The Haçienda Was Just a Club
By Jack Shamash
February 2023
Last week, I was flicking through the Guardian and came across an article—occupying a capacious half-page—about the Haçienda Club in Manchester… which closed in 1997.
Now, I happen to have been a member of the Haçienda. In fact, I joined before it had officially opened, in the early Eighties. So the article was of some interest. But even though I thought—think—it was a great club, I do get sick of the incessant media about it.
In addition to the endless coat-tailing, gossip articles, and several full-length books, there was the famous 2002 Steve Coogan film 24 Hour Party People, which gave a blow-by-blow(job) account of the rise and demise of the club. A decade back, the building itself was recreated at the Victoria & Albert Museum (cue Guardian article).
And just in case anyone thought that the subject of the Haçienda should be allowed to wither quietly, last year there was a one-hour BBC documentary—The Club that Shook Britain—featuring endless interviews with just about everyone involved, including three people I knew from my time as a student in Manchester.
“The Haçienda was just a club—not the site of divine revelation.”
We were told that the Haçienda single-handedly transformed Britain. It brought about a new way of thinking and new ways of living. It created ‘a revolution on the dance floor’. The documentary suggested that before the Haçienda, Britain—and particularly Manchester—was a horribly dull place, where young people had no outlets for their energies (Coogan himself seems to remember it that way). One of the commentators suggested it was like ‘a spaceship landing in this great city’, and we were told that it ushered in an age of tolerance, which thenceforth spread throughout the whole of Britain.
Gay, straight, black and white, people could all socialise together, in large measure, because of the Haçienda.
Let me try to put this into perspective.
It was a lovely club. The design – sort of industrial chic – was highly original. When the club opened, it brought in a range of interesting acts: Madonna filmed her first UK TV gig there. The music was good. It started off avant garde, and later ended up as a place where people took a lot of drugs and danced furiously to house music. But in fairness, the management was daring and innovative.
And the clientele was very friendly. I remember sitting in the lower bar having nice chats with nice people. It wasn’t particularly a pick-up joint.
But contrary to the documentary, Manchester had nice clubs before the Haçienda. The place was cosmopolitan. I can remember talking to Nico (as in ‘Velvet Underground and…’) in one of the city’s music venues. There were jazz clubs, gay clubs, indy clubs, as well as an assortment of old-fashioned dance halls. Manchester always had a lively music scene.
So why is everyone so keen to venerate the Haçienda? Well, obviously it makes a good story: the idea that a few young people dancing around a bar could really make the world a better place. And I think there’s a sense that not too much is happening right now, culture seems to be static, so it’s refreshing to look back to an imagined golden age.
But it is fanciful to think the Haçienda somehow turned Britain into a utopia of communal love and generosity, in which all divisions of class and prejudice had simply melted away. The place was just a club—not the site of divine revelation. We danced, we talked, we listened to music, we got off with people. And it closed 25 years ago.
At best, the Haçienda ought to be a chapter in a Madchester compendium. Enough of this relentless journalistic pilgrimage. The world moves on. We should move on with it.
