I was DJ at the famous Hacienda in Manchester for almost a decade- I once kicked Take That out of my booth

From 1982 to 1997, the club welcomed millions of people for legendary nights of electro and dance music. People came from far and wide to experience the cult Manchester venue, and many thought it was lost forever when it closed.

However, thanks to a unique celebration, the spirit of the club is being kept alive. Graeme Park was a resident DJ at the Hacienda for almost a decade, and he is a major part of Hacienda Classical, which will return to Castlefield Bowl this summer.

Following the announcement the even will return for a record ninth time, Graeme spoke to us about looking back on the Hacienda, and why the club hasn’t gone forever.

“It felt unreal. I’d been a DJ for four years before joining the Hacienda and had some great nights. I then got asked to cover the Friday night at Hacienda and I’d never experienced anything like it. The euphoric, electric atmosphere from that dance floor was unbelievable. Since Hacienda closed I’ve had some good nights around the world, some come close, but nothing beats it.

“When the Hacienda closed, we sort of went ‘oh well, we had a good run, but that’s it’ but the interest never left. I’ve been a DJ since 1984 and when it closed I got poached the next day by Cream to go and DJ there. Most of us juts carried on so it wasn’t something we dwelled on.

“However the public would go on about it. Years later people were still talking about it, and we realised that the Hacienda does have a legacy worth shooting about. We started doing the odd Hacienda club night, and things got bigger. We’ve done the Warehouse project, 8,000 people there and 80% of the crowd hadn’t been born when the Hacienda closed.

‘It’s the greatest nightclub Britain has ever produced. It’s so influential but it's talked about all over the world. Everywhere I go it’s talked about, and I was DJ there from 1988. People come up to me to talk about it. The heritage is strong and it doesn;t matter if the venue is gone. People ask me ‘do you miss it’ and i said, ‘no because it still exists, not in bricks and mortar but as a thing people invest in.”

The Hacienda welcomed plenty of famous faces during its time as a hotspot in Manchester. Graeme reflected on some of these, and how he had close encounters with several.

“All the usual suspects were there, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, The Gallagher Brothers. Mick Hucknall was there, although he tried to punch me once because he didn’t realise it was me behind the camera. I remember Ryan Giggs popping into the DJ booth one night dressed in a V neck and slacks.

“Take That, before they were famous, were introduced to me in the DJ booth. They got in the way a bit so I kicked them out, but they were really enthusiastic young men. Lots of people, actors, soap stars. But nobody cared because everyone was there for one thing- the music.”

The Castlefield Bowl is a unique venue for its location and layout, but it's one Graeme loves to perform in.

“I was down there this week to do some filming for a promo and it's an amazing space. It looks a lot bigger than when it does when it's full. It has an intimate feel, but the fact it's down by the canal and the trains going past on the viaduct is great. The atmosphere is electric and we’ll be there for the ninth time- no other act has done that and it's very exciting.

“Around the whole of Castlefield you get the warm sense of history. It has an eerie feel to it. Imagine if you had a time machine and you could go back in a time machine and bring the people who built the viaduct and the canals and bring them to the 21st century to see what their work had become and show them what a testament the place has become. It would be incredible.

“The bowl works so well because it is literally around the corner from where the Hacienda was. Whether it's sunny or wet and grey, the atmosphere is incredible. It’s a lot like the electric atmosphere you'd get in the Hacienda.”

The spirit of the Hacienda lives on through events such as Hacienda Classic, but Graeme said that the team are careful not to replicate the sounds of the club exactly.

“If you’re in your 20s and into dance and electronic music, you’ll come across the Hacienda. It’s a great feeling to be involved with it still. The ethos of the Hacienda Classical is to not just stick to songs that were big when the Hacienda was round, we reimagine them. We do different versions of them.

“At a music conference in Birmingham the other day, loads of people in their 20s and 30s came up to me and were saying ‘I wish I was 30 years older so I could have gone to the Hacienda’ but I say to them firstly, you don’t wish you were 30 years older, and secondly, it was amazing but you need to be born at some time.

“You can’t replicate the sound of the Hacienda, there’s no point in trying. In the first year we faithfully reproduced the songs but after a few shows I was thinking ‘this is ridiculous, we shouldn’t be trying to replicate it.”