Last night saw a very special night at Warehouse Project as Metropolis, best known for their groundbreaking and genre-defying music events held across the globe, showcasing talent from the electronic world, celebrated their 10th birthday – and what a party it was! As a huge fan of the Metropolis brand and the artists / DJs they represent, I was particularly excited for last night and expected it to be a night to remember.
Let’s take a brief look back at Metropolis’ history first though. Established in 2002, firmly rooted and influenced by the Manchester dance music scene, Metropolis has evolved into one of the UK’s most successful music / event brands, thanks to its relations with festivals and venues, and has become one of the North’s most influential electronic club nights. Check out the website and you’ll see a section dedicated to past club night posters, showing an impressive catalogue of bass industry heavyweights including Pendulum, Skrillex, Sub Focus and Magnetic Man. Ten years on and this year saw Metropolis involved in Parklife, Global Gathering, Evolution and now at WHP, where they curated a night celebrating the broad spectrum of acts it has hosted over the years.
We’ll start with the big boys; Chase & Status, who have become one of the hottest producers, writers and musicians in their own rights since Will Kennard and Saul Milton met in the early nineties through their love of drum’n’bass and later DJ-ing at the University of Manchester. Described by the legendary Pharrell Williams as being ‘the most exciting producers in the UK’ and supported by a host of other big names in the game such as Skream, Pendulum and Radio 1 music queen Annie Mac, Chase & Status have come a huge way since their first production in 2004.
These beginnings paved the way for their musical reputation and further success, including chart hits with ‘End Credits’ (their 2nd collaboration with Plan B) and ‘Blind Faith’ feat. Liam Bailey, plus their 2nd studio album ‘No More Idols’ achieving double platinum status and a firm favourite in the DMM camp. Let’s not forget a Brit Nomination and numerous festival performances across the globe; nothing is in the way of the drum’n’bass duo who are continuously taking the music world by storm.
Supporting C&S is one of my personal favourites, who first got me into dubstep years ago after hearing his breakthrough single in 2005 ‘Midnight Request Line’ is Skream. His melody-driven, dark and moody style have more recently incorporated techno and house sounds as he has grown confidence with pushing the boundaries, and his position as one third of Magnetic Man and a Radio 1 show alongside collaborator Benga, performing for the last time together as Skream and Benga in 2012.
Warehouse Project 2012 – 10 Years of Metropolis
Beardyman on stage at WHP
We arrived at the Warehouse Project quite early but Beardyman’s set was already in full flow to a packed main room all bouncing to his live performance. The key-phrase there was live performance. This wasn’t a DJ set but a performance of music he was making totally live, on the fly. To back this, he addressed the crowd over the mic, telling us all how, just to prove this is live he was going to build up a track from scratch on stage. Now for the life of us, we can’t remember what this track is called, an older rock-ish track that had the whole crowd jumping as he built up the layers on stage, beat-boxing alongside. (We made an appeal on Twitter to find out what this track was, give us a shout if you remember @dancemusicmcr!).
Next up in the main room, London quartet Rudimental burst onto stage providing an energetic set, brought to life even more thanks to fantastic visuals behind the crew on stage, as well as the powerful, strong vocals when performing chart-topping tracks ‘Feel the Love’ and ‘Not Giving In’, which made the crowd go mental! They certainly almost blew the roof off and set the hyped-up scene ready for next-up on the line-up…
DJ Fresh + Fleur
DJ Fresh and his entourage totally tore up the main room, thanks to insane strobe lighting, huge bass sounds and DJ Fresh himself being an absolute top performer, getting us well and truly raving hard to his recognisable dance tracks including ‘Hot Right Now’. We cannot forget to mention the acoustic version of ‘Louder’ performed by the stunning vocalist, Fleur, whose voice was just perfect for this more chilled out track mixed in with his other trademark bass-heavy tracks during his smasher of a set. Will try and upload the video of it soon…
As per usual, the banter was top notch. The Bass Jockeys were on form, so big shout out to the lads. At one point, a lass that looked just like the Rudimental vocalist, was interrupted by an ever so slightly intoxicated Darren, (vodka slushes will be the end of you mate 
) who questioned, “Are you the singer from Rudimental?” To which she replied, “Ha…no. Are you James Cordon?” A highlight of our night anyways!
Just after midnight, DJ Fresh’s set concluded to make room for Chase & Status, who we absolutely could not wait for, being huge fans for years and seen them many a time before, but we were particular excited to see perform at Warehouse Project. And wow…we could not have asked for or expected a better set – it was HUGE! Smashing out some of their older stuff like ’Eastern Jam’ to their stormer of a new one ‘Big Man’, plus mixing in the brilliant ‘Latch’ by Disclosure and ‘You Won’t Be There’ by Nero, we could not have raved harder than we did.
Chase & Status
These guys are pros and know exactly how to put on a decent set whatever the location, and they really did set Warehouse Project on fire. We were proud to be there and experience this as part of celebrating Metropolis’ 10th birthday. Dubstep ‘brothers’ Skream & Benga took over and yet again, did not disappoint the crowd with their trademark filthy, dirty, heavy sounds and getting the bass faces going.
Chase & Status
Coming up…
Next week, WHP plays host to Flying Lotus, Squarepusher and Jamie XX on Friday, in association with the Red Bull Music Academy and on Saturday, the DMM team will be down once more to witness the genius that is Laidback Luke alongside DMM favourites Eddie Halliwell and Sandro Silva. Not only this but the Bitch team will be hosting room 3, with the brilliant B3 and Junior J, two acts that we’re massively recommending you see, stars for the future.
Check out our Facebook page for more photos from the night or follow us on Twitter for all WHP / dance music banter!
