There’s something beautifully chaotic about watching Rossi. take over a room the size of YES’s Pink Room on a midweek night in Manchester.
No towering LED walls. No Ibiza sunset backdrop. Just low ceilings, flashing pink strobes, and a crowd packed in tight enough to feel every kick drum in your ribcage.
For a DJ who has commanded renowned venues across the globe like Space Miami, Hï Ibiza, and Manchester’s very own Warehouse Project, it felt almost mischievous seeing him in a space this intimate on a Thursday night.
If you were lucky enough to grab a ticket to this instalment of the BRITs Week 2026 for War Child fringe events, you could tell early doors that whoever had one was more than ready to turn up for him. When Rossi. stepped behind the decks, taking over from the talented Olive F, who set the tone for the evening, and once the headphones were firmly sat on his curly locks, he eased us in with a rolling, groovy opener – not so subtly dripping in snippets of his biggest and best tracks. We’d have to wait for those.
His sound sits in that sweet spot between underground grit and polished punch. Tech-house, but with his own East End character. The drums feel tight and deliberate. The basslines don’t just thud, they glide.
To start us out, we were hit with a few dancey vocals filled with his hometown of London’s Grime influence, all the way to Frank Ocean’s ‘Lost’ at 125 bpm. Within minutes, the pink room was in full swing.
From there, the set unfolded like a guided tour through the different shades of Rossi.’s catalogue. Underground favourites like ‘U WONT SEE ME’ slipped into the mix with a knowing reaction from the very keen lads at the front. ‘FREAK IN THE SHEETS’ followed later, cheeky and rhythmic, drawing that half-grin from dancers absolutely going for it at the front right.
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It’s easy to forget how far he’s come. A decade ago, he was carving out space in the underground. Now he’s headlining globally recognised parties like Circoloco, Music On, Paradise, and Fuse, and launching a world tour that’s been tearing through the UK, Ireland, Europe, and the US. Yet here, there was no arena ego. Just a cheeky lad going back to his roots like he’s on his CDJs in the bedroom.
Mid-set, he began to lift the energy. Brighter synths edged in with the odd jangly finger floater for good measure (that’s what I’m calling that dance move anyway!). The percussion grew punchier. The room, already warm, never quite tipped into sweatbox territory. Strangers were dancing together. Drinks were abandoned on ledges. I had realised I’d bagged the perfect vantage spot overlooking things on the ledge, in prime view of a truly fortuitous occasion.
Rossi. at YES for BRITs Week 2026 for War Child / Credit: Holly Pimlott (Supplied)
Then came one of the night’s real eruptions. ‘High On Me’ – his breakout collaboration with Jazzy – landed like a spark in dry grass. The track, which stormed into the UK Top 20 and racked up over 20 million streams in a matter of weeks, felt enormous in a room this size.
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Arms shot up. Lyrics were shouted back. For a few minutes, YES felt like the epicentre of British dance music or maybe a flashback to a ruthless TikTok doom scroll session.
But what impressed me most was the pacing. Rossi. didn’t sprint through bangers. He let grooves breathe. He allowed tension to stretch before unleashing the drop on almost every occasion. Teasing in a little snippet of an upcoming track, a few minutes before we could revel in it in full. It’s the confidence of someone who’s sold out 2,500-capacity headline shows – even breaking ticketing systems with demand – yet still understands that the magic is in the build.
The talented Olive F supported and set the tone for the evening / Credit: Holly Pimlott (Supplied)
As the final stretch approached, he nudged the tempo upward… and he was about to drop some serious crowd pleasers.
LEDs dampened. Darkness fell. The murmurings of ‘Lady – Hear Me Tonight’ rose in unison with the crowd’s curiosity. It didn’t take long until the entire gaff was going mental. Just pure, euphoric house music.
And to finish, with his headphones resting against the decks and mixing all said and done, he pressed play on the swan song. As ‘These Sounds Fall Into My Mind’ echoed around the room, the speakers hardly needed to be playing anymore. When he finally eased out, it felt less like an ending and more like an enticing warning shot for the summer ahead… hello, is that Ibiza calling?
Rossi. at YES wasn’t just a warm-up for this Saturday’s big BRIT Awards, it was proof that no matter how big the stages get, he thrives in the arm-flaring closeness of a proper club room.
Global headline DJ. Underground heart.
Featured Image – Holly Pimlott (Supplied)
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Rochdale AFC go viral with song choice during promotion party celebrations
Danny Jones
Rochdale AFC are going viral on their return to the Football League, not just because of the remarkable end to their already spectacular season, but over their song choice during the promotion party in the dressing room.
We promise you: even if you haven’t seen it already, you will absolutely love this clip.
For those who haven’t been following their journey over the 25/26 campaign, Rochdale AFC were promoted back to League Two and the EFL proper, after more than a century in the top four divisions came to an end back in 2023.
Thankfully for the Greater Manchester side, who have always served as an important grassroots side throughout the decades, their hiatus wasn’t too long, and scenes inside the Wembley dressing room have been circulating all over social media – especially thanks to the track selection.
— National League on DAZN (@DAZN_NationalLg) May 10, 2026
If Olivia Dean is the artist of the moment, then Rochdale simply have to be one of the teams of the year.
Lifting the National League playoff trophy in the aftermath of a tense 2-2 draw, where the Vallians came back from a two-goal deficit to bring the tie level – thanks to goals from substitute Tyler Smith and Emmanuel Dieseruvwe in the 78th and 96th minute, respectively – you could say they were men in need.
Managing to then survive extra time and make it to penalties, another pair of crucial saves in the shoot-out from starring keeper Oliver Whatmuff, and a decisive miss from Boreham Wood’s Cameron Cox sealed the dramatic win for The Dale.
Breathless stuff.
All that being said, you’d expect some of the usual football-adjacent big win bangers to be heard in the aftermath of a playoff win: ‘Freed From Desire’, chants of ‘We are going up’, ‘Sweet Caroline’ these days, and so on.
But not these lot: they decided to stick on ‘Man I Need’, singing their hearts out and jumping up and down in unison like they were in one of her two recent Manc crowds themselves.
In case you missed it, her Co-op live shows were unsurprisingly incredible, but we’ll admit that seeing a bunch of blokes scream and cheer as they throw drinks in the air and sip suds straight from the shiny cup has definitely added another dimension to our love for this song and the Olivia ‘Deannaissance’.
Not only has the soulful singer-songwriter written one of the best radio hits in recent memory, for our money, but she’s even getting now former non-league footballers choosing her as the soundtrack to their main character moments.
You just love to see it (watch the full highlights HERE).
With Jimmy McNulty’s side having only just narrowly missed out on automatic promotion and the National League crown in that crazy title-decider against fellow entertainers York City, it can’t be denied that they’ve been the other truly box office outfit this term; another late comeback proved it once again.
No side with over 100 points and 90 goals scored should be denied going up and a piece of silverware, which is why, although they’ve been a great advert from the fifth tier, so many are still calling for ‘3UP’. We want more moments like this, please…
Tame Impala at Co-op Live, Manchester – lasers, lights, and a bit of a hangover
Daisy Jackson
The coolest man in the southern hemisphere has finally made his way back up north, for his first Manchester gig in a decade.
That cool man in question is Tame Impala, the music project of what-the-hell-can’t-he-play multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker.
Sure, last year’s single release ‘Dracula’, and then its remix re-release with K-pop megastar Jennie, may have propelled Tame Impala up towards the top of the UK singles chart for the first time, but he’s got almost two decades-worth of music to dig through beyond that too.
It’s a hefty discography and it leads to a setlist that seems to almost peak about six times.
‘How could it possibly get better than this?’ we seem to ask as he plays The Moment, Elephant, Dracula, and Let It Happen pretty early on – but better it does indeed get.
It doesn’t seem to matter whether he’s up on the main space-ship-esque stage surrounded by lasers and lights, or sat on the floor of the B Stage playing around with a keyboard, Tame Impala has an irresistible, enchanting charisma. A lot more charisma that you’d expect from a man called Kevin.
Early on, he confesses that he’s quite severely hungover from last night’s show, where he had Dua Lipa (he wrote and produced her Radical Optimism album) as a surprise guest.
But you can see the hangover clear from his eyes in real time as 23,500 Mancs scream in his face. Which might not sound like a likely hangover cure, but who am I to argue with the evidence in front of me?
Although Kevin writes, produces, and records his music solo, he’s got half a dozen musicians up on the main stage with him, which looks like a convoluted space ship that fires confetti out of its thrusters (FOUR TIMES!).
With revolving lights, dancing lasers, and a metal grid base spewing out dry ice, it’s really one hell of a production.
It’s a light show designed to give us all a glimpse of his synesthesia (meaning he sees colours when he hears music (Billie Eilish has it too)) – essentially, if you couldn’t hear a thing and could only see the stage, you can still tell exactly what song is playing.
Still, when he saunters straight through the crowd to his smaller stage to mix tracks solo – no lasers, just a few lamps – flopping down onto a tangle of wires like a mad magpie building himself a nest, it’s a chance to remember this guy’s composing prowess.
A lot of the songs performed tonight are almost orchestral in their complexity, so that the whole show merges into one thundering, bewitching night of dancing and being blasted in the face by confetti.
It’s genius.
So can you not leave it another decade before you come back, Kevin?
Harry Quick -
27th February 2026 
