Friday nights line up at the Warehouse Project, kindly arranged for us by Resident Advisor was headed up by acts from very different decades of electronic music; representing early nineties Detroit style deep house, Carl Craig; representation from the modern era, a DJ of both Detroit and German pedigree Seth Troxler; and Booka Shade, almost completely hidden behind Arno Kammermeier’s immense drum kit. This was clearly visually reflected in the audience, hip young things drawn in by Booka Shade, who partied it up side by side with those who had clearly been partying it up in the early nineties around about the same time Carl Craig.
This combination ensured an interesting, fun and overwhelmingly friendly mix of people, also being something that was echoed in the amount of people that left immediately after Booka Shade’s set. However this was not to be an unfortunate thing, as it is advertised that at capacity the Warehouse Project (WHP) can fit at most 1800 people. It was evident on the night, however, that it had reached capacity in all senses of the word, becoming hard to move around – let alone dance – at the busiest of times. This kind of rammed to capacity, almost cagey atmosphere, led the night to feel more like a gig for a band than a night fronted entirely by DJ mixsets. Not, of course, that this detracted in any way shape or form from the night itself. The classic sign of an enthusiastic audience being ever-present had to be congealed ceiling sweat raining from above onto the crowd below.
The night opened with resident WHP DJ Jamie Jones warming up the crowd with seamless mixing talent, effortlessly managing to get the crowd worked up into a suitable frenzy for the oncoming hours.
Booka Shade exploded onto the main stage at midnight to play an incredible one hour set, at the zenith of which demonstrating – like I have genuinely never seen the likes of before – that night time had indeed truly fallen.
Carl Craig was next on the main stage and the audience were suitably worked up. Craig literally jumped straight into the deep end, providing his audience one solid hour of unbeatably smooth chic beats to get down and busy to.
Seth Troxler carried the audience into ecstasy for the remainder of the night, giving the audience a proper early hours of the morning, dance with your eyes closed, lose all grasp on the world completely, amazing one hour set.
Truly a faultless night that stands out in my head, as in all honesty a night to be remembered, for a long time.
