The Hacienda's Legacy Lives On: Clubbing in Manchester
Author: Isla Campbell
Category: Arts and Entertainment
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The northern city of Manchester has a long pedigree of top nightclubs, but the famed Hacienda was without doubt Manchester's most famous night spot; so renowned, in fact, that several books were written about it's influence, and even a film was made - '24 Hour Party people' - which featured the life and times of Anthony (Tony) Wilson, a legendary Manchester music supremo nicknamed 'Mr Manchester', who was responsible for the success of Manchester's music scene during the late eighties and early nineties.
Owned by Factory Records and the band New Order, the Hacienda consisted of a stage, dance area, bar, café, DJ balcony and cocktail bar, but had a stark, and industrial interior featuring steel girders and traffic bollards that was very different to other clubs of the time.
Despite being probably the most talked about and written about nightclub in UK history, and being extremely popular most nights that it opened, it actually lost money. Though it had a large following, (especially during its peak in the late eighties) most people were spending their money on ecstasy and other drugs, rather than on booze at the bar. As potential profits in drug sales grew, the drug dealers became more ruthless at gaining control of their market and violence inside the club began to change the atmosphere.
Fights, knives and guns on the dance floor began to generate disastrous publicity. Even the DJs weren't safe, as Hacienda regular and author of 'Young Hearts Run Free', DJ Dave Haslam once told of an incident where, at the end of one particular night he was attacked by a man wielding a gun, who demanded the DJ's records because he liked them so much, and not because Dave hated him.
After 15 years of DJs, dance-mad crowds, drug fuelled nights, financial difficulties, gun violence and some impressive live acts (including Madonna, The Smiths, Blur, Happy Mondays and Oasis), the Hacienda closed in 1997 after losing its life as an entertainment venue. It remained open for a short period of time as an art gallery, before finally going bankrupt and closing for good. In 2002, the Hacienda building was demolished to make way for new apartments, which adopted the iconic name of the club - under licence from New Order's Peter Hook who owns the Hacienda trademark.
Though not even the building remains, the legacy of the Hacienda lives on and the city is still a hotbed of dance music and clubbing. With plenty of great bars to warm up in and budget hotels in Manchester to fall asleep in, the nightlife continues to offer a great night out with many top night spots; Club Alter Ego, which has recently had a 250K makeover, offers 2 rooms of house and backroom beats and a state of the art lighting system; North, a purveyor of funky electro and hard dance, is a trance club with a capacity of 500 situated on the edge of the fashionable Northern Quarter of Manchester, and Mint lounge, which has been described as a slightly seedy, sometimes sexy, and always funky underground club, continues to pull in the punters.
With clubs like these carrying on where the Hacienda left off, it looks like Manchester is set to be a major UK club spot for a long time to come.
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Keywords: hacienda, clubbing, Manchester, night spot, dj, music, budget hotels, bars, pub, club, tony Wilson
View Count: 82
Date Submitted: 5/21/2008
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