Live: Warehouse Project – What Hannah Wants

9th October 2015

Store Street

8/10

Walk under the Store Street bridge on an autumnal Friday night and you can usually sense an air of palpable excitement. Tonight it’s buzzing. That murky rumble of bass that promises so much to come, the seemingly endless queue of excitable ticket holders that stretches off into the far distance, and the occasional bark of a security dog. As we are ushered inside, you don’t need to be told that something big is happening here.

And so it is. Tonight Warehouse Project takes on the heavy-hitting bass of ‘What Hannah Wants’, which has been selling out around the world. As the evolution of the house scene has progressed to a lower, harder frequency over the past few years, Hannah has emerged to the forefront as its leader.

It is this sound we are treated to tonight. Bass is on the agenda, and it works. Maybe it’s the setting we’re in—those low arching brick walls that absorb the sound so perfectly—or the fact that everyone we talk to seems to be here for the music and nothing but the music. Indeed, at one point I share a beer with a forty-something Mancunian who eagerly tells me he’s been a committed disciple to Manchester raves since their early beginnings.

Above all, though, the main reason ‘What Hannah Wants’ proves successful is down to the sheer innate skill of the artists themselves. The DJs that Hannah has selected all share an irresistible groove. It’s addictive, especially on Friend Within’s ‘The Renegade’. The familiar ‘back once again for the renegade master…’ creeps into the mix to the insatiable crowd’s delight, and we are committed to move to the sound, absorbed.

Hannah herself has a natural ability to read an audience and control it. The room’s atmosphere is wrapped around her finger and she takes advantage. Each drop is more intense than the last, whipping the crowd into a hypnotic frenzy as that unique bass dominates the room.

It is nights of such tangible adrenaline like these that give Warehouse Project its fame, and Hannah’s skill and confidence tonight in Manchester confirms her position as one of the scene’s leaders.