What was ‘The Hacienda’ like for those that went?
Posted by YoruShonen@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 47 comments
As a massive New Order fan and being American and also that scene was before my time I am always fascinated about the club’s legendary status. I read most of the accounts from both the band and Tony Wilson’s perspective but what was it really like in reality for those lucky enough to have visited the club?
fowler2022@reddit
Cold
CarpetGripperRod@reddit
Overrated. Obvs the Mancs music scene was/is legendary, but I had more fun in The Wirral or down in northern Cheshire. Liverpool in the mid-90s was the place to be, in my opinion. More 'rave' than Manchester.
Substance, by Joy Division was the first album I purchased with my own money. I got soft with the New Romantic movement during the 80s...of which bands the only one I listen to these days is Erasure.
WiggyDiggyPooPoo@reddit
Love a bit of Erasure, saw them live once, one of the best gigs I've been to.
ShampooandCondition@reddit
Watch the film 24 Hour Party People. They recreated it almost like for like.
I was way too young to go but edit a podcast about DJs and a lot of them talk of the Hacienda as being amazing early doors then shit towards the end.
WiggyDiggyPooPoo@reddit
Great film, I love that the first club they ran was actually filmed in Gillys Rockworld and not a flat roofed pub in Withenshaw.
FarneticoToro@reddit
Second best club in Manchester, after United.
Ok-Camel-8279@reddit
Remids of the sadly fake Paul Scholes quote:
"It's a big game but it's not that big. Don't know what all the fuss is about. United will always be the number one club in Manchester. The Hacienda is probably still second and it's been shut 20 years".
WaitWaWhat@reddit
Went in the early nineties. The dingiest night club inside, and because I had built it up in my mind I was a bit underwhelmed. But it was without a doubt the best music I had ever heard.
I loved it.
takesthebiscuit@reddit
My flatmate mate at Uni claimed he was a ‘Dj’ at hacienda back in the 90’s
He called himself PK as he was the pussy king, so we called him KP or Peanut 🥜 😂
Amazing-Heron-105@reddit
Calling yourself "PK" 😂
I feel like that's a nickname that has to be given
KinnyWater@reddit
Did you ever go to Cream in Liverpool? Exactly the same sort of thing.
Boring-Print9058@reddit
No, I'd stopped going to clubs for an extended period by the time Cream got going I think. I'd overdone it and needed to calm down.
Went to Quadrant Park in Liverpool a couple of times though. That place was as wild as the Hac and stayed open all night (you didn't have to try and find somewhere else to go at 2 am).
made_from_toffee@reddit
Never went to the Haç but I’d be very surprised if anything matched up to the Quad in its heyday 👌
KinnyWater@reddit
Quadrant Park was my neck of the woods but before my time. Wish I was around to experience all that.
VINCENTREYES@reddit
That contrast between the physical space and the music is exactly what makes it so fascinating from the outside. Every account I've read says the same thing — dingy, cold, half empty. But the sound was something else entirely. Almost like the atmosphere added to it rather than took away from it.
Boring-Print9058@reddit
Don't think I'd describe it as "dingy". I associate that word with cramped, dark spaces. The Hac was the opposite of that. It used to be yacht showroom and I don't think you could display yachts in a dingy environment. Grey paint with geometric bright colours on girders, traffic bollards around the dance floor and really high ceilings with glass in the roof. In summer, it was still light inside until the sun went down. It was like some futuristic designer warehouse and unlike any other club in the UK at the time.
I think that's why it struggled to start with, nobody had ever seen anything remotely like it before. But once acid house kicked off, it was the absolutely perfect space for that scene. Like they'd planned it.
20127010603170562316@reddit
👀
neverendum@reddit
I don't know what year I was there, we just to go up in a minivan from Birmingham so it must have had some notoriety by that point. I remember a lot of yellow and a lot of black chevrons on everything.
DaveBeBad@reddit
Have a read of the Peter hook book about running the hacienda. It’s was an enormous money pit that nearly bankrupted New order - and it had serious issues with organised crime.
False_Acanthaceae734@reddit
The audiobook, which is read by Peter Hook himself is brilliant. He has a knack for story telling. Also see his books on Joy Division and New Order.
Latter-Corner8977@reddit
It was the 90s. Not that dissimilar to a number of places around the country but definitely had an “aura”. People said dingy but it was the par really, if you were out somewhere with good music and a good time. People were different back then and it’s hard to explain. More real, I guess.
Social media and photo documenting life is shite.
hongkonghonky@reddit
\^\^\^\^
I never went to Hacienda but did frequent several London clubs in the early 90s.
People danced, people connected (partly because of the drugs) and people just let themselves become immersed in the moment and no one cared what anyone else thought of them.
I am really glad that it was pre-mobile phones.
PMc1666@reddit
We came down from Newcastle to go there in the early 90s. It was awful. Just full of wannabe gangsters. The atmosphere was so intimidating, we didn’t stay there long. It was meant to be brilliant during the advent of the rave culture. But once those people started frequenting the place it went downhill fast. Just like some of the smaller rave clubs in the Toon did.
One-Relative-6856@reddit
Yep I think the Manchester drug wars were happening at the time,people pulling pistols out etc.not a nice clubbing experience
spudgun20@reddit
You mention Tony Wilson, always found it a bit unusual that aside from managing the Hacienda he could also be found hosting our version of MTVs Remote Control
Professional-Test239@reddit
I came *this* close to going to the Hacienda at the tail end of it all and never did. But I'll happily lie if anyone asks me.
This was in 1996. The Hacienda had a reputation for being dangerous because gangsters owned the door and there were metal detectors checking for guns on the way in. I was a wet behind the ears young student from the sticks and was too intimidated by all this.
I was a big fan of The Verve. This was before Bittersweet Symphony so they weren't yet a big deal. They announced they were playing the Hacienda and I decided this was my chance so I steeled myself and went to Piccadilly Box Office and bought a ticket. (This was in the days where you had to queue up and buy a physical ticket). The Verve broke up and the gig was cancelled. About a year later the Hacienda shut. And then The Verve reformed and had big hits.
I've been in one of the flats that were built on the site if that counts. Seemed a bit cheap and flimsy.
DiscoChikkin@reddit
I went in the mid-90s, its fair to say its best days were behind it. Cold, empty, sketchy. We didn't stay long as there was basically nobody there and felt like a bit of a tool dancing on our own.
JimmyBallocks@reddit
I drove from Slough to Manchester with my mate hoping to find the Hacienda despite having no idea where it was and never having been to Manchester before.
Somehow by some miracle we found it. However by the time we got there the queue was round the block. We gave up and went to a pub called Tommy Ducks.
The pub was shit. It had about 100 pairs of women’s underwear attached to the ceiling. Overall it wasn’t quite the experience I’d hoped for.
Professional-Test239@reddit
Tommy Ducks was almost as famous as the Hacienda. My dad used to go on about it. It was knocked down in controversial circumstances overnight. But the name lives on as there is a 'tribute' Tommy Ducks pub with kecks on the ceiling in Blackpool.
JimmyBallocks@reddit
Maybe describing it as “shit” was a little harsh.
It’s just that I’d been looking forward to a mass of pilled-up ravers and rubbing shoulders with Barney from New Order, but instead I was surrounded by a mass of pissed-up drinkers and rubbing shoulders with Terry from Moss Side.
Beautiful_Minute_800@reddit
Student in the 90s. My last visit was the day prior to the bouncers getting shot. Saw a guy getting his head smashed into the sink in the gents toilets. It’s fair to say that at the very end it was not a nice atmosphere!
Cosmic-Hippos@reddit
An overrated Manchester drug den for crap music.
Mechanic-Grouchy@reddit
Freezing cold yacht showroom with crap PA
michaelisnotginger@reddit
According to my father-in-law, overrated and Tony Wilson was up his own arse.
Ok-Camel-8279@reddit
For me it was the visuals before the sound, so the interior. All clubs before and at the time were either tiny dark basements waiting to be national news cause of a crush or a fire, then over glitzy hell holes called "Romeo's" or "Options" filled with Sharons and Traceys and lads in chinos, white shirts and silk ties. And it would always kick off. I always felt if a club had a dress code it would be violent.
The Hacienda didn't but what blew my mind was the space itself. No faux Corinthian pillars, no carpeted walls with mirrored mosaics of the New York Skyline....
Instead there was mostly just this hull of an alien transporter ship modelled on a future Halford's warehouse. I've been in clubs where you could touch the ceiling, you could barely see it here because in the main space there wasn't one.
Ben Kelly just got it right. It was like he took Saville's graphic design rules and made them in to a pop-up book.
And as John Robb once pointed out it pollinated the city and loads of little Hacienda's grew in the shape of bars and apartments. Nothing in Britain looked like it. But everywhere looks like it now. The idea that 20th century industrial design can make beautiful buildings and homes is part of or landscape.
I'm sure the drugs were great (never bothered) and the music, and eventually the sound system but my favourite time to go was early doors in the summer. The place would be empty, the skylights flooding the space and I'd grab a pint and just look at it all. If you could ignore the lick of paint it always needed and the filth of the main roof it was just beautiful.
And what's curious for me as I consider Factory's legacy and influence is it comes down to 2 main touchstones. Unknown Pleasures and a money pit on the corner of Whitworth Street that had some stripey girders.
And of course the mad genius of Wilson and Gretton to let it all happen.
I once stood there pondering what on earth this often half empty cathedral to a new modernism was actually for. And then the penny dropped - it was for us. If you'd bought Blue Monday this was your reward.
thombutler@reddit
I never went, it was closed by the time I was going clubbing, but I recommend listening to Transmissions: The Definitive Story of Joy Division and New Order podcast, as it does the story of the Hacienda in great detail, with lots of people involved with it. Well worth a listen.
https://open.spotify.com/show/0OCx9i6I5LluvTtqF6i6h1?si=YGYfDLw-QxeoRkhWJMJbcQ
Any-Session7982@reddit
I went about 10 years too late when it was apartments 😭
hawthorn2424@reddit
I went to Dave Haslam’s indie/crossover nights; ‘Temperance’. Getting in was stressful as the bouncers were augmented by an incredibly smart woman (Yasmin?) who we believed was a psychologist and spotted fake IDs and lies. It was Madchester and we had some great times, but we were very aware that much greater times were had there at the weekend on nights and tablets we couldn’t afford. We could barely afford the overpriced cans of Red Stripe but the half-assed veggie burgers and chips were cheap enogh - there was a cafe area, bizarrely. Mostly it was just cool to be in the Hac, as Factory records fans, in a holy building that was fascinating, but which definitely worked against atmosphere - indie nights were better in The Venue, Isadoras and The Ritz.
Three years later and now into house music we tried to return but always got turned away for nonsense reasons: the bouncers were notoriously petty. I’m glad, now I know who the door staff were then, and who was inside. I’d say it was a magical physical shrine to the music we loved; a good gig venue; but only an incredible experience for the E crowd, and then only for three years it seems.
Groovy66@reddit
I went mid to late 80s. It was a great club but not terribly big compared to London clubs or the Ritz further down the street.
Manchester felt a lot smaller in those days in that you’d see the same faces week after week and would find your people more easily, I think. I found it a mix of local individualists, post punk artists, freakier students, and visitors like me (I came up about once a month from 86-87 onwards till I moved to Manchester)
I preferred the indie nights with stuff like the Smiths, New Order, and early hip-hop being played and later when the Stone Roses & Happy Mondays were a thing.
As economically depressed and semi-derelict as Manchester was in those days it was incredibly vibrant culturally. It seemed everyone was in a band, doing something in the arts, or living alternative lifestyles and the Factory ethos kinda acted as a catalyst for that.
BillyJoeDubuluw@reddit
I was a nineties child as in I was at school through the nineties, so far too early for me…
My Dad regularly frequented the Hacienda though, and he says it was great in the earlier half of it’s “reign” and felt really avant garde, it was full of local characters who were living together and creating art and various movements and expressions together etc. but this began to plateau…
It ended up going a bit naff when it became more of a tourist destination and when it more blatantly became a playground for rival tough nuts to see and to be seen…
It went from being one of the most interesting places to have a night out to being a venue to avoid like the plague in a relatively short time…
pgnlzbth@reddit
Husband went at the peak - mid 80’s until early 90’s. He says every other night club you went in was dingy but not the haç at that time. It was PACKED. He went twice a week, most weeks - travelled from Stoke. In his words “It was glorious and other worldly, even by today’s standards”.
He still gets dewy eyed when he recounts those days. My teenagers are so envious that he got to live that. He’s 60 now.
Mobile-Stomach719@reddit
I once fell asleep in the hacienda,, stood up inside one of the girders, pissed after a Depeche Mode gig at the G-Mex across the road, 1993 I think, good times 🤣
ChelseaMourning@reddit
My dad was very involved in Factory Records and played on a few releases, so my family close to this scene. I think it’s important to remember that Manchester was a post industrial shithole at the time, with high unemployment and a generation of young people with not a lot going for them. Right up until the IRA bomb it really wasn’t a place you wanted to spend a great deal of time, unless you were off your tits.
Boring-Print9058@reddit
I'm a bit too young to have been when it first opened but it was supposedly cold, not very well attended, had a pretty poor PA and was a space that wasn't conducive to sounding good. Mike Pickering [responsible for booking the gigs at that point] was a bit ahead of the curve. So he'd book acts who hadn't really broken nationally at the time and hardly anyone would turn up. A few months later the same acts would be playing in the city to packed houses because they'd blown up across the country by then. I'd love to have been there for the William S. Burroughs night.
I saw New Order there in the mid 80's a couple of times and they were great gigs. Well attended and I think they'd upgraded the PA and had tried to address the acoustics by that point as I didn't notice it sounding particularly poor from where I was stood.
Mike Pickering and Martin Prendergast [DJ's] started Nude night in 84/85 [think I first went to a night that wasn't a gig in 85]. That's when things really started to change. You didn't have to dress smart to get in and they played music that was different to almost any other nightclub at that time. I believe you could get in for free if you were unemployed and they frequently had drink promotions that meant it was often an inexpensive night out compared to other clubs.
I only attended infrequently in 87/88 [moved around a bit, had other things going on] and when I went at the end of 1988 I couldn't really understand what was happening. A fairly large % of the people in the club were dancing like it was going out of fashion and all night [which wasn't something we saw in clubs up to that point] and they all seemed strangely happy in a way I'd not seen before. I'd missed the secret ingredient that was causing this absolute sea-change.
By the spring of 89 I'd cottoned on and it's all just one big blur for the next couple of years. To fully appreciate just how different it was, you really have to understand just what going to mainstream clubs before this was like. Everyone drunk alcohol to excess, everyone was a bit wary of each other at best and openly hostile if they were from somewhere else [or supported a different football team]. Violence was very common [both inside the pubs/clubs and around town/city centres on a weekend], dancing was something you only did to try and get closer to the opposite sex and was a bit of an embarrassment, the music was often from the charts and pretty cheesy. We went from that, to strangers hugging each other, zero alcohol consumption, no violence, dancing like your very life depended on it with no self consciousness and the music sounding like it had been beamed in from another galaxy and that you never wanted to end. This only continued for around a year to eighteen months at the most, once the gangsters realised that there was big money to be made and controlling the drug supply in the club would be a very profitable business it all started to fall apart relatively quickly.
waynownow@reddit
I was slightly too young for the peak but used to go in the 90s. Music was great, they were either playing indie/manc stuff or house with great DJs. There was a separate area with bands on who were good. There were frequently groups of dodgy looking people around the tables (as in the well dressed gangster with champagne sense, rather than a townie going to steal your trainers sense), who we used to steer well the fuck clear of.
The toilets used to flood and were rank.
It was frequently not at all full, even when there were big name DJs in, which is probably why it shut (that and scary fuckers).
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