Iris: How I got into hardstyle
Did you look forward to the moment you turned 18? Finally old enough for a hardstyle party! Did you discover the music at a later age? Or did you change your mind completely, after your friends dragged you to a festival? In How I got into hardstyle, our Hardstyle Reporters tell about their party career, how they discovered hardstyle and how they fell in love with it.
Iris just joined the Hardstyle Report team. As a translator, but she also likes to think creatively about our content. For years her schedule has been filled with hardstyle, which she prefers to go with friend and colleague Hardstyle Reporter Lauren. From Defqon.1 to Dominator, it is no unknown territory for Iris. This is how she got into hardstyle.
It all started at Dance Valley about 8 years ago. The only thing I was listening to at the time was hip hop and R&B. So I was mainly dancing at the Beatloverz stage. A friend told me I must take a look at the hardstyle stage, and so I went. But where was the melody? After ten minutes I had heard enough and left to spend the rest of the day at the other stages. The impressions, the music and the muscle pain afterwards, "it was okay".
At the end of 2011 I went to my first indoor party. I had heard of Dirty Dutch through a friend and managed to persuade some friends to come along. This edition was in the Amsterdam RAI, a huge location. I was looking forward to the laser shows and all of the unknown that I would experience. Once I got there, I was overwhelmed by the enormous area, with a lot of people and of course ... the lasers. I had never experienced anything like it. I was in awe! I thought it was so amazing that in the years that followed I went to house and techno parties as much as possible. Yet I missed something in which I could really put my energy in and just go crazy.
At the beginning of 2013, at one of those techno parties I was proposed to buy a ticket for Emporium, together with my best friend. I agreed. I immediately regretted this after a night's sleep though, because that wasn't for me at all. That intense music, intense people, everything intense. But I really couldn’t cancel.
Meanwhile party bus places were arranged for us, with only people listening to hardstyle and hardcore. I could not go back. This would be my very first real hardstyle experience. So, there we went, in a bus where we barely knew any people, accompanied by a music style that I didn’t know would be for me, all the way to Wijchen. But I was looking forward to it. After the introduction of the person who arranged the bus, the bass and the then-still-unknown hardstyle melody immediately blasted through the speakers. I was overwhelmed by adrenaline and goose bumps all over my body. I was so impressed by what I heard and the people on the bus that started partying. "Off to the adventure", we thought.
We went to the hardstyle stage with the rest of the people from the bus and we never left. Because I didn't want to go anywhere else! What an atmosphere, what a crowd and.. the rain was pouring down. But we didn't care. Nothing could ruin our party anymore. Records like 'Undiscovered' from B-Front made sure that I enjoyed it to the fullest. I believe we talked about this day for weeks.
That summer I went to a techno festival out of habit, to go to my very first indoor (raw) hardstyle party straight after: Penoze at the NDSM-Werf. What a great night! It was more than clear to me: I’ll have the harder styles.
2014 started off at Freaqshow and then my very first Hard Bass was planned. Together with my friend, and fellow Hardstyle Reporter, Lauren, I was going crazy on the kicks of Adaro, Ran-D and especially: Minus Militia! I will never forget how hard "Reign Supreme" smashed through the GelreDome. WOW! When I hear this record, it brings me back to that moment every time. A lot of parties followed, with the weekends at Defqon.1 as a highlight, of course.
And that's how I became a fan. Or just say: die-hard enthusiast. I prefer to skip as few parties as possible. You can find me at the raw stages most of the time. I like Warface to Phuture Noize to the kicks of Spoontech. But with an occasional trip to a hardcore festival, you make me very happy too. Every summer I can be found on Dominator, like a tradition. And this with (almost all of) the same people as from that first bus trip. We have all embarked on this adventure and we are all still enjoying it just as much as if it were our first time.
Iris just joined the Hardstyle Report team. As a translator, but she also likes to think creatively about our content. For years her schedule has been filled with hardstyle, which she prefers to go with friend and colleague Hardstyle Reporter Lauren. From Defqon.1 to Dominator, it is no unknown territory for Iris. This is how she got into hardstyle.
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It all started at Dance Valley about 8 years ago. The only thing I was listening to at the time was hip hop and R&B. So I was mainly dancing at the Beatloverz stage. A friend told me I must take a look at the hardstyle stage, and so I went. But where was the melody? After ten minutes I had heard enough and left to spend the rest of the day at the other stages. The impressions, the music and the muscle pain afterwards, "it was okay".
At the end of 2011 I went to my first indoor party. I had heard of Dirty Dutch through a friend and managed to persuade some friends to come along. This edition was in the Amsterdam RAI, a huge location. I was looking forward to the laser shows and all of the unknown that I would experience. Once I got there, I was overwhelmed by the enormous area, with a lot of people and of course ... the lasers. I had never experienced anything like it. I was in awe! I thought it was so amazing that in the years that followed I went to house and techno parties as much as possible. Yet I missed something in which I could really put my energy in and just go crazy.
At the beginning of 2013, at one of those techno parties I was proposed to buy a ticket for Emporium, together with my best friend. I agreed. I immediately regretted this after a night's sleep though, because that wasn't for me at all. That intense music, intense people, everything intense. But I really couldn’t cancel.
Meanwhile party bus places were arranged for us, with only people listening to hardstyle and hardcore. I could not go back. This would be my very first real hardstyle experience. So, there we went, in a bus where we barely knew any people, accompanied by a music style that I didn’t know would be for me, all the way to Wijchen. But I was looking forward to it. After the introduction of the person who arranged the bus, the bass and the then-still-unknown hardstyle melody immediately blasted through the speakers. I was overwhelmed by adrenaline and goose bumps all over my body. I was so impressed by what I heard and the people on the bus that started partying. "Off to the adventure", we thought.
 |
We went to the hardstyle stage with the rest of the people from the bus and we never left. Because I didn't want to go anywhere else! What an atmosphere, what a crowd and.. the rain was pouring down. But we didn't care. Nothing could ruin our party anymore. Records like 'Undiscovered' from B-Front made sure that I enjoyed it to the fullest. I believe we talked about this day for weeks.
That summer I went to a techno festival out of habit, to go to my very first indoor (raw) hardstyle party straight after: Penoze at the NDSM-Werf. What a great night! It was more than clear to me: I’ll have the harder styles.
2014 started off at Freaqshow and then my very first Hard Bass was planned. Together with my friend, and fellow Hardstyle Reporter, Lauren, I was going crazy on the kicks of Adaro, Ran-D and especially: Minus Militia! I will never forget how hard "Reign Supreme" smashed through the GelreDome. WOW! When I hear this record, it brings me back to that moment every time. A lot of parties followed, with the weekends at Defqon.1 as a highlight, of course.
And that's how I became a fan. Or just say: die-hard enthusiast. I prefer to skip as few parties as possible. You can find me at the raw stages most of the time. I like Warface to Phuture Noize to the kicks of Spoontech. But with an occasional trip to a hardcore festival, you make me very happy too. Every summer I can be found on Dominator, like a tradition. And this with (almost all of) the same people as from that first bus trip. We have all embarked on this adventure and we are all still enjoying it just as much as if it were our first time.
