Wednesday the 15th of December saw the final appearance at Store Street of an artist whose career has developed immeasurably during the past five years. Shortly after featuring on BBC Radio 1′s Essential Mix for the first time in 2007, Skream made his first Warehouse Project appearance alongside Scratch Perverts in December. On the back of his hugely successful ‘In For The Kill’ remix he played as part of the ‘Annie Mac Presents’ night in 2009 alongside Fake Blood and Buraka Som Sistema, and last year he took his Magnetic Man project to the Parklife Weekend and the Warehouse Project as well as curating the Skream and Benga Presents night for the first time. This year he has played a three-part residency and the final edition, another Skream & Benga Presents event, was the best of all.
Early sets from Oneman and P Money set a quick pace for the night. Heavy grime and dubstep tracks dominated the music with popular tunes exciting the audience into starting moshpits all over the main room. Artwork, the third member of Magnetic Man, then followed in the same style; recongisable basslines, lively and fast paced tracks and plenty of hype from MC Tonn Piper. DJ Zinc’s hour long set had a more eclectic feel with some groovier tracks, elements of house and drum and bass but the majority of people were only here to see the final act.
This was an event which was partly about nostalgia, for the DJs as well as the audience. Running through a list of their most successful tracks, individually and with Magnetic Man, over the past few years they kept the tempo high and showed off all of their experiences. Two hours of dubstep classics, plenty of vocal tracks and a huge cheers from the audience on almost tracks show exactly why these two have come so far. Although it wasn’t the most interesting of nights in terms of music diversity, it brought back plenty of memories of fantastic performances, had a great atmosphere all the way through and showed just how much love Manchester has for these two fantastic artists. It was the perfect send off and all present will be hoping that Skream & Benga will be around when the Warehouse Project returns to Manchester at a new venue next year.
