The making of '24 Hour Party People'

Twenty five years ago in a warehouse in Ancoats.

Twenty-five years ago this week, film maker Michael Winterbottom took camera crews into a specially built replica of the Haçienda to film the club scenes for 24 Hour Party People. Friday 2nd March 2001. I’d answered a call from his team several weeks earlier asking me to help advise and to sort the music for the night and to invite seven hundred extras. This is most of the whole story…

In America, especially, the Haçienda was known, if at all, for being the club owned by New Order; in the mid-1980s they were a stadium band in America and their earnings from touring there, and making records like ‘Blue Monday’ helped to subsidise the Haç during its lean years. But, as a result of the growth and globalisation of dance music from the late 1980s and through the 90s, it’s the club’s flagship role in the Madchester scene, and its contribution to the rave revolution which have contributed most to its prestige. I’m talking about media perception – as we all know, there were many other important and pioneering clubs in this city in the 1980s and 90s.

The Haçienda closed in 1997 but in 2001, and with talk of a film, the profile of the Haçienda was higher than when it was open. Director Michael Winterbottom wanted to make a film about punk and acid house - two great pop revolutions since the 1960s -
by telling the story of Factory Records, and the Haçienda through the eyes and experiences of the visionary Factory big cheese Anthony H Wilson. Played in the film by Steve Coogan.

I DJ-ed at the Haçienda from 1986 to 1991, from 1996 to 1997 and at other times, too. I played there over four hundred and fifty times. I was sacked twice (1989 and 1992) reinstated twice (1991 and 1996), I resigned once (1990). Oh those chaotic, happy times!

And I was DJ-ing there on the last night before it suddenly closed - Saturday 28th June 1997. Councillors and magistrates and police had witnessed a violent incident outside the club, and for all of them it was the final straw. On the Monday the club was ordered to close with immediate effect. There were a few attempts to reset relations with the authorities that day - offering a complete restructuring of the management and the door team - but it was all to no avail. As a result of the violence, the police intransigence, the club’s debts, or even perhaps the ownership’s loss of heart for the battle, it was over.

2001 was less than four years after the closure. In recent decades we’ve had a slew of documentaries, books, explaining, with different degrees of accuracy of what happened there - or a myth-filled version of what went on there - and the development of the Haçienda as one of the most powerful retro brands in the country.

Understanding how club culture has developed, its roots, the history all that’s good. But living in the past isn’t so appealing to me. Tony Wilson was very interested in history but always looking for what was coming next; “Nostalgia is a disease” he said.

When students and others contact me to arrange an interview about the Haçienda and Madchester years, I’m of course proud they’re bothered, and I’m always happy to discuss and celebrate what happened in the Haçienda days, so I usually agree to talk to them – life is hard enough for students without them getting knock-backs from interviewees in the run up to a dissertation deadline. I point out that it wasn’t a retro brand in its heyday, it was pioneering and unpredictable; and encourage them to celebrate the achievements of the DJs and musicians who were first turned on to dance music there, including the Chemical Brothers, and Laurent Garnier.

But I also point out that the Haçienda had a fifteen year history which shouldn’t just be boiled-down to the rave years – there are other wonderful episodes in the club’s story, some of which I’ve written about elsewhere (see link at the end of this post).

Finally, I stress how important it is for every generation to find its own spaces, inspirations, styles, and attitudes and to make its own culture, just as we did. I’m lucky enough to be in contact with lots of young promoters and DJs in Manchester and although they’re very intrigued by the Haçienda story, fortunately they’re not in thrall to it, and unbothered about trying to recreate it (as the world changes, our responses to the world should change too). They’re creating more, and modern, versions of Manchester nightlife.

The real Hacienda, November 2000

Back in 2001, when the team making 24 Hour Party People wanted to film several scenes at the Haçienda, their biggest problem was that the club didn’t exist, the building had gone. The original site had been sold to property developers and demolition of the club had begun in 2000 (it was completed in 2002). After the demolition, bits of the club were auctioned off, bricks, the dancefloor, mirrors from the toilets, taps from the sinks. Interest was huge; camera crews from Channel Four and CNN were at the sale and the website attracted hits and bids from round the world. A film was made about some of the pieces of the club and who bid for them called Do You Own the Dancefloor? which is worth seeking out.

Michael Winterbottom looked through archives at original footage and realised how poorly the acid house years were documented; at the time, almost no-one thought to film the Haçienda, the queues, the DJs. We knew we were on to a good thing, but jostling for a place in the history books just didn’t come into it. Especially for the DJs, the only interest was finding the best records to play the next weekend; which is how it should be.

Stuck with a lack of footage, Michael Winterbottom decided to restage a Haçienda night. As the club had just been demolished, this required building a film set that looked just like the original Haçienda. When I talked to the film company in their temporary offices in Manchester, the scale of their ambition and commitment became clear: for one night only, the Haçienda would be recreated brick by brick, pillar by pillar, in an old iron works on Pollard St in Ancoats. They were prepared to spend £150,000 on the set and clearly wanted to get all the details right.

Sitting around a table listening to old tapes, Mark Tilsley, the set designer, sketched prospective layouts of the club for me. He wanted to be clear exactly where the cloakroom was, where the podiums had been, and when various changes were made to the club, including the re-siting of the DJ box from an obscure bunker under the stage to the middle of the balcony overlooking and dominating the dancefloor. After the filming finished, I was given a copy of Mark’s detailed, scaled, architectural plan for the film set.

Mark was also looking at old photographs in order to work out what colour the lights were. Michael Winterbottom sat and watched, smiling; I think he knew this attention to detail would help persuade me to get involved, to help create one last party. They wanted me to market the night to attract the clubbers, and coordinate the security, the music policy, the ticketing. Mike Pickering - Factory A&R man, and the most important DJ at the club - agreed to play at the event.

The clubbers who would be invited to the night were, in effect, unpaid extras. For the purposes of the film, and the authenticity, the average age of the audience needed to be early twenties, so we had to resist throwing it open only to all the old regulars; nobody wanted the camera to pan across the crowd and see a bunch of grizzled old ravers.

This younger generation of clubbers, with their faster bpms and different fashions, would have to be given some guidance on how to dress in baggy rave gear, but at the same time we told people we didn’t just want a roomful of clichés. Rebecca Boulton in the New Order office laughed; “But that’s what it was like sometimes, wasn’t it?”

It was an important event, with a lot riding on it. The footage had to be good; how many re-created dance clubs in films are convincing? And watching clubs on films or TV is no substitute to a club experience that engulfs you. More importantly, we also wanted to be sure we would enhance the reputation of the Haçienda, not ruin it.

A flyer inviting people to apply for tickets for the event was commissioned for distribution outside clubs like the Music Box and Sankeys. Pete Tong mentioned the event on the radio, and Cream posted the news on their website.

Some of the letters I received in my PO Box, begging for tickets, were from people who never went to the Haçienda but wanted a chance to live the dream; we wanted those people to walk in and understand how good it was.

Two teenage girls from Moston wrote to say that they wanted to be at the film shoot to see what all the fuss was about: ‘Our mums are sisters and the Haçienda is all they ever talk about.’

Soon I was inundated with applications for tickets, some with covering letters, or collages, poems, photographs, photocopies, artwork. A guy wrote explaining that he needed to win over a girl in the office and he reckoned a date at the event would do the trick (he got two tickets), a couple sent a photograph of themselves lounging in their Haçienda-themed living room (two tickets).

We sent tickets to anyone who’d taken this kind of trouble, whatever age they were; we realised we needed to invite some of the original ravers who knew the tunes, who cared the most. A lad from Cheadle begged us to let him enjoy “one more night of carnage” (yes).

Word spread via websites and e-mails - digital technology hadn’t just changed music-making but was beginning to also transform the way we communicate. I left a message on someone’s voice mail and they replied with a text message: I HAVE 2 B THERE!!

Darren Partington from 808 State asked for six tickets. Bobby Langley, who paid £1,100 at the auction for the original DJ box, offered us the use of it, but Michael Winterbottom’s team wanted to rebuild the club from scratch, and, in truth, the box looked very rickety.

About three weeks into the work I took a look around, astounded. The team had done a remarkable job. The architecture was spot on, the colour scheme a perfect match, although the floor was cleaner than it had ever been in the old days. After I’d walked across the unblemished dancefloor and up to the balcony, I couldn’t resist a quick look out from the DJ box at that unforgettable view over the dancefloor. Just a few months previously I’d seen the club while it was being demolished, yet here it was again, as new. It felt familiar, and it felt just like the club, too: ghosts, memories and all.

View from the DJ box, on the film set.

There was one definitive version of the building, but so many differing personal versions of the history of what went on there. Tony Wilson phoned me to say he wanted to get involved with the organisation. He thought the recreation should reflect some of the violence that dogged the club in the 1990s. He expected to see trouble on the door and drug dealers in the club: “There’ll be riots outside, and fighting, and we’ll film that as well.”

We mailed out the tickets, and had to let maybe 2,000 people down. I got another message from the film office: Darren Partington wants seven more tickets. I took the phone off the hook; I needed time to sort out my records and decide what to wear. Arthur Baker had checked into the Malmaison: I’M HERE. CU THERE. AB.

Back at the set, Mike Pickering and I attempted to soundcheck but our records were skating, jumping, drowned by feedback. A van was despatched to B&Q to collect four concrete slabs to calm the decks down. Then at 6pm the fire officers arrived and imposed a new set of conditions - more building work had to be done and bigger emergency signs displayed; there was talk of delay or even cancellation. By 9pm there was a massive queue outside, but only a few people were being allowed in. Once they’d seen the set, many of them laughed with joy. The likeness was amazing. The queue outside continued to grow. Miranda sent me a text message: ITS FREEZIN LET UZ IN!

The doors finally opened properly at 9.30pm. Somebody came up to me and asked where the toilets were; “Over there, where they’ve always been”, I said. I was talking like I was in the real Haçienda. Despite what several histories of the filming of the Haçienda claim, the Salford gangsters kept away; there was no trouble on the door or on the film set. And, while I’m thinking about it, it’s also not the case that Bernard played a short DJ set, even though Wikipedia seems to think he did.

At the filming in the replica Haçienda.

I had imagined that somehow we’d be playing the part of DJs, and the crowd would be pretending to rave, but within five seconds of the doors opening no-one was faking it. I played Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam’s ‘Let the Beat Hit ‘Em’. There were people on the dancefloor and I could feel it already; everyone had come with the right attitude, no-one was going to stand about and mock. There was a pact between us in the DJ box and the people of the dancefloor. DJ-ing is a communal effort, relying on an audience addicted to nights of sweaty madness, loud music, getting lost in smoke, standing too near the bass speaker, cheering a good tune, dancing all night, following a crowd to a party at a strange house in a different part of town, a few days later still feeling that glow.

At that point I knew the night was going to work. We’d already breached that magical moment when a DJ starts to lock into the crowd; together, they’re up and away, powered by the music. The night unfolded, a great party, a celebration of what had been achieved, but also of our survival and the survival of that original, pure clubbing spirit. Nobody was acting.

Mike Pickering played ‘I Need a Rhythm’. Graeme Park played ‘Dreams of Santa Anna’ and borrowed ‘Can You Party’ from my box. I hadn’t heard half the records for years and they sounded so good. I played ‘Voodoo Ray’ and ‘Rhythm is a Mystery’. Jon Dasilva played ‘It’s Alright’.

Outside there was no trouble at the front gate. The fire officers had requested that the warehouse loading bay doors stay open, so a freezing wind blew through the building, but on the dancefloor it was warm.

In the end, Tony Wilson had decided to play a more constructive role, printed up some special tickets and gathered together some old faces, but he’d left at eight o’clock, like a parent leaving the kids alone in the house to party. Steve Coogan was on the dancefloor. That was one of the things that made the evening seem like the strangest, best kind of dream: this mix of real people and their acting equivalents scattered around the club. Bernard Sumner from New Order, as well as the actor playing him (John Simm), and Peter Hook and the fake Peter Hook (Ralf Little), the real Bez, the fake Bez, the fake Shaun Ryder and the real Rowetta. In the DJ box Mike Pickering met the actor who was playing him in the film: Darren Tighe.

We only had one request for a record: ‘Pacific State’. All the other requests were based on: “Can we do some lines in here?” Pills were being passed round the dancefloor, and someone close to a podium was doing coke off a credit card. Under the balcony, four lines were chopped out on a table and two guys were on their knees hoovering them up.

The original idea was that we’d have to stop the music occasionally for certain scenes to be played out, and for Steve to do a few pieces to camera, but mostly Michael Winterbottom encouraged us to keep the music going. He was loving it.

In the DJ box we were working well, almost unconsciously, on instinct. We knew what we were doing, we knew the Haçienda well; it felt like our natural audience out there, our community. There was something about the context, the building, Manchester, a cold Friday night.

The cameras kept rolling. The success of the event was tantalising. You’re always looking for the perfect night and you get glimpses of that utopia sporadically. Those best moments, big moments; you look everywhere every day of your life to feel that electricity. The Haçienda film shoot was a one-off, but when something tastes so good you want more.

I was confident we’d delivered some great footage for the film, and we’d also not let our memories down. The combination of the accuracy of the film set replica and the vibes from the extras was spot on. Evidence of this – there’s a crowd shot from the film which has since been used mistakenly many times by various media companies thinking it was actually taken at the actual club.

It was such a buzz being involved. For weeks afterwards I wasn’t sure what to do; real life, other gigs, seemed drab in comparison. In the hours immediately after the event my mobile was clogged up with more mad messages and smiley faces. Then a sentence from Mike Pickering: A STRANGE & WONDERFUL JOURNEY IN TIME.

In my autobiography I write a little about my conflicts with Tony Wilson during and after the filming and release of 24 Hour Party People. And a lot more about when it was released (February 2002), and the promo activity that I was a part of, including a memorable trip to Reykjavik.

On the film set in the Ancoats warehouse Mike had turned to me twenty minutes before the end and asked me if I’d play the last few records. Twenty minutes later ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ was fading out, and down on the dancefloor eight hundred people were clapping and cheering. My hands trembling, I banged on an encore record: ‘Last Rhythm’ by Last Rhythm.

The next day a hundred or so of us returned to shoot the Coogan stuff that hadn’t happened the night before and some more scenes on the film set, and then, within three days, the replica Haçienda had been taken apart, and the Pollard St warehouse was left empty, silent. The film was released nearly a year later, 13th February 2002.

Further reading :

Teenage Perverts at the Hacienda