warehouse project: a pub in a club?
Cutting shapes in a boozer
So I finally made the pilgramage to Manchester’s warehouse sanctuary as I've long dreamed of heading there. Manchester has always had a reputation of being a power house of British music, especially of the electronic variety.
The last time I was in the “Rainy City” I made sure to get a glimpse of the Depot Mayfield, the Warehouse Project’s current home, and was immediately blown away by the size of it. I remember thinking it looked like a city. So, when the opportunity arose to go, I couldn’t resist.
Welcome to the Warehouse was the name of the night and it was chock-full of big hitting artists. A number had been on my radar a while so to say I was excited was an understatement.
After quite a lengthy queue for security, we managed to make it in and boy did I underestimate the size of the place. My most recent super club experience was Printworks and that had a capacity of 6,000. Warehouse Project, however, has a capacity of 10,000 (or 13,000 according to the security guard we talked to) and once you were inside it felt massive.
High ceilings interspersed with columns stretched from end to end of each of the three enormous halls of the main dancefloors. The Depot was the first room we experienced and it’s the room you see when you look up Warehouse Project online. Luckily we had just made it to catch the second half of Ross from Friend’s early set whilst we queued for a drink.
Speaking of, the bar service at the beginning of the night was disastrous. For a club with a 7:30pm last entry time, you would expect most, if not all, of the bars to be serving well before that. However, this was not the case. We ended up queuing for the one open bar we found for a solid 30 minutes after having been turned away from other bars that were shut because of “staffing costs” according to one bartender.
I did not imagine I would be talking about bars again on my blog but here we are. At least we had Ross from Friend’s delightful set taking us into the night in the background.
At this point I want to address the title of this blog post. A few weeks prior to making it to Madchester, one of our group had delightfully pointed out that there was a pub at the Warehouse Project. A pub? In a club? This is something we had to see for ourselves.
So off we set, just as Krystal Klear was taking to the stage. Venturing outside, we noticed immediately that, right there, was a pub at the end of the smoking area. We tentatively made our approach up to the security guard. “Are we allowed in?” we asked. The guard grinned and said “of course!”
The Star and Garter is the name of the pub and it operates as a regular pub throughout the day from Sunday through to Friday. This Saturday, however, it housed two stages as part of the super club next door. It had all the usual pub decor and what looked like a pool table nailed shut with a big wooden board protecting its precious felt lining. They even had pints on tap!
The downstairs stage was unfortunately busy so we headed up the narrow staircase to the upstairs stage with one of the group grabbing a pint of Guinness on the way. “I’ve never been happier,” she says gleefully, smiling as we sway to Tañ spinning tracks in this bizarre, tiny, pub room.
At this point Prospa is mentioned as they’re doing a DJ set on the Temperance Stage outside so we head on out of the pub. At this point there’s a queue forming and we quickly realise that this is probably the only opportunity we’re going to have to experience this wild little corner of the club.
The Temperance Street stage is nestled between the train line and the outside wall of the Depot stage. We arrive early and listen to La La tearing up this cozy little alleyway, the top bit of which is lined with toilet cubicles and food trucks all shaking with the bass of the speakers. It starts raining as Prospa comes on. This didn’t dampen the mood at all and Prospa proved to be one of the group’s favourite sets of the day. Ecstasy in the rain is a memory I’m not going to forget for a long time.
The Archive stage was next on our list for X CLUB. A long and arched hall, it had the perfect setup for X CLUB’s tell-tale heavy techno sound. The purple theme of the lighting system matched the dark ambiance of the set and was a definite switch up from the Prospa’s signature euphoria.
Making our way back to the Depot, we wanted to catch Blessed Madonna in action and were lucky enough to experience the end of Job Jobse’s set. His recorded Dekmantel set last year was one of my 2022 favourites and I was glad to see him in action.
Unfortunately, the bass was a little too much in Blessed Madonna’s set so we made our way to the Concourse instead. Our favourite stage of the night. Floorplan, AKA Robert Hood and his daughter Lyric, were hard at work upon our arrival and we made our way round the back of the booth. Standing behind the DJs, we were greeted with a sea of heads. It was this point that the size of this place really sunk in for me.
We stayed a while here and merrily danced our way to the entirety of the Hoods’ set. A giant disco ball suited the beautifully crafted house music spun by the duo.
KETTAMA was next and quickly switched up the vibe. Since coming across him, I’ve always been enamoured by his sound. His Spotify bio describes his music as “exuberant” and I’m inclined to agree. I find his music evokes this sense of nostalgia of happier times.
We made our way back to the Depot for the final two-step of the night with a stop off at the Archive to see SHERELLE. At this point, it was well past 2am and the time we had spent in the club was becoming obvious. It was emptying out fast. The Archive was barely a quarter as full as it was for X CLUB’s set 5 hours prior (!) and it was a shame to see a such a stellar artist play to the small crowd that was there.
At long last, after 8 hours of tangoing in our new favourite playground, we caught Mall Grab in the central hall with some gorgeous visuals lighting up the marathon ravers of the night. Our bodies were sadly not as energetic as they once were at uni so we didn’t last too long, but we were pleased that we made it to the closing set.
Sat in the taxi on the way back to our pad for the weekend, we couldn’t help but talk about doing this again.
Manchester, you lived up to your reputation, I hope to see you again soon.