In October 2010 I posted about Mid-Town’s Rotterdam shop closing on my personal blog. Last week however, the curtain dropped permanently for what was left of Mid-Town (the labels and webshop). They went bankrupt.

What’s kind of interesting to see from the official papers, is that with Mid-Town some infamous labels also cease to exist: Rotterdam Records, DJ Paul Elstak’s Forze Records and Terror Trax Records.

It’s sad to say but it’s the last in a long string of ‘gabber landmarks’ that have disappeared: the demise of the FFWD dance parade (also in 2010, while not strictly hardcore, usually had a large hardcore following), the radio program Turbulentie on the also bankrupt radio station Stads Radio Rotterdam over a decade ago and the infamous Parkzicht club. Like it or not these things were part of Rotterdam’s cultural heritage and something that gave Rotterdam a voice in the rest of the world.

While a common slogan among gabbers is “hardcore will never die“, it can be concluded that gabber is dead. In Rotterdam at least. Or that it’s least a spirit without a body.