Q-dance Concludes Defqon.1 2023 With Festival Highlights

Q-dance premiered the first edition of The Aftermath of Defqon.1 with an event recap, artist interviews, best sets of the weekend, and more.

To summarize this year’s epic Defqon.1 weekend, an extended version of the event recap titled The Wrap-Up premiered on the screens of the prior weekend’s Warriors. Regular hosts Stephanie Magic, MC E-Life, and Audiofreq guided us through this online special. The four-hour stream featured several clips of the weekend’s best sets at the Red, the Blue, and the Black. Highlights of the Endshow and Power Hour were also shown. In addition, several interviews of artists and attendees gave us an inside peek into how the festival went down.

Some of the biggest names interviewed included Sefa, who brought 19 sets throughout the weekend to the first edition of the Defqon.1 Theatre. In addition to some first-time experiences, the stream hosts chatted with exponentially-rising star Vertile and rawstyle titan Act of Rage about their mainstage debuts, as well as Adjuzt in regards to his Blue stage debut. Alternatively, Defqon.1 regulars Dither and Sound Rush were interviewed. Dither brought his album showcase to the mighty Black stage. Sound Rush played an astounding four sets, one of which being a secret set at one of the three Wasted Lands stages. Additionally, Mish and Bulletproof joined their femme fatale powers to promote female representation in the hard dance scene.

Headhunterz discussed his set at The Gathering at the Blue, the first time he had played there in five years. He opened with “Before I Wake” and later played his 2009 Defqon.1 anthem, “Scrap Attack.” This legend shared the follow-up track to “Before I Wake,” both in collaboration with Vertile, which would be premiered at The Closing Ceremony. This melodic tune is a recorded duet intended to be a love song about hardstyle.

Other highlights of the Gathering included Apex Records hosting the Indigo stage. Apex Records artists Cryex, Scarra, Kenai, and MC Synergy were also given challenges by Q-Dance in the camping area: to find the biggest speaker in wasted lands camping and to trade a banana for different objects. Later that evening, the second edition of The Tribute show at UV was a five-minute show featuring the Defqon.1 2015 anthem by Ran-D, “No Guts No Glory.” Shortly after this special, raw classics at the Magenta silent disco were played through the late hours.

Photo Credit: Q-dance

MC E-Life had the opportunity to speak with the creative director of Q-dance, Jonas Schmidt. He shared that the biggest challenges this year were upgrading the merch stand, building the artist village, adding the central monument of shipping cargo boxes and building the Red stage in the rain. This key player had been to all editions of Defqon,1 in the Netherlands, Australia, and Chile. Another monumental figure in Defqon.1 history that was pulled aside was Phuture Noize, who had a Spotlight set in prior years. Phuture Noize’s opening ceremony at the Red featured live dance performers on stage as many weekend warriors were able to gaze upon this year’s design of the almighty Red for the first time.

As for this year’s artists at the Red stages Spotlight set, Scottish duo Rebelion enlightened us on their Defqon.1 history and what they planned for their set that weekend. The two had first played at the festival back in 2016 and shared how much excitement they had then and still have now to be playing at such a major landmark in the hard dance scene. For their Spotlight set, they had control of the pyros and intended their track selection to be a mashup of their musical journey.

Speaking of music journeys, DJ The Prophet closed out his 35-year career and legacy, including the establishment of Scantraxx Records. He received several statements of praise from Headhunterz and Keltek, previously Psyko Punkz, before being signed to Scantraxx Records. This tear-jerking final set was followed by Defqon.1 Legends Adaro, Ran-D, B-Front.

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