News / seasonal
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1 min read
Gunz For Hire are closing Defqon.1 2026 and that's the only correct ending
Read more . . . →Ran-D and Adaro have a side project where they put on bandanas and make the meanest, dumbest, most fun hardstyle on the calendar. It’s called Gunz For Hire, and Q-dance just handed them the slot that closes Defqon.1 2026. Whoever signed off on that decision deserves a raise. Three reasons it’s going to be chaos. 1. Gunz For Hire - Bolivia The one that put the project on the map. Bolivia is gangster-movie samples over a kick that absolutely means it, and somehow it never got old. Pure villain energy. 2. Gunz For Hire - Hard Knock Life They flipped...
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1 min read
Defqon.1 gave the legends three hours and the old anthems still win
Read more . . . →This year’s program carves out three hours for Defqon.1 Legends, which is a polite way of saying they’re letting the dinosaurs eat. Good. The classics that built this festival hit harder than half of what’s charting now, and the crowd that knows every word is genuinely terrifying. Here’s the homework before the throwback set. 1. Headhunterz - Dragonborn If hardstyle has a national anthem, this is in the running. Dragonborn is 2012 Headhunterz at his most heroic, the melody every younger producer is still quietly lifting. Goosebumps, every single time. 2. Wildstylez Feat. Niels Geusebroek - Year Of Summer The...
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1 min read
The euphoric side of Defqon.1 is for crying in a field, and that's allowed
Read more . . . →Not all of Defqon.1 is trying to break your sternum. There’s a whole melodic wing of hardstyle built for the moment the sun comes up and you decide you love everyone in the field. Cheesy? Completely. I’m not above it. Three for the soft hour. 1. Da Tweekaz - Sunrise Da Tweekaz are the costume-wearing kings of the big melodic singalong, and Sunrise is them doing exactly what they do best. You will hate yourself a little for how much you enjoy this. Lean in anyway. 2. Devin Wild - Silent (Left The System) Devin Wild does the emotional-anthem thing...
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1 min read
Raw hardstyle's new wave is who you should actually be scared of
Read more . . . →Everyone talks about the legends. Nobody warns you about the kids. Raw hardstyle’s younger crew has spent the last couple of years making the screech kick nastier than it has any right to be, and they’re all over the Defqon.1 undercard this year. Three of them, loud. 1. Rooler - BOSS Rooler builds drops like he’s actively trying to get the stage shut down. BOSS is two minutes of menace and one kick that sounds like a building coming down on schedule. Perfect. 2. Vasto - The New Sound Vasto’s whole thing is making the raw kick groove instead of...
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1 min read
The Defqon.1 anthem is the one tradition hardstyle got right
Read more . . . →We’re under two weeks out from Defqon.1, which means it’s time to talk about the one piece of festival marketing that actually rules: the yearly anthem. Every June, Q-dance hands one artist the job of summing up the whole weekend in five minutes of kicks and screaming synths, and somehow it keeps landing. Most festival anthems are forgettable. These are the ones people still scream back a decade later. Here’s the through-line from 2011 to last summer. 1. Noisecontrollers - Unite The one that set the template. 2011 Noisecontrollers is pure early-Defqon euphoria, back when the kick still had a...
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1 min read
Defqon.1 let a meme collective close the mainstage and honestly, good
Read more . . . →The strangest booking of Defqon.1 2026: GPF, a collective whose entire brand is treating gabber as the world’s loudest inside joke, get the RED mainstage on Sunday. That’s the ceremonial closing slot, normally handed to a hardstyle institution with a decade of history behind it. This year it goes to the people making uptempo bootlegs of pop songs. I’m fully on board. 1. GPF, DJ Gollum, BassWar & CaoX - I Want It That Way (Uptempo) Yes, it’s the Backstreet Boys. Yes, it’s pushing 180 BPM and completely sincere about being ridiculous. The whole point of GPF is that you...
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1 min read
The women running Defqon.1's hardest stages
Read more . . . →Hardcore gets typecast as a boys’ club, and the people actually closing these stages keep proving otherwise. A couple weeks out from Defqon.1, here are three who have spent years setting the pace instead of following it. 1. Miss K8 & Tha Watcher - Reflections Miss K8 came out of Ukraine and turned into one of hardcore’s most bankable headliners. “Reflections,” the Harmony of Hardcore 2025 anthem with vocalist Tha Watcher, is two women owning a festival’s entire identity for a year. 2. AniMe - In The End AniMe has been a fixture of Italian hardcore for years, and in...
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1 min read
Uptempo: 200 BPM was the floor, not the ceiling
Read more . . . →Uptempo is what happens when hardcore decides that slowing down is for cowards. It’s the fastest, most aggressive corner of the Defqon.1 site, kicks distorted past the point of melody, and the crowd that shows up for it knew exactly what it was signing up for. A couple weeks out, here’s where the speed lives. 1. Riot Shift - RUNNIN Riot Shift has turned into one of the sharper names in this lane, and “RUNNIN,” out in October, is relentless in the way the title promises. 2. N-Vitral presents BOMBSQUAD & Dimitri K - Energy Drink The BOMBSQUAD alias is...
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1 min read
Frenchcore: the genre that decided hardstyle naps too much
Read more . . . →A few weeks out from Defqon.1, and if the mainstage hardstyle isn’t doing it for you, frenchcore is both the answer and the warning. Faster, rollier, 200 BPM and climbing, built on a kick that gallops where hardstyle stomps. Defqon hands it real estate every year because the people who love it do not love it quietly. Three to start with. 1. Dr. Peacock & D’ort - Frenchcore Lullaby Dr. Peacock basically built the modern frenchcore audience, and “Frenchcore Lullaby” is him being funny about it. Nothing here is putting anyone to sleep. 2. Billx - Jump Now Billx came...
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1 min read
Defqon.1's hard half: where hardstyle is the warm-up
Read more . . . →Defqon.1 hits Biddinghuizen at the end of June and most of the coverage fixates on the mainstage hardstyle. Fine. But the reason this festival makes every other summer lineup look soft lives one stage over, where the kicks stop being polite. Hardcore, frenchcore, uptempo, the harder end of the site. If regular hardstyle already feels too gentle for you, here’s your map for the rest of the week. 1. Angerfist - The Nightmare Man Angerfist has been the face of Dutch hardcore for two decades and “The Nightmare Man,” out last November, is him doing the thing nobody does better....
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