Industrial Fantasy: Haçienda Opening By Michael Eastwood

Industrial Fantasy: Haçienda Opening
By Michael Eastwood

The first thing that struck me was how bright it was. Then the grey painted concrete floor. Every club I had ever been in thus far was of the dingy sticky carpet variety - indeed pre- Haçienda 'Factory nights' had almost exclusively been staged in every dank shithole in Manchester (most notably the subterranean Rafters and the submerged Russell Club in Hulme). This place was the absolute antithesis - airy, colossal, shiny and bright. With polished floors. All it needed was a few massive, rolling TV cameras and you would've thought you were in the BBC's New Broadcasting House down the road. To then see the massive video screens and bright orange Ikon video cameras around the place made the tele-vision complete.

The exposed lighting and hung PA system, the impressive marble cloakroom, the arches (pre-plastic curtain), the balcony, tiles, tables, chairs. I got the impression they had rushed to get the place open - in certain places the walls were exposed plywood. Other places had the same plywood sprayed with what looked like metallic car spray paint. This turned out to be intentional. It was immediately obvious that these people were both mad and genius. I could get to like this place.

Most impressive of all, though - they served Stella Artois. It had just become available in the UK and had been eagerly anticipated and, at a whopping £1.20 per pint, would quickly break the bank unless an alternative strategy was found. Luckily one happened along soon enough.

They had these fancy tills y'see. The fancy tills printed out receipts that not only showed the amounts and totals, but a small description of the item purchased. Like the video cameras, screens and the plastic embossed credit card membership, itemised receipts impress nobody nowadays. Back in 1984, though, this was cutting edge till technology. So, here was the procedure: queue at one of the tills, order your drinks, pay for them, receive your change and an itemised receipt, move to a different place along the bar, attract the attention of one of the hovering bar staff, hand over your itemised receipt, have your drinks prepared and served. This was guaranteed to take twice as long getting a drink and confuse the punters no end, but was fancy.

Except. It would appear that nobody had bothered telling the cocktail bar staff, who instead employed the less impressive, but ultimately more functional system employed by every other bar in the world: order your drinks, receive your drinks, hand over some money, receive your change... and an itemised receipt.

Generally speaking, there usually followed one other action: throw itemised receipt away on the floor or in an ashtray. So an astute few worked out that discarded receipts retrieved from the cocktail bar could be traded in at the main bar for free drinks! A fancy bar system with free drinks!!

Within a relatively short period of time Dr Watson and I had taken up a position on the corner of the dance floor and were surrounded with a myriad of different glasses of alcohol. It seemed like everyone was buying Gin and Tonic that evening, judging by the number we had, though we did get a few halves of Stella thrown in for good measure (there was a rumour of one Urmston lad coming up trumps with a fourteen quid bottle of champagne). We had a blind-test competition, a G&T race, we gave drinks away and I seem to remember at one point taking some of the horrible drinks back to the bar! I actually recorded the main band's set on my recording walkman - the resultant recording consists solely of a loud, drunken conversation between two idiots pissed on free alcohol, shouting at each other.

Perhaps the free alcohol abuse was more widespread than I thought, for when the club had filled up a bit and the first activity appeared to be commencing on stage there was a distinct ugly feeling in the air from a quite boisterous, impatient crowd. They weren't up for Tony-Wilson-as- compere for starters - heckling over his relatively quiet attempts to address the assembled membership - but the mass was about to reach criticality when finally the first live Haçienda act was (un)enthusiastically welcomed on stage.

It has always been a complete mystery to me as to whose bright idea it was to open the Haçienda with Bernard Manning and, more importantly, why? Was it a Rob joke? A Wilson 'anti-art' statement? A favour? It was possibly the worst decision ever (which, in the Factory/New Order collective mentality, was probably the exact reason for doing it). No, it was the worst decision ever. The man was renowned for being the most racist, bigoted and sexist 'comedian' in the UK. Bernard Manning performing a medley of songs by The Smiths on television was funny. Bernard Manning as the opening act of the Haçienda would never, ever, be even remotely funny. He didn't last very long.

He'd only managed to splutter a few muddled swear words of greeting before the first heckle rang out, closely followed by another, and another. Immediately going on the defensive meant, in the comedian's parlance, attack. His first attempt at 'put down' brought a few more shouts and cheers - the cheers being aimed at the punters who had caused him to enter put-down mode so quickly. Multiple heckles were returned. Bernard expleted back. The heckles turned to shouts. The more he retorted, the louder they shouted and the more punters joined in. His final remarks - likening the heckler's mouth to the female menstrual cycle (for those of you who find this particular concept difficult to reconstruct, it went something like "the last time I saw a mouth like that...") - brought a roar and a shower of liquid and glass onto the stage. He was already retreating to the stage door and with a final "F*ck Off!" to the screaming, baying crowd, he was gone.

So. Strictly speaking, and contrary - yet again - to popular Haçienda myth, Bernard Manning was not the 'opening act' as he didn't really get to perform and wasn't actually paid (apparently he was offered his fee but refused it).

Photo credit: Michael Eastwood