Live review: Sammy Virji curates The Warehouse Project

For their 2025 season, The Warehouse Project have taken over Depot Mayfield once again with a series of unmissable events bringing the world’s best DJs to Manchester. Looking at the calendar, however, there’s one name that stood out as particularly exciting: this generation’s garage front-runner, Sammy Virji.

After performing back-to-back with Interplanetary Criminal at the 2024 edition of Parklife Festival and appearing as a special guest at Overmono’s Pure Devotion at The Warehouse Project a few months later, it was only right that Virji returned to the depot as a headliner. Virji is one of the most prolific names in the current UK dance scene, and he brought a star-studded lineup with him for a self-curated night that was guaranteed to rank amongst the best of the season.

Manchester’s own Larishka opened the night with a set combining the sounds of Disco Puss and Ghosts of Garage, the two promotion companies she co-owns and frequently performs with. The set proved a triumph, setting the bar high for the rest of the night.

Speed garage sensation Silva Bumpa followed, packing out the depot with a set filled mostly by his own songs: opting to avoid established floor-fillers might be a risky decision when performing to an audience as big as The Warehouse Project’s, and it takes a truly exceptional DJ to pull it off. Invigorating tracks such as ‘Wrap It Up’ and ‘House Nation’, both taken from Silva’s latest EP Check Dis Out, provide highlights within both his discography and live set, and also offered singalong moments for those familiar with his material.

Credit: Sophia J Carey @ The Warehouse Project

A quick dash to the smaller concourse stage saw Bakey bring a heavy end to his set, thrilling his crowd with grime, breakbeat, and bassline. Meanwhile, Oppidan preceded Malugi and salute’s back-to-back set on the depot’s main stage, and it became clear that the sound issues plaguing FISHER’s event at The Warehouse Project last month had been quickly solved. During Malugi and salute, the bass from the speakers could be physically felt from anywhere in the crowd, meaning that the high-energy set was an apt precursor for Sammy Virji himself.

Virji is known for drawing huge crowds wherever he goes: his set at 2024’s Boardmasters Festival was pulled as a result of a crowd crush leading to seven hospitalisations, making it all the more surprising that the amount of people in the depot during his performance noticeably exceeded its 10,000-person capacity. Initially, the packed-out crowd made for an excellent atmosphere: Virji opened with an extended version of his Skepta collaboration ‘Cops & Robbers’, which sent the audience wild, and followed with his hit song ‘Find My Way Home’. But, as the crowd got tighter, it became increasingly difficult to stick around.

Despite the overcrowding, Sammy Virji’s genre-bending, hit-filled set validated the constant admiration and excitement surrounding his name. What was most fascinating was the crowd’s reaction to tracks from his latest album Same Day Cleaning, which reached number one on the official UK dance charts on the day of the event and was released only two weeks prior. ‘Roads Roulette’ and ‘Match My Mood’ were met with the same enthusiasm as songs such as ‘Shella Verse’, ‘Damager’, and ‘If U Need It’ which Virji’s fans have had significantly longer to sit with. This attested to both the passion of his audience and his own ability to continuously deliver impressive, infectious garage tracks.

While Sam Alfred brought nineties-tinged house and techno to the concourse, revered house legend Armand van Helden closed the night at the depot. His position on the line-up of this year’s Parklife Festival as the final performer of the weekend on the Big Top stage hinted at how perfect he would be to bring a night at The Warehouse Project to an end, and, with a vast array of hits behind him, he delivered a joyous ninety-minute set. ‘I Want Your Soul’ and ‘You Don’t Know Me’ proved euphoric, with all remaining in the depot united in one final early-hours singalong moment.

Other than the event being oversold, the main problem with Sammy Virji’s event at The Warehouse Project was clashes: Joy Orbison, Prozak, and sim0ne all had to be sacrificed in favour of other artists, and back-to-back sets from Diffrent and Faster Horses as well as Megra and Pretty Girl were also missed. However, this speaks to the sheer number of brilliant artists featured on the line-up  and meant that not one moment was spent in boredom or aimlessness.

Now one month in, The Warehouse Project’s 2025 season is off to a great start, and although there are many more exciting line-ups on the horizon, it’ll be tough to top October’s first event: after all, it’s Virji, isn’t it?