“Snakepit is heaven on earth for gabbers who like their hardcore in the highest gear”

snakepit 2017 party report
Wouter de Vink
By Wouter de Vink

Heavy kicks combined with raging high BPM. Last Saturday, Snakepit – the fastest growing uptempo hardcore event – took place and the entire scene knew about it. Tickets were sold out weeks before the party and got thousands of fans looking for an entry on the ‘black market’. The lucky ones that actually did get one of the 6500 available tickets, were in for a treat. Because this second edition was one for in the books once again. This was Snakepit – The Need For Speed.

‘Are you ready for the Snakepit?!’

Some parties don’t even dare to close down with some heavy hardcore at high pace, but that’s what Snakepit is all about. The entire evening you were treated with genres, ranging from uptempo to terror, under the guidance of a big show, at the Klokgebouw venue in Eindhoven. After I heard dozens of great stories about the first edition last year, I had to witness the snake pit myself and so we went off to the South of Holland for a monstrous night.

After we got trough the long queue outside rapidly, we started doing the rest of our standard party ritual. I’m talking about getting coins and a locker and then going for a small walkabout to explore the venue. It had two different areas, where twenty artists from the hardest hardcore would perform, with an addition of a chill area where you could get some food. At this moment we already heard some massive kicks coming from the mainstage and so we decided to join the rest of our group on the dancefloor.

Snakepit guarantees a phat show filled with heavy hardcore

Once we entered the dancefloor, it was obvious to see that the main hall was transformed into an actual snake pit. A state-of-the-art one to be fair, because Snakepit was pulling all the stops in show elements. The complete area was decorated by lighting which you regularly see at techno raves, but never on this scale before in the hardcore scene. Eight strokes of LED screens with all sorts of colours in visuals were flashing above your head, as you were gabbering on the music of Negative A. He had the honour to open the party and was finishing up his set already. The stage started to fill up nicely and D-Fence took over. Numerous of video virals, in a hardcore costume, passed by alternated with heavy tracks like ‘Zero Fucks Given’. It got the crowd go pretty wild and to think that this was just the beginning of the night.

snakepit 2017 party reportNext in line was Lady Dammage and she made it very clear from the beginning that she sure wouldn’t hold back. Several tracks from her new album Coredoom were pumping through the speakers and we noticed that it caused some kind of special atmosphere on the dancefloor. Although it was still pretty early in the night, people were climbing on each others shoulders, throwing fists in the air to the beat and the Air Maxes danced their way towards the shiny ceiling. Especially when Lady Dammage played ‘Hai La Noi’ and CO2 guns were smoking down from the roof, it seemed like the place got torn upside down. The set by the Spanish hardcore DJ was one of the best of the night and we were not even halfway through it.

READ: Interview with Lady Dammage: “190 to 200 BPM is my comfort zone”

‘We are The Chosen Ones’

Deadly Guns has a new album too and this one was released with a special album showcase during Snakepit. The Dutchman has created a dedicated army of Chosen Ones in a very short time with his music and the moment he began his liveset, you could notice that the crowd was looking forward to this. The main hall started to get more packed, but that didn’t matter. Deadly Guns gave a sick amount of energy in 30 minutes from behind the decks, because he was going the craziest of all – it got picked up by the audience completely. We saw multiple gabbers point to each other and say: “Wow, this set is sick!” It’s safe to say that the release of his album The Gunshow got kicked off with a bang. Keep an eye on this guy, because we believe that his debut album, including the showcase at Snakepit, is only the beginning of a wonderful career.

The BPM counter had frequently hit 200 (or even higher) already. That’s obviously not an issue for Partyraiser, who was playing next. He stepped it up even more and spinned quite a few mash-ups. The visitors knew what to do to this and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen this many visitors enjoying the hardest styles in hardcore music. A smile on your face while your arms pump at high pace into the void. Was was great to see as well, was the moment that Partyraiser played perhaps one of the best tracks of the year. When ‘Ode To The Godfather’ was about to dop, the crowd filled in the blanks at the top of their lungs… ‘DJ Paul, make it fucking louder!’

All sorts of hardcore, as long as it’s in the fastest gear

After this it was time for the only versus set of the main room: F. NøIzE vs. Unexist. These Italians continued the vibe of the evening and played some industrial and frenchcore as well. It was getting pretty hot, but the smoke that was shooting out of the ceiling between the LED screen brought some cooling into the venue. From the balcony, which covered the majority of the area, you could clearly see that there were so many people going nuts on the dancefloor. Especially during ‘Survive The Streets’; one of the dopest tracks of today. It reminded us that there was one of frenchcore’s icons was playing at that very moment as well and so we went to the other stage of the party.

READ: A massive show with lots of new music: this was Angerfist – Creed of Chaos

This area had a big line-up too, even though it was a little bit more alternative. Unfortunately we had missed Fant4stik’s set and some others, but we were just in time to catch a piece of Dr. Peacock’s. We weren’t the only ones here, because this smaller stage was absolutely packed and the temperature was like tabasco: pretty hot. Dr. Peacock made the heat a little more bearable and got all the hands up with his track ‘Trip to the Highlands’. Also in this area the atmosphere was gold and decoration wise the organization did a good job by making the setting of the area intimate. Then we had a look at the timetable and saw that Drokz was planned after this, but were pleasantly surprised when it turned out that Akira would join him for versus set of two hours. Halfway through the set of the two, Drokz took the microphone to speak to the audience with the inspiring text: “We are in Eindhoven, so shall we go all out now for real, or not!?” And so the terror beats flew over your ears.

snakepit 2017 party reportBack to the mainstage, where the last few hours had arrived. Andy The Core made the hardcore heads put their phones out of their pockets to turn on their flash lights (as if there wasn’t enough light already). The track used at this moment was perfect for this moment: the ‘Zombie’-remix by The Sickest Squad. Spitnoise took it over, who performed an awesome set. When he played ‘Beautiful Hardcore’, the technicians went all out with dozens of lasers – we could look at those for hours if we wanted to. Unfortunately the last hour was upon us and Angernoizer had the honour the stamp the last bit of energy out off the crowd. He did a great job doing that, he closed the stage down with tracks like ‘Trip to Colombia’. The ‘terror fists’ (a fist that is pumping rapidly up high because your feet can’t keep up the pace) constantly went all together in the air. When the time said it was already 7 in the morning, the lights stopped from working in overdrive and so a night of Snakepit came to an end.

Conclusion Snakepit 2017

I already mentioned the great stories from last year and now I can confirm those myself as well. Snakepit is a heaven on earth for gabbers who like to party in the highest gear. The sound was massively hard, the lights show – including excellent visuals – were on point and the sets were finger licking good. The release in atmosphere that you see in the final hour at other parties, was continually present at Snakepit 2017. Top shelf indulgence, certainly when you realize that a ticket cost you less than €40,-. It was worth every penny to say the least. Sometimes it was indeed a little bit crowded, but that’s why the organization made a great decision to move to the bigger venue Ahoy Rotterdam in my opinion. Especially because this means that we won’t have to wait one full year, but only 4 months for the next edition of Snakepit.

Images via Facebook page Snakepit

Rating

  • LINE-UP82%
  • VENUE85%
  • SOUND90%
  • STAGE80%
  • SHOW95%
  • ATMOSPHERE90%

Overall
rating

87%

The best of hardcore at high speed with an excellent light show and visuals. Snakepit proves (once again) with it’s second sold out edition and a sick night that uptempo hardcore is more popular than ever before. It has become an annual tradition in just one year for many gabbers and so we are looking forward to the next edition in the bigger venue Ahoy already.

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