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[Report] Proud 2 Be Hardcore 2011 (NL)

It was the 21st of October when UHM decided to treat its followers to another edition of Proud 2 Be Hardcore. Last year it marked the start of UHM’s plans to do a bit more for the hardcore scene in Limburg, so they held it at club Mondial in Beek. Apart from a party on New Year’s eve, the plan didn’t really come together, as the A-Team’s Hannibal would say. In fact, 2011 will be the first time in years without an edition in the Platte Zaal or Maastricht Music Hall, as the New Year’s eve party will be held in Belgium.

This year saw the follow-up in Mondial, with another exciting line-up, especially in the industrial area. First things first though, the early hardcore was in the pub area again and Differens was playing. Because there seemed to be no turntables, Rens could play tracks that were probably never released on vinyl (or not available anymore) and brought a set filled with old Thunderdome pounders like “The Prophet - Party Children”, “Simtec - Just Gettin Hot”, “I Know What It Is”, “X-Press Yourself”, “Omar Santana – Wizard Of Oh” and “Straight Off The Dancefloor”.

Sceletor, who was up next, gave it a different twist with tracks from early on in the millennium and back to 1998, such as “Locked Down”, “6.48 minutes to D’Spyre”, “Pass Me (Endymion Remix)”, “Determination” and “Stunned Guys – She”. When he started playing old PCP hits, the time had come to check out the start of the UK hardcore madness with Deathmachine and Simon Underground.
Deathmachine has recently been involved in more drum & bass crossovers, for which he seems to have a lot of talent. One of the first tracks to be heard was his collab with Switch Technique on Union Recordings, called “In The Dark”, after which “The Outside Agency & Sei2ure - Pacifists”, “Enzyme-X - Nathaniel” and “Dj Producer – The Abominable” followed.

Fellow countryman Simon Underground shoved the cd-players away and placed the turntables closer together. He even had his own needle with him, so he could play his set to the fullest extent. Tracks like “Dj Hidden – Breathe In, Breathe Out”, “Something Terrible” and “Bong-Ra – Bombaclat Techno” really hit the spot, especially with the help of the overwhelming sound system, which was once again ace! The upstairs area looked a lot cleaner than last year, when the still not completely rebuilt attic only added to the atmosphere created by the artists.

Richie Gee didn’t play a very surprising set, as he played tracks also featured in his set at The Qontinent a few months ago. Think about “I:Gor – Too Hot”, “Mixbreed Soldier” and “Vows Of Doubt”. Not that these aren’t very good tracks, of course, but the real surprise came in the form of a battle between Pita (who is finally back) and Triax, who already surprised us with a darkstep set at A Decade Of Enzyme. This time, these representatives of the Limburg hardcore scene put industrial hardcore and darkstep in their melting pot to come up with a recipe for destruction, featuring “Industrial Cooking Spray”, “Tormented VIP”, “Among Us” and a (to us) unknown track “Orifice – Rotten Core”, before closing their set with “Cut You Into Little Pieces”. If you ask us, this sure tasted like more!

It was hard to imagine how Bonehead would play after this cavalcade of breaks. He did so with frenchcore beats, which totally threw us off and made us return to the second area where Da Dreamer performed after Leviathan’s trancecore set, filled with new productions from his own label. Da Dreamer, on the other hand, kept it oldschool and treated us to rarely played records like “Straight From Bolivia”, “Turntable Junky”, “The Thundertheme” and “Extreme Anthem”, proving he is a welcome addition to any early hardcore line-up. Having literally not set a foot in the main area at all (except to go to the downstairs toilet), we returned home after a great edition of Proud 2 Be Hardcore which just barely didn’t manage to top last year’s edition.