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Defqon.1 Recap: The Agony and Ecstasy of the World’s Biggest Hardstyle Festival

Fuck regular life. We jumped into the unbridled hedonism that is Defqon.1.

On the outskirts of Amsterdam, in a forest clearing still damp with morning air, throngs of hardstyle heads in chains, baggy jeans, and faux hawks press against the gates of Defqon.1, their bare-chested bodies mere vessels of barely contained adrenaline, boiling over with impatience. At exactly 11am, the security guards step aside, and the bodies spring forth, running fast and loud towards the main stage at the end of the field—a towering demon face that looks like a cross between the talking tree in Pocahontas and a tiki mask from Survivor, flanked by towering columns of steel and fire.

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There are twelve other stages scattered around it, and within minutes, they all whirl to life—chugging out those snarling metallic kicks and screeching synths that mark the sounds of hardstyle, aka the death metal of dance music. The industrial onslaught will not end for another 48 hours.

This is Defqon.1, the biggest hardstyle festival in the world. Founded in 2003 by the Dutch promoting outfit Q-dance, the festival brings together 55,000 hardstyle fans over two and a half days, who come from all over the world to worship this particularly aggressive, bare-knuckled form of dance music.

Hardstyle grew out of gabber—perhaps the largest (and definitely the weirdest) musical movement that has ever come out of the Netherlands—with influences from German hard house and hard trance. Like its predecessors, hardstyle is a conscious reaction to the perceived musical and intellectual snobbery of techno and house. Lingering class divides are still evident—Dutch city slickers like to derisively refer to hardstyle devotees as "farmers."

But over in America, hardstyle's subversive roots and relatively obscurity have effectively made it "cool" for tastemakers like Venus X and Diplo—who even got into a Twitter war for a hot minute over cultural appropriation and authenticity. (Yawn.) Plus, thanks to Q-dance concerts in LA and all-hardstyle stages at festivals like Mysteryland and TomorrowWorld, ravers along the American East and West coasts are now belting the lyrics to tracks by hardstyle gods like Frontliner, Brennan Heart, Coone and Noisecontrollers—all of whom eventually took their places on the main stage of Defqon.1, naturally, to play under tangled webs of lasers and fireworks.

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Funnily enough, there is a village of Jesus freaks next to the festival grounds who are convinced the devil lives in Defqon.1; the stages of growling demon faces probably don't soothe their frayed nerves. But more than anything, the horror vibes are just part of the popcorn drama of hardstyle culture, which also includes American accented voiceovers layered over the music that sound straight out of a Hollywood action movie, congratulating festival goers for being "weekend warriors" and "surviving till the end."

The Dutch have a word to describe festivals like Defqon.1: kermis. Literally translated, it means "carnival." But kermis also conjures the thrilling overload of non-stop sensory stimulation that defines these gatherings of outlaw ravers, who come to raise hell over an endurance test of unwashed hedonism.

The old-schoolers flocked to the Gold Tent, where hardcore pioneers like Darkraver and Metal Theo ran through the classics in a rave straight out of the 90s. The mysterious, masked figure Angerfirst, a 15-year veteran who is frequently hailed as today's biggest hardcore DJ, held sway over his devotees at the Black stage, even as thousands of orange-clad ravers streamed over to a gargantuan projection screen to watch Netherlands triumph over Mexico in the World Cup—still dancing throughout the game.

Meanwhile, Black Sun Empire drew the drum and bass crowds with their frenetic breaks, while the Italian hardstyle mafia—Technoboy, Tuneboy & Stephanie—spun exhilarating sets under a giant UV jellyfish.

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Wandering around Defqon.1, watching games of musical chairs set to happy hardcore, teenagers building robot costumes out of cardboard, and thousands of Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alikes pogoing around like the world's most serious rabbits, often feels like a loopy montage straight out of Sante Sangre… especially when the hardstyle remixes of "Hakuna Matata" come on.

But in this morass of barking kick drums, garish lights, crushed automobiles, and dark tents full of trash sculptures and sweaty bodies, it is the unbridled enthusiasm of this close-knit community that distinguishes Defqon.1 from other festivals of its ilk. They are not here to fuck around, or dissolve into cuddle puddles on the ground, or even hook up—they are here strictly because of their utter devotion to the music. An MC from Australia even tells me that he tries not to talk over the buildup, because "I know they're not here for me."

At sundown on the final day, when alarms fill the air and the rest of the stages shut down, the crowd dutifully files towards the main arena. They are here for the final showdown, a nearly fifteen-minute fireworks display that would make even Disneyland cower. But first, they put their hands in their air and shout the lyrics to hardstyle's most iconic anthem—Showtek's "Fuck the System." Tens of thousands of voices in unison chant their battle cry: "Fuck regular life, fuck a 9 to 5 job/ I just wanna do what I like to do/ I live for hardstyle, baby!"

Follow Michelle Lhooq on Twitter - @MichelleLhooq

At THUMP, we go hard:
America's Biggest Hardstyle Show Restored My Faith in Rave
THUMP's Illustrated Guide to the Hardstyle Shuffle
Meet the Queen Bitch of the Hardstyle Universe