Review: DJ Shadow @ The Warehouse Project

Date: 17th September 2011

Reviewed by: Simon Jay Catling

Though ultimately the Warehouse Project will go on in some form or other, the end of its time encased in the arches and tunnels that worm their way under Piccadilly train station undoubtedly has a sense of finality about it.

While there are those who’ll still insist its first year at the now demolished Boddington’s Brewery remains its best, the last five years at Store Street have given the club night an identity that it would’ve struggled to match even if Boddies was still standing.

If the organisers behind the Warehouse Project know when it’s time to change and renew, then their choice of headliner for the opening night can point to a similar ability of being able to continually evolve.

However, where Manchester’s most successful promoters have grown year-on-year, DJ Shadow has found himself constantly working in the shadow of a debut LP that came already fully-formed. Endtroducing’s impact has been well-documented, and though to his credit the 39 year-old producer has never relied on replicating the same sound again, its legacy has left him an increasingly embittered character, dismayed that each of his three follow-ups haven’t been judged on their own merits.

Live shows though have always felt like a retreat for Shadow, and in Store Street you couldn’t really hope for a more welcoming escape with the crowds here traditionally treating whoever passes through its brick passages as royalty, their heightened stimulations reaching out and enveloping onstage performances with a sense of charged energy.

Initially the Californian seems imbued into the vibe, there’s a relaxation to the way he includes tracks from Endtroducing, ‘Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt’ making an early appearance which sends the sold-out cavern into frenzy; his visual set up is phenomenal too, the producer encasing himself inside a white ball with which projections are beamed onto. Though impressive, it does rather isolate him from the crowd in a venue that thrives on the connection between artist and audience.

When he does show his face though, the ball revolving to reveal him behind his decks, controllers and samplers, that barrier vanishes, and with the arrival of the thundering bi-polar hip-hop-cum-drum n’bass ‘Napalm Brain / Scatter Brain’ he seems set to ascend into the ranks of the great Warehouse Project performers.

Yet something grates a little tonight, and it’s hard to tell what it is; perhaps it’s the mix in the audience – a mixture of bedroom listeners, hardened ravers and returning students. Another factor though is that Shadow has always claimed that he doesn’t make conventional dance music, that he seems hardwired against it, and that becomes apparent, particularly on newer tracks like ‘Redeemed’ which somewhat drift over the top of a flailing crowd rather than rooting themselves at the very base of their core. Adding to the sense that Shadow’s music feels, on occasion, at odds tonight with the club setting comes in the dialogue he imparts during breaks between tracks, a constant insistence that everything we hear tonight is being done live. Props to him for that, for sure, but it’s 1am and he’s preaching to a crowd starving for a beat. It’s hardly the time to resuscitate a long-dead bugbear about the talent of DJs versus “real musicians.” The lines have blurred so much now that such boasts don’t make the impact that they would’ve ten years ago.

Perhaps most disappointing is that , despite attempts to twist and change, Shadow’s newer stuff fails to really get the crowd going, not through fault of their own, but more because patently the DJ has found himself in the position of many one-time pioneers; specifically, he can’t continue breaking boundaries and has eventually been caught by those younger than him – a lot of the newer tracks here sound like they’re hanging on the coat tails of many who’ve come before, many who’ve brought The Warehouse Project to rapture previously in fact. 

This is not to say that tonight is a damp squib, far from it, and at times – yes, in the likes of ‘Organ Donor’ and ‘Stem’ – you can almost see the electricity crackling from the stage. Yet tonight – as far as Shadow’s set goes anyway – doesn’t feel like the fire and brimstone curtain raiser of Warehouse Projects before and, ultimately, despite his protestations, the person who seems to have the biggest problems moving away from the past is the man himself.

Photo: Courtesy of @WHP_mcr's Twitter

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