Are you a member of hardstyle? Well after last weekend we sure are. Held at De Asterd in Breda, which is, conveniently enough, less than a five minute drive from my house, this mini-festival is the FINAL outdoor event in the harder styles. After fare welling dancing in the outdoors already twice, (at Sunset Festival and Q-BASE) it was great to be embracing the sun for one final time. However, to be quite honest, I was a little apprehensive due to the fact that within the past week the temperature had gone from a beautiful, comfortable 18-20 degrees to a rather chilly 14 degrees – I knew the night-time was only going to get worse. Yes, I know I can’t complain as the chill is only going to get worse, hitting sub-zero within a matter of months, so made the decision to make the most of the sun and semi-reasonable temperature.

We decided to head to the festival early as we wanted to catch some melodic tunes before the ‘storm’ of raw swept through. Arriving at a deserted location around 1PM, young-guns Devin Wild & Energyzed were finishing up, before legends Josh & Wesz stepped on stage. Although this was the tiniest festival I’ve ever seen in my life, it was a super cute mini-event that was suitable to the chosen location, but it also would have done quite well in a small nightclub.

In terms of the festival as a whole, it can be best described as ‘gezellig,’ mini and adorable. After also attending Daylight Festival and Dream Village, I can see that Eye4Dance are doing some great things in the scene with small-scale festivals that offer everything from great service, nice productions and designs, a good selection of drinks and food and also creating versatile and entertaining line-ups.
By the time Josh & Wesz began their set it was a little too empty to dance without looking awkward so we decided to sit in the sun, soak up some rays and listen to some great tunes. The guys played a nice, balanced and chilled set with tracks such as “Autumn Green,” “World At Peace,” “Dream Planet” and the Headhunterz remix of “Her Voice” which had the 50-70 people there ALL singing the melody out loud – that was quite amusing.

As the tent was quite cold inside, we opted to sitting outside, smashing some cocktails (yes, they had cocktails) and simply enjoying the combination of hardstyle and the sun’s rays. As soon as we knew it, an hour had passed and Deepack had finished their set, so we made our way backstage to have a bit of banter with them, here’s what went down:

AAN: What does it mean for you to be a member of hardstyle?
Deepack: Are we members? We play hardstyle, we love hardstyle, so yes, you could say that we’re ‘members.’ Nowadays there are a lot of members of hardstyle and we’re glad about it.
AAN: You played quite a random ‘freestylish’ set that ranged from euphoric to raw then back to euphoric, can you tell me a little bit more about it?
Deepack: We wanted to build things up again, be ourselves and also have respect for the Da Tweekaz, who are playing after us. The people in the crowd wanted some harder tracks, so we gave that to them towards the middle of our set then brought it back down to be a little more melodic.
AAN: Another cheeky question, what is Deepack up to in the future?
Deepack: We have a lot of collabs in the works at the moment and three releases coming up. We had a really great Summer, but now you can expect some more new material from us!
*Josh & Wesz join in*

AAN: Josh & Wesz, are you members of hardstyle?
Josh: I didn’t sign up… Is registration free?
AAN: I think your booking agency signed you up for this….
Josh &Wesz: Fucking Structure Agency, it’s always those fuckers. Assholes… *extreme laughing*
AAN: Do you guys have some cool new stuff coming up?
Josh & Wesz: Yeah… We have some cool stuff on its way which will contain some old vibes. We have 4 tracks but they’re not completely done, we’re still working on it to get the vibe right.

Meanwhile, whilst we were having a good ole’ chat with Deepack and Josh & Wesz, Da Tweekaz were dropping some killer tunes including “#Tweekay14,” “Examination Of Time,” “Rest Of Your Life” and more. Although it wasn’t near packed, it was nice to see that the DJ’s were having a great time on stage and backstage. After having a good chat with some of the artists, we decided to head back into the tent because it was getting chilly and most importantly, we wanted to smash some cheeky wines.

By this time, B-Front was playing a killer set and the tent had filled out with dedicated hardstyle lovers; I even saw a few crazy cunts who had taken their shirts off… It was around 14 degrees, mind you. Set-wise, B-Front played a killer set (as usual) dropping huge tracks like “Blackness,” “Endless Path,” “Mysterias” and my personal favourite, “World Outside” with Frontliner. I’m always more than happy to see B-Front on a line-up, mainly because he plays such a versatile and entertaining set packed with energy and is not unbearably raw, nor cheesy.
As the sun went down, it started to get damn chilly and I was immediately smitten with the fact that I had brought my winter coat with me. I do agree that it was a bit of a risky time to put on an outdoor event, a few weeks earlier would have been okay, but this was a little too cold for my liking, so we hung around inside the crowd and danced until our body temperatures went back to normal.

8:00PM – We pull Sub Zero Project aside to ask them how their day is going:

AAN: We are at Members Of Hardstyle, that means you are members of hardstyle. Did you sign up for this membership?

SZP: Um, they invited us, we didn’t really sign up.

AAN: On a scale of 1-10 how many skitz times are you having?

SZP: 4… No, 10. No… 11!

*End of ‘skitzy’ conversation.*

When I first saw the line-up for the day, my initial assumptions were that all of the artists would play music that’s raw as fuck and wouldn’t allow for a progression throughout the day, so I was immensely surprised when the DJ’s were playing some balanced, flexible sets. Following acts Hard Driver and Frequencerz and Chain Reaction and Act Of Rage played some pretty sick tunes as they built things up gradually. Another honourable mention goes to the craziest set I’ve ever seen: Jason Payne, Regain and Requiem – these three young superstars demolished the crowd (literally) with intensely hard kicks, brutality and all things raw, so kudos to the next generation!

Somewhere around 9:45PM, we decided to head home as it was getting too cold and cuddling up in bed seemed like the best thing since sliced bread (I didn’t realise how well that rhymed). We hopped on the shuttle bus (which were also a great addition to the festival) and made our way home. Conclusively, we had a great day and although the festival was tiny it was great to have that final day dancing and getting turnt underneath the gorgeous sunshine.

We want to thank Eye4Dance for having us and want to also congratulate them on the fantastic year that they’ve had event-wise; we’re sure that 2016 is going to bring even bigger things for this upcoming organisation!