Review: Sex With Robots at The Roadhouse, 25th September

Sex With Robots
The Roadhouse
Tuesday 25th September

After enjoying a hugely successful first year establishing itself as the leader of the mid-week pack, Sex with Robots is back. Started as a monthly Saturday night party at the Roadhouse, it has come a long way in a surprisingly short space of time. Switching last February to a weekly Tuesday slot, and this year being hosted at The Roadhouse on the last Friday of the month as well, the Manchester electro faithful couldn’t be happier. Neither could promoter and resident Simon if the queue to get in on Tuesday was anything to go by.

“Basically we’re just building on what we’ve already got from last year,” says Simon, which is a great platform to progress from. “We can play things that some people wouldn’t listen to, for example an indie girl coming down because it’s an electro night who ends up dancing to techno for two hours”. Priding itself on a night that can hold its own, don’t expect too much in terms of big names currently doing the rounds. However, that shouldn’t put you off (as if you’d be that fickle). Fresh faces on the scene are preferred with Sweden’s Blende having played last Friday and there’s talk of putting on more international touring acts for random SWR events.

Back to Tuesday. Probably the busiest SWR I’ve been to, with people queuing round the block before the doors even opened, and the dreaded one-in-one-out system in place after just 40 minutes. Never a bad sign for what sort of night lies ahead, providing of course you’re on the inside. The opening set was a good example of the ‘more varied than you might think’ music policy, with Simon providing jacking house (the dubsided label being a bit of a fad lately you may have noticed), glitchy electro, techno and even stretching to a little early 90’s house.

Next it was the turn of Club Pony’s Mike to whip up the weekly atmosphere that would be more at home in Sankeys than any other electro night at the minute. Pretty good going considering it’s a Tuesday. A word of warning though: the music is nothing if not hard, brain drilling schizophrenic electro at times. Sometimes not everyone’s first choice for the dance-floor, but don’t let that put you off – there’s always people dancing. Sex with Robots five times a month? Far more preferable than doing it with prostitutes, policeman or even tramps for that matter.