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[Report] Masters Of Hardcore Italy

For most of us, a party (far) abroad remains a dream. After years of visiting Dutch or the occasional Belgian or German party, every party animal longs for a change of scenery and the same goes for us. After visiting the Terrornoize Industry tour in Switzerland last year, our next European trip would be the Italian edition of Masters Of Hardcore, held for the seventh time in a row at club Florida in Brescia. With lake Garda nearby and an hour’s drive from Milan, the ideal opportunity to take a few extra days off.

Brescia itself turned out to be a pretty big city as well: the party was a half hour drive from our hotel. On top of that, this city along the motor way from Milan to Venice also harbors the famous club Number One, where the Italian hardcore scene was shaped in the 90’s. Even today, there are plenty of references to this period in hardcore history, as several visitors of the party dressed in shirts mentioning “Sala 2” aka the second area of the club.

After a few days of sightseeing, eating pizza’s and drinking several types of Belgian beer (pretty popular over there), our first Italian party was at hand. Club Florida is right next to a roundabout when driving from Brescia to Ghedi and has a huge parking lot, running all around the club’s grounds. Because both the main and Industrial / Frenchcore area would be open air stages, the hard beats could immediately be heard. The entrance was indoor and when walking outside, the industrial/Frenchcore area was first on your path.

As usual, this area was hosted by Not Easy Tunes with residents like Koney, Hodemar, Backlash and Milla, the only female DJ.
Furthermore, Bonehead was flown in but he couldn’t get his cd’s to work. Unfortunately, all these Italian artists played Frenchcore, which meant industrial was nowhere to be heard for several hours. A bit further down the track was the main area with a big orange logo of Masters Of Hardcore. The spaceship-like construction in the middle of the dance floor was really impressive, hanging over the crowd menacingly. Nico (without partner in crime Tetta) played an enjoyable set here with their own track “Revenge”, “You Will Die” and “Do Or Die”. The crowd created a great atmosphere, clapping and screaming with lots of tracks that the Dutch crowd and its neighboring counterparts are probably already tired of.

When they overheard you speaking a foreign language, they would immediately ask “are you from Holland?”, shake your hand and ask you for some smokes. The outfits and body decorations are enough reason to visit a party in the boot of Europe. Apart from the fact that shorts still don’t seem short enough and are therefore turned up, 9 out of 10 visitors has a septum piercing (in the boney part between both nostrils). The fact that we saw a comparable gadget, supposedly effective against snoring, on a shopping network the night before, only added to the fun. The weirdest thing we saw, was a guy wearing some kind of plastic animal through a hole in his ear.

Next to the swimming pool with changing rooms, unfortunately attracting a primarily male audience, was a stairway. This led to the upcoming talent area, where several couches were available to chill out. The bar in the back of the room was meant to relieve the other ones outside, because the lines could get pretty long there. Contributing to this problem was the weird token system. At the bar in the main area, everyone was expected to line up for tokens in a wide variety. Blue for soft drinks and beer, white for pizza/pasta at a special eating stand and even separate ones for cocktails (Red Bull apparently belonged to the same category).

With the tokens you just purchased, you then had to go to the bartender a few steps further to exchange them for drinks. Very convenient (not!) and you can imagine what the consequences were. Also, we were warned about the extreme prices: 5 euro for a coke or a beer (although it was the respectable German brand Beck’s and a 33cl cup if we aren’t mistaken). Italy is known for its extreme drink prices, the restaurants would always charge you lots more for drinks than for food. And if you order a “bierra” there, you always get a 40 cl glass!

The wait was for Day-Mar and Negative-A to start their set. Following a mainstream live-act like Traxtorm Gangstaz Allied, was not an easy job considering the completely different styles these artists play. Tracks like “Worship The Bull”, “Waldhaus – Journey Through Time” en “Day-Mar – Guess What” hyped up the crowd and caused some pogo action. Especially a bunch of so-called “warriors” (a kind of gabberpunks with huge Mohawks and wearing lots of make-up) went crazy, but the security were not amused and intervened quite forcefully every time.

Even when a huge rain shower forced the party inside, the security would push offenders outside, without paying any attention to other party people, causing more agitation than the people they were throwing out. Too bad there was no tower building, as was the style in Number One. Anyway, the rain meant the upcoming DJ’s had to make way for the DJ’s of the Frenchcore area and so Drokz and Akira could be found here, with still plenty of dancing space left. Obviously, Italians are more keen on mainstream hardcore. With “The Hard Way” and some tracks by Passenger Of Shit, this was undoubtedly a whole different ball game.

At 4.00 o’clock, the party unfortunately ended. It seems this is the regular closing time of the club, although the Italian editions used to last longer. Too bad there were also less areas then a few years ago. But still, we had a great time and definitely plan a repeat visit. The sound was better than the Dutch or Belgian editions and we just love the crazy crowd. But remember to take a jacket with you in case of another rain storm. Also, pay attention when leaving the parking lot because they have even less regard for cars than over here.