On Saturday 9 February 2019, 30,000 hard dance fans from all over the world gathered together in the Gelredome for Hard Bass: The Last Formation. For those who don’t know, Hard Bass was an annual party for the last ten years at the Gelredome organized by B2S (one of the major hard dance event organizers in the Netherlands). Last Saturday was the final edition of Hard Bass and the end of one of the largest most popular indoor hard dance events in the world.

What made Hard Bass unique is that, unlike other parties where DJs typically perform one-hour sets back to back (or in some instances longer sets versus other DJs), Hard Bass was notorious for its use of “teams”. The ten-hour long party (as always, not long enough in my opinion) this year was divided into five teams: Blue, Green, Yellow, Red, and Heroes (Ten Years of History). Each team consisted of multiple DJs who perform in a similar style. This edition was coined the “hardest” Hard Bass, which was evidenced by the predominance of rawstyle DJs on the line up – B-Front, Ran-D, Radical Redemption, and E-Force, to name a few.

Although my heart beats at 300 beats per minute, I was blown away by the production and music on Saturday night. This truly was a show rather than just a typical rave, so much that at times sitting out in the stands (the Gelredome is large stadium with tiered seating) I felt as though I was watching Hard Bass: The Musical. Each team was provided with a proper introduction and ending similar to the curtain call in play. Once they finished performing their epic last track, the lights would go off, everyone would applaud, and an introduction would start for the next team.

Being from the New York area and having attended multiple Broadway performances, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to attend this as a play where you sit down and watch the performance as if you were watching Phantom of the Opera or Fiddler on the Roof, for instance. All of the elements were there. The stage was a giant space ship, which fit perfectly with the theme, the lasers were out of this world, and of course there was fire, fireworks, and even some theatrics.

The evening truly was a tribute to ten years of hard dance, and to the artists and fans who made it all possible. The music was a quintessential mix of the classics we all know the words to, such as “Imaginary”, “Castles in the Sky”, “You’ve Got the Love”, and “Eternalize”, as well as some new tracks including my one of my personal favorites of the evening, “The Last Resort”.

This night was particularly memorable for me because I learned what “kick rolling” was for the first time. As previously mentioned, although I do enjoy rawstyle, I have not had much exposure to it, as it is a stage I don’t typically frequent at festivals. Usually passing by the rawstyle stage at Defqon, Dominator, or Masters of Hardcore, I would always see a large crowd of very tall, buff Dutch guys all moving their hands in a chopping motion to the beat. I figured this was just a dance that everyone did both collectively and individually, for example as gabbers hakken.

However, now I know that it is in fact a style of dancing (which is often pre-rehearsed) so that the chopping motion hits right on the beat. The more you know! I found this particularly fascinating because with speedcore/terror we have something similar (albeit less rehearsed and fluid) where when the beat drops you see everyone with one hand to the sky basically having a seizure (don’t judge it until you try it!) 

My favorite team of the evening was definitely Red, and those last few minutes were the perfect ending to the night. I particularly enjoy when rawstyle tracks are sped up, although I guess this would make kick rolling more difficult for some. Rawstyle is known for its brutal kicks, complex layers, and screeches, therefore just kicking it up a bit to 200 beats per minute makes it even better (in my humble opinion).

The evening concluded flawlessly with the GPF remix of Killshot-Beastmode, which of course kept me wanting more. The finale of the show consisted of the space ship taking off, closing off a chapter in history of ten years of Hard Bass. What will B2S have for us next?

*Disclaimer: The opinions in this article are strictly my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the companies and organizations I am affiliated with. Furthermore the pictures water marked “Hard Bass” are not my own pictures but rather B2S.