Age Of Reverse Bass", I guess they didn’t hear Trilok & Gizmo’s set then. During their set and the sets before that we were standing in the front, only meters away from the DJ’s which was fine but became very hot after a while. Even when you didn’t dance (which luckily wasn’t much of the case in this crowd) you would sweat. So after a while we decided to go stand in the back, the difference was more than 7 degrees, or at least it felt like that.

02:00 Daniele Mondello
Then it was time for Daniele Mondello, probably a favourite for a lot of people there, considering his legendary set at Qlimax 2003. He started off with "Commander", which was great since I consider this his best work. After that he played some for me unknown tracks and "Bad Manners". He also scratched a lot during his set, a great thing since he is really good at this and it's kind of his trademark. His set was a really rough one, for me it felt kind of misplaced in the timetable, he spun at around 155 BPM or even faster than that and only early Italian tracks with rough reversed basses. For me it felt like it was too hard but I am sure a lot of people enjoyed his set the most. Especially when he came up with a pink panther theme track, with kicks close to hardcore, and a really bad melody in my opinion. This was not what I came for, but luckily he made up later for it while spinning "GTP (Technoboy rmx)", "Incoming", and "Who’s Calling". He also spinned a weird mashup with breaks from "Alphaville – Forever Young" and a middle piece with "Daft Punk – Technologic" vocals, just not my cup of tea.

03:00 Isaac
This was the set I looked forward to, last year I heard Isaac spin early hardstyle at Defqon.1 at the White stage and 10 Years of Q-dance Qlubtempo Parade and the VIP Studio Sessions. These were all very very memorable sets for me, especially the VIP Studio Sessions where he played some great early tracks like "Musicha Che Domina" and "Techno Prime". At Hard Classics I expected him to do a thing more like on Defqon.1 and that was exactly what he did, just spinning the best and most popular early hardstyle tracks with some nice variations like "Cosmic Gate – Exploration of Space". Isaac mixed quite fast, but not in bpm like Daniele Mondello, I was really happy about that. Highlights for me were, starting off with "Ravers Rules", "I Am Techno", "16", "Scream" and the original mix of "Cocaine MF". During this set there was only one thing to mention, the sound stopped for a while, but considering the MC’s trying to communicate with the back (where the technicians were) it wasn’t Isaac fault but a technical error. It’s a pity but things like this happen, so no harm done.

04:00 Luna
Then it was time for the closing set by Luna, luckily Luna was at the party when Isaac was spinning which prevented double tracks where as during the sets there were some (Age of reverse bass 3 times). Luna started off with "Seid Ihr Bereid" and spinned at the same tempo as Isaac (atleast it felt like that). In my opinion Luna tried to spin older and more early sounding tracks than all the other djs, some tracks I couldn’t identify but examples of this were "Modulo" and "Shithead (Original mix)" he had a nice buildup in his set, he didn’t mix as fast as Isaac (technically) but he touched the right tracks and built from older tracks to newer ones like "Sexbusters", "Our Power" and closing with "Oldschool Phenomenom". Highlights for me were: "Skyscraper", "E-Town" and the tracks stated above. A great set to end the party with.

The overall impression of this party for me was a great one, the venue was almost perfect. It wasn’t too crowded, bars were fast and so were the lockers. The temperature wasn't too comfortable, but when you stood in the back it was decent enough. The show was awesome for a party of this level. The lasers were good and the show dancers were quite sexy when you weren’t busy dancing. The VIP deck was behind the decks and in front of a big beamer screen, for me it felt kind of misplaced since that ruined the show of the screen a bit. The atmosphere was great, as I expected, a party like this isn’t too big, and all visitors come for the same reason; the love for early hardstyle. There were a lot of plastic blown up balls and crocodiles and dolphins, a lot of fun in the beginning but I saw some people who didn't enjoy it too much. The idea was great referring to Hard Classics on the beach. The MC'(s) where good, Da Silva did his job well, but sometimes he didnt really know the buildup of the tracks which sometimes led to some mistakes, but nothing too obvious. Da Mouth Of Madness appeared too! A nice surprise, he did a great job. The only thing I would change for the next party is trying to have a more consistent timetable which builds up from soft to hard, now it was quite random where Luna spun some real "dry" early hardstyle in the beginning and Daniele Mondello just went beserk with his Italian early tracks. I would also love to hear some more 2000-2002 stuff wich isn't as well known, before the headliners. Maybe I missed this (during Supercell) but Trilok and Gizmo directly went full throttle with their set.

This party was really worth the money and even more than that if you love the sound of early hardstyle. Even if you’re not that acquainted with the tracks there will always be some real hits everybody knows which will keep you going. Besides that the atmosphere was great, I bet everybody enjoyed the party, old and young. A great job by Free2Party!

One of our Photographers (Rossum) was there to capture the evening on camera, they can be found here: http://www.fear.fm/magazine/photobook/hard-classics/23