CityLife

Reverend and The Makers + Tricky + The Whip + Late Of The Pier + Midnight Juggernauts + Simian Mobile Disco + Four Tet + Max Tundra + Eat Your Own Ears

IT'S a massive car park underneath Piccadilly Train Station and, right now, it's also the home of the most important clubbing event in the UK.

Bringing thousands of clubbers together under the same roof, week after week, with lineups featuring some of the most exciting names in indie and dance music, the Warehouse Project is the biggest thing to happen to Manchester nightlife for decades.

Tonight's sold out party is curated by the Eat Your Own Ears crew, bringing together an eclectic mix of indie bands, hard dance DJs and avant-garde electronica.

Mis-step

Frustratingly, this varied selection means the night as a whole doesn't gel properly, fans of one act are unlikely to appreciate the next, which means there are lots of puzzled faces wandering around, waiting for another act to come on.

The biggest mis-step of the night is booking notorious trip-hop grump Tricky.

Despite his sound being ten years out of date, he takes to the stage at 11pm for an hour of grinding miserablism, his hectoring tone completely at odds with the messy party atmosphere created by Late Of The Pier's live show.

Equally as bad are Reverend And The Makers – a band whose live show consists of an angry mullet-haired man with self-esteem issues bellowing empty platitudes over a backing track of lumpen pub-rock.

The mind boggles at the decision to put one of the UK's most conservative-sounding indie-rock bands on the same bill as futuristic sounding acts as The Whip and Late Of The Pier.

Ever-reliable

The front of the stage is overrun by shaven-headed fat men punching the air to the most moronic lyrics since Noel Gallagher rhymed 'cannon-ball' with 'hall'.

Although they tried their best, Tricky and Reverend don't manage to completely ruin the night as Manchester's current favourite sons (and daughter) The Whip rescue the party with a raved-up beat-heavy take on their live show that brings everyone to the dancefloor.

It's then left to the ever-reliable Simian Mobile Disco to finish things off with a hard-hitting DJ set that keeps the crowd going crazy into the small hours.

Despite the patchy lineup, tonight the Warehouse Project rocked the city's clubland, proving yet again that it is more than the sum of its parts.

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