As a Dutch raver once told us, “you haven’t seen a real rave until you’ve experienced 5,000 kids jumping up and down in unison to a gabber track.” It’s hard to deny gabber, a particularly fierce form of hardcore birthed in Rotterdam in the early ’90s, packs a mean wallop. Its overdriven kick drums and in-your-face, hoover-led melodies make it perhaps the least subtle form of dance music known to mankind.
There’s something hugely addictive about it, though, and by the mid-’90s, gabber was big business, with parties like the 96 edition of the Thunderdome raves chronicled in this video attracting tens of thousands of partiers.