Hardcore Line Ups

In August 1997, Helter Skelter put on their biggest event: Energy 97. They were already considered by many as the biggest raves in the country and this event really established them as the biggest.

There were 11 happy hardcore DJs playing in the main arena that day: Slipmatt, Sy, Brisk, Vinylgroover, Vibes, Dougal, Hixxy, Force & Styles, Seduction, Billy Bunter and Demo. For your biggest event it would be logical to book the biggest names and these DJs were just about the biggest happy hardcore DJs of that moment.

Following this event they returned to The Sanctuary for the majority of their remaining events of the 90s before calling it a day on New Years Eve 1999. One of the things that made Helter Skelter seem like a bigger rave than others was having the big names on the line up every time. 8 of those 11 DJs were booked to play at all their remaining events at The Sanctuary, Seduction played all the events up to Energy 99 before retiring, Billy Bunter only missed 1 event and Demo called it a day some point in 1998.

To put this into perspective, it was the happy hardcore equivalent of hypothetically putting on a Britpop festival a few times a year and having Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Suede, Paul Weller, Elastica, Supergrass, Manic Street Preachers, Ocean Colour Scene, The Verve and Cast on the line up virtually every time. For many Britpop fans that would be their dream festival.

By the same token these Helter Skelter line ups seemed like almost a dream line up for happy hardcore fans but once Helter Skelter was done and dusted and internet forums became popular I learned this wasn't the case for several fans. The issue here was the line ups were always the same and closing the door to up and coming DJs.

As we entered the 21st century the popularity of happy hardcore was at an all time low. As mentioned, Demo and Seduction had already called it a day. Vinylgroover moved on to hard house, as had Billy Bunter. Slipmatt also decided the new "UK hardcore" sound wasn't his thing so he moved on. Force & Styles went their separate ways with Force going back to the day job. 

This gave room for up and coming DJs to get themselves on the line ups, the internet forums were full of these DJs trying to get there. In the end though, once hardcore had grown in popularity again the only new DJs to truly establish themselves were Gammer and Recon. Gammer got his break because Dougal was a friend of his family and Recon already had commercial success on AATW records as part of Ultrabeat.

The internet forums were full of angry DJs who never made it. The established DJs they once admired were now the enemy who closed the door to their success. The DJs who went away but then made a comeback were slated even more. The view of those on the forums was that they should be made to play at the smaller raves and work their way up rather than go straight back into the main room line up of a big rave.

Hixxy had become a promoter of the HTID raves which were the biggest hardcore only events. On a rave podcast in more recent times he was asked why only Gammer and Recon had established themselves, but many others hadn't.

His response was that all he could do is book a DJ for his event, but the rest is up to the DJ themselves. What he implied is that these DJs who didn't make it didn't do enough to make enough of the punters want see them on the line up.

Going back to those 11 DJs at Helter Skelter I can think of a reason why all 11 of those DJs were on the line up. They had either made a significant contribution to the direction happy hardcore had taken or they had a DJ style unique to them. The problem is that making a big music contribution doesn't translate to having a distinctive DJ style and that's why some DJs sets were interchangeable and could have almost been mixed by anyone. But then the question is will a relatively unknown DJ do something different or would it be more of the same? If the latter you may as well have the big name, if the former then that's where you have to convince the punters it's what they want to hear.

The biggest event these days to my knowledge with an upfront hardcore arena is Westfest. I looked at the line up of their last event and counted just 2 DJs in the hardcore arena who also played at Helter Skelter in the 90s. Looks like more DJs have established themselves then, though I suspect the size of the audience they play to these days is considerably smaller than it used to be.