We found a sketchy parking spot; we were only an hour late, but the hood was packed. Excitedly, my friends and I piled out of the car, sorted our gear, and loudly made our way towards the noize.
Greeted by uniformed security guards two decades younger than I, they asked for my ID, and of course I had to harass the H-E-double toothpicks out of them. “I thought this was a rave. In the ‘old school days’, 12-year-olds could go to a rave.” Which highly amused them…
Through a giant gate, down a bright alley, then a gap in the fence, and we stopped at the “Will-Call”, a booth straight out of an 80’s carnival. Tagged with a plastic bracelet, we were officially at the rave. And what a rave it was.
Past the ticket booth was a giant courtyard filled with food trucks, fire dancers, and giant tour buses that were bouncing in time to the dancers who filled them. A bonfire with a ring of camp chairs was the outside chill room—this was Arizona after all. Even in February, we were in t-shirts.
And of course, there were ravers. Ravers galore. Half of them in rainbow, the other half in black. Cuties, tough guys, colored hair, shaved heads, fairies, gabbas, kandi kids, hot models, elders, millennials, Gen X-Y-Z, and even one Dog (his name is DJ Full Auto). All getting along. Chatting, fist bumping, hugging, telling jokes in line at the Port-A-Potties. Smiles everywhere. The vibe was thick. The energy was high.
My group and I wandered into the main room, an expansive warehouse space with ceilings that touched the sky, and mega fans to keep the dancers from overheating. The music was massive. I came in during the promoter’s set, and I quickly realized why his DJ name is Cik (pronounced “sick”.) My smile was a new permanent feature—it could not have been chiseled off of my face.
https://soundcloud.com/deejay-kore/azhcxxx-cik-k-o-r-e-2026
While my friends situated their packs and jackets, I immediately started making friends. I was quickly welcomed by a stunning pair of striking women, and proceeded to bond with the one called Sky. She was shocked that my 3 friends and I had traveled from Minnesota to attend the party. I would later learn that we weren’t the only pilgrims; people had traveled by car and plane from California, Nevada, Oregon, Ohio, Jersey, and one raver (not a performer) had come all the way from the Czech Republic, specifically for the event. And that was just the people I’d met…
GabberGirl & Jups808
I was rocking a Drop Bass Network shirt to rep my Midwest Hardcorps scene, and got plenty of fist bumps all night ‘cuz of it. Definite ice breaker.
The main room was spacious enough for the amount of ravers who filled it, and they had enough floor space to dance and practice the Hakken. This amazed me; in my 32 years of raving in the USA, the Dutch gabber dance had never caught on. Well, now it has. It was mostly younger ravers attempting it, “younger” being late 20’s and early 30’s. I videoed the footwork and asked the dancers about it—most told me they had been learning it on the internet. A few said they had been practicing daily for months, getting ready for this rave.
The big, bright room filled with colorful, smiling ravers attempting the Hakken, also had video screens with projected graphics, like distorted Pacman ghosts chasing each other, on either side of the stage. The DJs were set way back, so it was hard to see what their hands were up to. Which was a shame, as the DJ tag-team at the end of the night (Dope-E and Mike Hemp) both know how to scratch, and did so on old school gabber vinyl, and on CDJ platters. It would have been real fun to watch those scratching hands.
But the DJs are the royalty of the evening, the rock stars of the concert, so it was appropriate they were corralled behind cattle gates and a gigantic table. It gave them some separation from their fans, and from all those annoying track requests. At one point, I saw Lenny Dee back there, pacing before his set. Oooooooh, how I wanted to sneak past those gates to meet my hardcore hero, but this is exactly why there was a gate. To keep GabberGirls at bay and out of the way.
When Cik and his tagteam partner KORE left the stage, DJ Delirium stepped up, playing a dope gabber set that felt old school but was full of unfamiliar tunes and melodies. The dancers vibed, and I was floored, as it had been decades since I had heard a real, fully gabber DJ set performed at an event. It was great to find out at least one DJ is still dedicated to the gabber.
Between dancing, trying to meet everyone at the party, and wandering from stage to stage, I had invertedly lost my group, but they knew I was a woman on a mission—I was not only there to dance, but I was trying to schedule and possibly execute a few interviews with hardcore producers and DJs. I was able to interview Origin of Styx around the campfire, a Doomcore producer hailing from Arizona, whom I had met on the Hardcore Overdogs Discord server before meeting in real life.
I also had an interview scheduled with one half of the hardcore group The Outside Agency, the DJ called Eye-D, set up in advance by Low Entropy, but the problem was: we didn’t know each other, or what each other looked like. It turned out to not be a problem—we have such a small scene that everyone knows each other. So, I did not know Eye-D, and Eye-D did not know me, but we were only one degree of separation from each other, and we soon were introduced and decided to conduct the interview after his set.
By that time, I had wandered into the techno bus. Yes, I neglected to mention that there were three “rooms” at this event, not including the courtyard “chill room”, with stars for a roof. The second and third rooms were big buses, brought in by the Arizona promotor group The Techno Snobs. Being that most events I go to are techno events, and I never have the opportunity to be immersed in hardcore all night, I did not spend any time on the techno bus. But it was slick and fun and sexy and filled with beautiful people jamming to hard techno, played just a bit faster than usual.
The other bus was a special treat for me—this was where the “second room” hardcore DJs played, and the music emerging from that bus was darker and grimier than the main room, more speedy, more raw. I wish I could say I watched and danced to every DJ, but I basically missed the first 3 performances inside the bus (Rize, The Doctor, and Cetra).
On the main stage, after DJ Delirium took a bow, Noize Suppressor took over with his arms raised to the hardcore heavens. The lights flashed, the giant LED Exes behind him lit up, and as his first beat dropped, fireworks exploded around him. It was high drama, and the lanky Italian DJ demanded dancing with his speedy tracks and flawless mixing. Noize Suppressor interacted with the crowd and seemed to really be enjoying himself—grinning, fist pumping.
That was when I met darling young man on the dance floor—cute smile, dimples, and a pink mohawk. He was Chris Lit, and he let me know he was in charge of the lighting, but that he was just one of four different lighting companies at the rave. He led me backstage, behind the cattle gates, and brought me behind where Noize Suppressor was working the decks. Chris Lit said, “You’re a DJ, you know when the drop will happen, right?” I nodded, and he pointed at a button. “Hit that at the drop.” The drop happened, I hit the button, and five or six cannons shot showers of sparks halfway to the ceiling. What a rush!
I left the main room, hitting up the port-a-potties before they ran out of TP, harassing some raver about wearing a video monitor on his back, and asking every raver I met if they know my best friend Emily and her husband Flail (they’ve lived all over the US and the world, and have been throwing renegade hardcore parties under bridges and on hills for over three decades—so most people I asked did know Flail and Emily, confirming my growing suspicion that the hardcore scene is a lot smaller and connected than I first believed.)
And that’s when the hardcore bus caught my attention. It was bouncing so hard, I thought the tires would pop. And I could hear “Jackrabbit” coming out of the speakers. I thought, “Satronica!” Someone I had met online through Jake Allen (the Ambassador of Hardcore), and whose sets I loved, and whose tracks I collected and played in my sets. This was pure excitement for me—I ran to the hardcore bus, and forced my way inside.
Satronica
I could see Satronica at the DJ station in the back of the bus, and he was not what I expected. A lion’s mane of wild hair turning white, glasses, and a look of concentration made me think of a mad professor, as opposed to a hardcore producer. Professor Satronica’s class was very attentive, and were dancing so hard, I couldn’t keep my balance. I stood on the bus driver’s seat and attempted to take video, but I was about to be seasick on that hardcore voyage, the video bouncing with each wave.
Satronica’s set had that hard pounding 160 to 180 BPM speed, the music very techy and very modern. He played a lot of his own tracks, and if you ever heard “Escape from Emergency”, you may understand my description.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dwhiWeGKwc
When Deadnoise took over the bus, the speed increased by 50 bpms, and the intensity magnified. The bus was no longer bouncing, because everyone was dancing too fast, and the bus just didn’t even know what to do. Satronica may have been the mad professor, but Deadnoise was the mad scientist, mixing and cutting with precision and skill and a very serious look on his face. It was hard for me to pull away from these incredibly hard lessons, but I realized that Lenny Dee was taking the main stage.
I have to admit that when I first decided to go to the Arizona Hardcore Junkie’s 30th Anniversary event, it was because I had seen Lenny Dee on the lineup. I had been wanting my whole raver life to see him DJ in person; I had also been wanting to interview him for the Hardcore Overdogs, but all my attempts at contacting him had failed. I decided I would go to Arizona, meet him, and ask him in person. When I finally did meet him (the next day after the event), I was so overwhelmed, I acted like an idiot fan and most likely made him uncomfortable. He ran away, after my hand-pumping and gushing, and I never even broached the interview topic.
For years, I had been watching videos of Lenny Dee DJing, and my favorites were him in New York City. My friends at RTDF Rave Radio would book him for their club nights and raves, posting the most fun videos after. Lenny is wild and hyper in the reels, sticking out his tongue, interacting with the videographer, throwing up signs, and the background music was always super fucking hardcore. This was the Lenny I was hoping for at the AZ party.
Lenny started, and I quickly realized that I would not be getting the NYC style set. Instead, he presented his highly polished Thunderdome type set. I know this is the kind of set that 10,000 plus people dance to at his gigs in Europe, and that I was being served a real special treat on a silver platter. I absorbed this, accepted it, enjoyed it—and promised myself I would experience a foot-stomping curse-shouting Lenny Dee set on his own foot-stomping ground; I would just have to chase him down in gritty New York City.
https://youtube.com/shorts/6ckgET8UpVQ?si=VVXHg9aBZcemKD6b
After Lenny, the main room DJ was The Outside Agency. The DJ set started with slower, harder industrial hardcore, but progressed in speed and intensity until the end was an actual explosion of sound and energy. But during this astounding conclusion, the bus was again bouncing. This time to the speedcore and terror coming from a dream duo tag team—Virtue and Arcid.
Virtue & Arcid
https://youtube.com/shorts/vHHoAi07nHo?si=or86e64dqJWQw-Vr
I had to split my time, but it was hard to pull away from Virtue (Las Vegas) and Arcid (Los Angeles). They were playing the most incredible core, by a band called Vatos Locos, which I found out later is them, plus their friend C1B2. Virtue and Arcid were lip syncing and acting along with the samples. It was a hilarious and highly entertaining performance, and no doubt, some of the hardest music I had heard all night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIchrAbPuyc
By the end of the night, my face hurt from smiling, and my heart was full of hardcore. All in all, if I had to grade this party, I would give it an A++, because of all the extra credit it got on top of passing the GabberGirl test. Although this is supposedly their last hurrah, I would highly recommend any Arizona Hardcore Junkie event, and I will be returning if they decide on hosting another!
Rave Report written by Charm Dreier/GabberGirl (no AI used)
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