Store Street, Manchester (27th September)
Featuring: Jackmaster, Leon Vynehall, Carl Craig, Tale Of Us, Seth Troxler, Harri & Domenic, Ben UFO, Pearson Sound
This weekend saw me return to Manchester for the opening night of Warehouse Project 2014. I was flying solo for this event as Wendy is currently soaking up the sun in Italy – not completely solo, of course, as Catriona was happy to step in to help me sample what WHP14 had to offer.
Having called Victoria Warehouse ‘home’ for the past couple of years, this year saw WHP return to its spiritual home, Store Street, for the period 27/09/14-01/01/15. A car park and old air raid shelter, the location under the railway arches of Piccadilly station offers the perfect site for an event of this type and scale and the organisers chose to return here in advance of next year’s major milestone – WHP’s 10th anniversary.
Once inside, we were greeted by an empty Room 1, with Jackmaster at the helm. Working his way through tracks including It’s The Inside That Counts, Preacherman and Play It Loud, it was a real shame that Jackmaster’s timeslot was so early in the evening (6-9pm) but he had to get down to London post his set to close his residency at XOYO.
He didn’t seem put off by the empty room however and, by the time he left, his enthusiasm and energy had seen the area fill up with a crowd who were happy to party on as he ended his set with the Mighty Mouse re-edit of Controversy. If you do get the chance to see Jackmaster live, make sure you look out for some of his signature moves: the shoulder roll, the fist pump and the arm twirl 🙂
Next on the decks was Leon Vynehall, a new name for us. Originally meant to be playing Room 2 at the end of the evening, Vynehall swapped sets with Ben UFO and Pearson Sound after they were held up by air strikes. Vynehall likes his percussion-based tracks and this made for an intriguing set that we would have happily listened to for longer. Some favourites for me included The Way You Do It, Woo Ha and Suckle. For more about Vynehall, check out his recent interview with Resident Advisor. I will certainly be listening out for more of what he has to offer in the future.
Following an overly dramatic entrance by Carl Craig, post Vynehall’s set, we decided to take a time out and moved to the chill out area situated alongside Room 2. This put us in prime position to be ready for Harri & Domenic coming on. This pairing were another new find for us; two Glasgow boys (seemingly Saturday was a night all about Glaswegian talent!), they have been residents at one of the longest running house nights, Subculture, for the last 10 years. You can check out Harri & Domenic in action by watching their Boiler Room set here.
Although much smaller than Room 1, that did not stop the Room 2 DJs giving it their all throughout the night and, in some cases, it seemed it was easier for them to feed off the crowd’s energy than it was from the high stage in Room 1. The only criticism was that the distance between the rooms and the noise insulation was not sufficient to cancel out the bass and so the sound was not always in its purest form.
One of the most hotly anticipated sets of the evening for many of the crowd was Tale Of Us, 
a Berlin-based duo who believe that “all good music should tell a story”. I think I danced my hardest during this set and the boys couldn’t really go wrong when they chose to end with Caribou’s Can’t Do Without You.
As Seth Troxler began the final set of the night, Room 1 had turned a bit minimal for us and so we decided to end our night with Ben UFO and Pearson Sound in Room 2. The boys are perhaps best known as two thirds of Hessle Audio and Ben UFO can often be spotted gracing the decks at Fabric, London. Weaving together a mix of uptempo sounds, the boys offered the perfect ingredients to keep our weary feet moving until we could dance no more…
What worked really well on the night was the scheduling: the two rooms were situated close to one another (even if the noise did travel), acts were given sufficient time to develop their sets, and it was possible to spend time enjoying a good helping of both acts where they were playing in parallel across the two rooms. The set up at the Store Street site allowed ample room for dancing and enjoying the music while the bar layout meant there were plenty of areas to chill out too. People had travelled from across the UK (and possibly further afield) to attend and everyone was in high spirits, happy to be back at WHP for the opening night of 2014 – I think the photos speak for themselves. Oh, and it was great to see so many of the DJs remaining loyal to vinyl!!
Overall, a job very well done and a memorable 8+ hours of clubbing for us. Warehouse Project – Welcome Home, and enjoy the rest of this year’s programme!
Visit our Flickr page to see photo highlights from the night, and our YouTube channel where you can watch extracts from other shows.
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You can also check out our Past Events page to see our music archives.
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