For Space's We Love... team, we're guessing Sundays in summer time aren't usually the day of rest they should be. I mean we've never organised a five room, 8,000 capacity party before, but we're guessing there's a fairly long to-do list. Well yesterday they finally got the chance to put their feet up, as we at Spotlight were joined by Manchester promoters The Warehouse Project for a very special double takeover.
For the fourth and final time, we were let loose on easily the best room in Space, El Salon (OK so maybe we're a tad biased), which meant limbo, disco balls and lots of confetti! Kenneth Bager was our star attraction with his Music For Dreams label, playing everything from Pitball to Nightcrawlers, and joining him behind the decks we had DJ Pippi, Bob Masters, Lucci Capri and Spotlight DJ comp winner Ric James. Whilst the trays of hierbas shots floating around and frequent confetti battles were good fun, the highlight of this takeover had to have been the live saxophone complete with its own laser beam! That's right you guys, we had a laser sax.
If you could bear to drag yourself away from all that FUN, you had the guys behind Manchester's premier rave series The Warehouse Project on hand to sort you out. In their first foray on the white isle, they'd secured an impressive roster of talent including Nicolas Jaar in his one and only confirmed Ibiza appearance of the year. He had a fairly early spot in the Discoteca, but one that definitely turned out to be one of the highlights of the night. Steering away from your usual go to house tracks, he instead hit us with curve balls like an amped up version of Michael Bublé's Feeling Good, which went down surprisingly well with the WHP's underground loving crowd. It was a far cry from the dark and moody live shows Jaar usually produces, whilst still managing to differentiate itself from typical clubland set.
Following Jaar was Joy Orbison and George Fitzgerald, who took the mood, U-turned and took us to a sweat filled, East London basement, playing a back to back set of relentless bass and plunging drops. A heavily British crowd, this was the stuff they'd cut their teeth on and the energy in the room was electric. A mix of heavy house and techno, highlights included Green Velvet's Help Me and the DJ Koze Remix of Moderat's Bad Kingdom.
As the hours went by and dance floors were culled, there was one room in which the brightening skies outside seemed to have little effect on. Eats Everything and Richy Ahmed - from the moment they touched the decks overlooking the Terrace - proved to be a perfect pairing. With a high energy, playful set of house gems like Cookie Watkins' Love Can Save (Club Mix) and Catz Eats Dogz' Evil Tram, they had before them a crowd who seemed to have forgotten any trace of tiredness that may have been creeping up. Fist pumping and dancing, the duo could have easily been two mates DJing at their friend's house party, having as much fun bouncing around to Sharon Pass' infectious vocals in Steve Silk Hurley's The Word Is Love as their eager crowd. Every inch of the dance floor was filled with bouncing bodies right up until their last offering well past 7am, Xpansions' Move Your Body; and what better way to end a night than with the kind of set that you have no qualms about missing your last bus for.
WORDS | Joanna Wright PHOTOGRAPHY | James Chapman (Header), Nel G, nelgphotography (Rest)
