The final Hell’s Gate event ended in fine style on Saturday, with a really upbeat atmosphere despite everyone’s disappointment that another hard event has bitten the dust in Tokyo. The general play style was hard house/hardtrance, but DJ Minagi as well as yours truly played hard NRG/freeform this time. As you might have seen from the timetable a few days ago, I was scheduled to play last, and so didn’t really want to use up what little energy I had left after work by overdoing the dancing – I probably did anyway, though. There were so many DJs this time that my memory of some sets is a bit hazy, but with the help of Soham’s photos and video I hope you’ll get a reasonable idea of what went on.

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No updates for a few days again, sorry about that – but nothing much has caught my eye in the middle of practicing for tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, here’s the final timetable for the main floor at Last Dance: Hell’s Gate Final (only actually revealed tonight). As you can see, I’m last on the bill, starting at 4.10! My set might well be a bit harder than the last two I’ve played (or at least, that was the plan…), so I’m a bit concerned that it will be too much for everyone (I’m working tomorrow, so it’ll probably be too much for me, never mind anyone else). Well, we’ll see, and I’m definitely honoured to be the very last set at the very last Hell’s Gate.

Here’s the full lineup:

23:00-23:40 – MA-X
23:40-24:20 – AEMI
24:20-01:00 – TAKEHIRO
01:00-01:40 – MINAGI
01:40-02:20 – A2C
02:20-02:50 – YOSHIMASA
02:50-03:30 – MUNETICA
03:30-04:10 – ZIO
04:10-04:50 – PlasmaDancer
04:50-05:00 – ZIO CLOSING

8th March?? This one is a long way off yet, but as Guld will be performing I thought it was worth an early mention. It’s surreal seeing Guld as the third name in the DJ section of any flyer, but this is another amazing design. Also worth mentioning that DJ Yousuke and Buzzmasta will be appearing on the Lounge floor (which will make for a pretty hectic lounge, I reckon). Anyway, this is definitely one to keep in mind during the next couple of months.

We’ve finally been given some more info about the upcoming Last Dance, and the DJ lineup’s looking very nice. Zio and Munetica are obviously big names, but Yoshimasa will also be making a rare appearance. I’m especially looking forward to Aemi’s set after seeing her at a Hell’s Gate event early-ish last year, where she played pretty twisted hard house.

With the number of DJs, it’s looking like everyone will be playing for 40mins, which always feels a bit short to me….Zio’s set should be great though, as he’s already taking requests for tunes (any genre!) to play this time. I’ll be doing my best to end on a high, too – click down below for the full DJ lineups on the Main and 4th floors.

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Well, it’s been a pretty slow week for news, sorry about that – here are a couple of recent bits and pieces, though.

Hell’s Gate DJ Minagi recently played an NRG/Freeform set at the HARD JAM! event in Chiba, and I thought it might be worth posting up the tracklist. I wasn’t there, but from what I hear the ‘event’ was a mini 3-hour thing – it’s a shame more people couldn’t have heard this. Anyway, I’ve been banging on here about Epyx & Cyrez, Sam One and the rest of the Hybridize artists for a good while now, and it’s brilliant to see some other Japanese DJs using their tunes too. Here’s the tracklist:

1. Nomic – Extinguish
2. Opeum – Audible Forensics
3. [Not sure about this one, sorry]
4. D4RK – Reassimulated
5. D4RK – R4GE (D4RK Original Mix)
6. PR3D@TOR – Double-D (Dixon & Demp-z)
7. Guld vs Betwixt & Between – Hatral
8. Epyx & Cyrez – Unohdetut
9. Cyrez & Sam One – Reboot the System
10. Nightforce & Substanced – Operation Stardust
11. Sam One – Black Pearl

As you might have seen from the last post, I got back from THC on Monday morning, and it was one of the best events I’ve been to for a while, with a great atmosphere and amazing decor once again. As well as the surprise of how good Lala’s selection was, there were particularly great sets from Stanfield, Lunch, Kanon and Betwixt & Between.

Betwixt played a DJ set, rather than his usual Live PAs at NRGetic Romancer, and went for Alek Szahala tracks only! Not only that, the bpm was at least 185, maybe even 190…

From memory, the tracks played were something along the lines of: Afternoon Owl, Darkstar, Vengeance, Unicorn Grove, Man Eaten, one or two that I’ve forgotten, before finishing with Human Flesh Engine (!). All tunes that I haven’t heard live for a long long time, and the mixing was very good too, especially considering the manic bpm.

THC is becoming pretty essential these days, and I imagine the next event’s sometime around March. I’ll definitely be heading to that one too.

I wasn’t able to get to Cradle to Grave last weekend, but I’m definitely going to be at Tokyo Hardcore Construction on the 11th. Here’s another great THC video, a semi-review of November’s event/preview of this month’s. Look out for the amazing decor being set up at the start of the video, and also the great backing tune – produced by Lunch once again.

Just time for some good news before I go to bed – Zio is holding one final event at the end of this month after all. Appropriately titled ‘Last Dance’, this might be Zio’s last event for quite some time, as he’s announced that he wants to take a break from DJing. That’s a real loss to the Hard NRG scene, and also for the hardstyle fans in Tokyo, as he’s just about the only person I know pushing that sound at the moment.

Anyway, I’m honoured to be on the lineup for this one, and although all the DJs haven’t been announced yet, so far we have Zio, Munetica, Minagi and myself. No doubt there’ll be more news coming before too long (or at least I hope so, I don’t know any more than this at the moment either), so watch this space.

The headline pretty much says it all – it’s a real bolt from the blue, but tonight Zio has decided to stop Hell’s Gate, as of now. There seem to be a few reasons, but one is that there will be too few DJs from next year. Kana is taking a break from DJing, and Stanfield wasn’t going to be on the lineup for January’s event, leaving Zio, me, and Minagi (plus perhaps MKT/take-de-x).

Rather than bring in other DJs and risk changing the Hell’s sound, Zio has decided to call it a day… I’d hazard a guess that the financial side of things is another reason, as Hell’s has been doing no more than ‘ok’ with regard to attracting punters recently. The scene isn’t really big enough to get more than the couple of hundred that tend to turn out for this and NRGetic Romancer though (especially with both events being held on the ‘wrong side’ of Tokyo in Tamachi), so it’s difficult to see how that would have improved next year.

Of course, I’m really disappointed – the DJs and regular attendees at Hell’s were a brilliant crowd, and the atmosphere was really one of a friendly group of people who really love this kind of music. I’ve only played at two events, but my sets were (if I’m allowed to say so) very well received, and it’s really a shame not to keep developing that ‘relationship’ with the Hell’s crowd. I’ve suggested to Zio that one more ‘final’ event might be a good idea, but we’ll see…there seems to be a small chance.

So – it seems that I’ll be on the lookout for a new event to DJ at….although as there are only 2 or 3 in the whole of Tokyo, it might prove tricky. I have a few contacts in each though, so there’s still hope. In the meantime I’ll have more time to get some mixes out and concentrate on Hybridize projects, which is a good thing. Finally, massive thanks to Zio for giving me the chance to play at Hell’s, and to all the people who came to support/check out my sets this year.

A couple of nice events are not far away at all – the first is Cradle to Grave on the 4th January, where the standout artists are Alabaster and a very rare Beserk & Haste set. It’s to be held at Heavy Sick in Nakano, so pretty close to home, and is another Tano*C-style afternoon event.

The following weekend (the 11th) sees the next Tokyo Hardcore Construction at Studio Cube. I’ll definitely be at this one, but there doesn’t seem to be a lineup announced yet.