As of this writing, happy Night 1 of Pride Month 2024 as I am finally getting around to recalling an amazing Hard Dance Night in Austin thanks to Keep Austin Hard and Sparx Something. Three weeks ago, a magically delicious event called Rainbow Island took place at The Oven, an underground music venue across the street from The Crescent (an Asian food and shopping center Amethyst and I love to frequent). Keep Austin Hard has been working very hard the past year to bring new life to Hard Dance music in Texas’ capital and Rainbow Island reminded me that night how much I love the rave–it was absolutely the event that I live to party. I am blessed that I get to work with such an amazing rave family on various occasions and I was even more honored I got to open for a couple of legends in Hardcore: a godfather of Texas Hard Dance Moonstruck Red, and 1/2 of the iconic duo Mangled and Rainbow Island’s headliner, Maromi.
Colorful decora and inflatable animals surrounded the dance floor on May 11th to the sounds of fast beats and heart-melting sounds. Although I go into all of my sets playing the best I could play, I took my laptop with me that night to match the live mood of Rainbow Island because as much fun I was having, I really wanted to take my set seriously and have the audience leaving with a guaranteed good time–SPOILER–they absolutely did. As I curate my crate in real-time, my awesome friend a_c_a_b sets the pace and kicks off the drive on this rainbow road; however, he absolutely pulled no punches with his party-hard rave sounds. I would follow after a_c_a_b and decided I would take a more cheesy, heart-melting approach as suggested by Mylo, the owner of Sparx Something and a dear friend who I absolutely trust. A much happier set was something I have wanted to do for a long time as I’ve been surrounding myself with the more brutal side of Hard Dance months before and being asked to go cheesy would validate my desires to make hearts pound and melt faces (figuratively). The idea paid off as many people welcomed me back to the dance floor with hugs letting me know afterwords how amazing I played; specifically, they let me know I’ve made people feel nostalgic and warm. This is the music, the crowd, and the party and I feel like that’s what these fans, these Nightkids, these Stars live for too, and it’s very hard to find a good real rave event in Texas. I am very pleased I can count on my Keep Austin Hard friends and Mylo to produce the very fine example of raving.
The next superstar to follow me was Pinky, who I consider a grand unifier in Hard Dance as she works hard to build and unify rave as the godmother of Texas’ legendary rave family, 3Kings. 3Kings has an entire history on their own and I hope to extensively cover them this summer among a sea of Hardcore events, which I will announce in this blog later. Pinky kept the heart-melting energy I brought and I was able to enjoy that sound of love and joy from the perspective of the dance floor. Moonstruck Red tagged in after Pinky to perform his first solo act since retiring from regularly working live events at around 2018. I loved that this event also served as Brad (Moonstruck) and his wife Mia’s anniversary and it was adorable they soaked in the PLUR together on stage when “Heaven” played. Moonstruck Red’s set was indeed a Rainbow Island moment, but we were ready to welcome the main event as Maromi shows Texas how our friends in the West party.
Ever since I took my DJ performances to Twitch near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, I would find many amazing rave DJs take the same path and showcase their craft and share their musical tastes via livestreaming. I had a dream that I would meet all of my wonderful DJ friends that I’d see on Twitch; Maromi was one of those wonderful friends and on May 11th, I got to experience and enjoy a live Maromi set. I got a bit of everything and learned many things new through Maromi’s set as it featured a mix of Happy Hardcore and UK Hardcore with a bit of Breakbeat Hardcore and monumentally momentous sections of heart-melting sounds. This was not a set to miss and Maromi is not going to let you miss it either as this set is available on Soundcloud for you to live (and for us cool kids–relive) that climatic set on Rainbow Island.
After an epic climax of Hardcore, the fun of afterhours begins with GiGi Alien with even more colorful Hard Dance sounds. I may have partied so hard that I would feel like a million pieces later; however, I would also feel like a cuddly plushie with how cuddly and warm I would feel after having my heart melted from Happycore sounds all night. I would get one final dose of hard power punches as DJ R3NEGADE closes the night reminding us that they keep Austin hard!
I am excited for all the fun things next to come from Keep Austin Hard and Sparx Something; in addition, all of the Hardcore projects coming from all my friends in Texas whether that also includes 3Kings, Austin Dance Syndicate, Underground Syndicate, etc… HakubiVerse has some projects of our own as we will be teaming up with Martian Glo Entertainment to bring the biggest rally of Hardcore superstars at Forever Hardcore: The S3RL Tribute Rave on July 27th in the Dallas-Fort Worth area; furthermore, we will be teaming up with Morphinominal Expo on August 10th in San Antonio for HakubiVerse’s big otaku rave, San AnTokyo 06: Henshin Impact.
Finally, I did record my set and I will leave you with my hour that made people fall in love many times at Rainbow Island. Enjoy the PLUR vibes that we bring and enjoy the fact that real rave is here to stay. By the way, as of this writing, my Rainbow Island set apparently made #1 in J-core.
