Since 2006, The Warehouse Project has brought the most sought-out names in global dance music to Manchester, taking over the city for twelve weeks of euphoria. Each year, this begins in September as freshers begin to flood the streets of Fallowfield and beyond. It’s clear by now that The Warehouse Project know how to correctly kickstart their season, and this year they did so by booking Dutch techno giant KI/KI for a single-room show in their legendary Concourse space at Depot Mayfield.
It may be situated across the road from Piccadilly station, but The Warehouse Project has always seemed to exist in its own world. This year is no different: after entering down the side of Star & Garter, attendees were led into a space distinctly separated from normality and invited to lose themselves in seven hours of escapism. What was different, however, materialised in the space’s sound and lighting. As Berlin-via-Georgia DJ Salome played out her characteristically dark blend of electro and techno, squares of light landed around the stage’s decks, enveloping her in a halo.
For regular attendees of the season, the Concourse stage is the space that stands out, offering higher-quality sound and an intimate feel. It’s hard to believe that The Warehouse Project have managed to elevate the experience the area already offered, but walking into the 2026 season’s opening night meant meeting a wall of pulsating bass and intensely forceful kick drums. This enunciated the high-octane energy that Australian duo X CLUB. are renowned for as they performed a genre-defying set at the night’s peak.
The duo offered the crowd a mix of their varying influences, beginning with dubstep sounds before moving into vocal-led speed garage and fast-paced techno. Their set was marked by divergence and noticeable fluctuation: for less prolific producers, this could come across as cluttered and disorderly, but X CLUB. pulled it off with remarkable precision. Jesse Morath, one half of the duo, engaged in various instances of crowd interaction, taking phones for selfies and managing to balance his contribution to the audience’s community feel whilst retaining an impressive level of focus on the decks.
The biggest drop of the set inevitably came in the form of ‘Stay With Me’, the duo’s 2025 micro-hit that confirmed their position as one of the best acts in modern hard house. It begins with warbling bass and a hypnotic vocal loop, before exploding in euphoric organ that perfectly demonstrates their ability to imbue fast-paced sounds with heightened emotion. The fervent reaction they received and the unfaltering quality they displayed combined to mark their set as a standout, headline-worthy performance.
KI/KI’s own set leaned more into commercial techno, seeming too accessible after the experimentalism of Salome and the rejection of categorisation exhibited by X CLUB. The Warehouse Project are known for bringing the world’s sounds to their northern English space, but KI/KI’s selections ultimately felt more suited to an American EDM crowd than to Manchester on a Friday night. However, the trance-techno crowd that she attracts sustained the atmosphere the latter set up until the very end. Her audience is made up of those who desire the space to dance how they want without so much as thinking about their phones, meaning little assistance was required in enforcing The Warehouse Project’s no-filming policy for Concourse-only shows.
The Warehouse Project often suffers from a commercialised reputation itself, which has culminated in an expectation of overwhelmingly tight crowds and seas of phones greeting the biggest drops. KI/KI’s not-quite-sold-out capacity, however, left room for every attendee to dance how they wanted to music so loud it could be felt viscerally both in the moment and in the ringing ears of subsequent days. The Dutch headline DJ might not have impressed as expected, but the atmosphere she cultivated spells brilliantly for the rest of the season.
