:: Belfast 14

By: Sabine Brix

Belfast is a dance event stemming from the early 90’s organised by Hardware founder Riche Rich. Back in the day, the techno music on offer seemed somewhat harder, organic. Maybe this was because I was younger and now that the electronic dance scene has evolved the tunes seem somewhat overtly cheesy and nothing how I remembered. One plus though, was that the crowd were hardcore supporters and not your typical white singlet and designer jeans types.

Josh Abrahams of ‘Addicted To Base’ fame was impressive and his set was a far cry from his commercial drum and bass tracks. The good thing about the non-commercial event was that it wasn’t packed out and gave punters plenty of space to dance. C&C Music Factory and Snap were among some of early 90’s dance tracks which were spun. One person even suggested that MC Hammer was being played in one of the rooms.

The featured arenas never really proved consistent with their advertisements; however, especially with the This Is Detroit and Beat Street Breakdown seeming to play tunes different to those implied.

Cheese became more prominent in the earlier hours of the morning with most areas clearing out by about 5:00am. Belfast was an event better left to the nineties.