24 Hour Party People Page #5

-It's nice, though, innit?

-Fantastic, mate.

May 21, 1982.

The night the Hacienda opened.

Everyone wanted to play.

Bowie, Queen, The Stones.

i chose A Certain Ratio,

because they were my band.

And that was the point of the Hacienda.

it was a place for people we knew,

people we could trust.

I can't beIieve this.

They have totaIIy betrayed us here.

What a f***ing joke.

I don't know, Rob.

You know, it might work.

Has there been a Wythenshawe Jazz Band?

There hasn't, thank f***ing God.

Let me teII you, right,

jazz is the Iast refuge of the untaIented.

Jazz musicians enjoy themseIves

far more than anyone Iistening to them.

It's Iike theatre.

It's what you do when you can't get a gig.

It's one down from Celebrity Squares.

ExceIIent, weII done. Very good.

Where is everyone?

We had 100 on the guest Iist.

You were at the Sex PistoIs' gig.

How many peopIe were there?

-It was about 40.

-Right, and it was history.

But there's onIy 30 here tonight.

ExactIy.

The smaIIer the attendance,

the bigger the history.

There were 12 peopIe at the Last Supper.

HaIf a dozen at Kitty Hawk.

Archimedes was on his own in the bath.

Pick on someone your own size. Or maybe not.

We're here at Chester Zoo...

...to see a bath-time version

of David and GoIiath.

It's a bit of a mammoth task for...

...a young chap Iike yourseIf.

-This isn't your normaI job, is it?

-No, I'm an entertainer.

Right, okay.

And I saw there's a IittIe baby over....

Watch yourseIf there.

There's a baby eIephant....

HeIIo, how do you do?

There's peopIe Iike that I work with at Granada.

Except that he's a IittIe bit more attractive.

This morning, I was doing a feature...

...on an eIephant being washed by a midget.

It was a dwarf.

-That doesn't matter.

-It matters to him.

Look, I'm a serious journaIist. I've got a degree.

Get me a proper gig, or Iet's forget we ever met.

Tony, Iisten.

''Shy shy, hush hush, eye to eye.''

What do you reckon?

Very good. I'II make you a big star.

Sign you up tomorrow.

-Catch you Iater.

-Right. Don't caII me.

You know your probIem?

You take yourseIf too seriousIy.

I do. I take myseIf very f***ing seriousIy.

What about a feature

on the Northwest's taIIest man?

F*** off.

No band ever survives

the death of their lead singer.

So, when Joy Division became New Order...

...no one expected them to succeed.

As you've no visuaI imagination,

I've done you a mock-up.

-It's Iike a fIoppy disk.

-FIoppy disk.

It's f***ing briIIiant.

-It's pure, it's workmanIike, it's poetic.

-It's expensive.

Four-coIor printing. Cut out and gatefoId.

It's f***ing beautifuI.

I never count the cost of beauty,

you shouId know that.

Can I taIk to you about these sIeeves?

Sure.

Have you costed it? Because I have.

We Iose five pence on every singIe one

of these records that we seII.

We're gonna seII f***-aII, so it doesn't matter.

BIue Monday became

the biggest selling 12-inch single ever...

...which made loads of money for New Order.

Not that they saw any of it.

Because every penny they earned...

...was swallowed up

by the debts of the Hacienda.

Thank you.

Bravo.

Vini....

What do you want?

I'II have a coke, pIease. Thank you.

A coke and a gin and tonic, pIease.

-How was that?

-It was great.

It was wonderfuI.

Great, it was just...

...I Iove it.

Tuesday night.

We need to have a rethink of our strategy.

You know, whatever we achieve,

the important thing to remember is that...

...you make wonderfuI music.

Great.

Can you spare 20 pence, mate,

pIease, for a cuppa tea?

-There you go, keep that.

-Ta, mate.

I'm Boethius,

author of The Consolation of Philosophy.

It's my beIief that history is a wheeI.

'''Inconstancy is my very essence,'

says the wheeI.

'''Rise up on my spokes if you Iike...

'''...but don't compIain

when you're cast back down into the depths.

'''Good times pass away, but then so do the bad.

'''MutabiIity is our tragedy,

but it's aIso our hope.

'''The worst of times, Iike the best...

'''...are aIways passing away.'''

I know.

There were severaI sightings, Iast night,

of an unidentified fIying object...

...over the LittIe HaIton district of Manchester.

ApparentIy the aIiens fIew Iow over the district...

...and then disappeared,

which is kind of understandabIe.

If you're Iistening, spacemen,

next time you might wanna try MarpIe instead.

Just don't Iand on my house. Good night.

F***ing heII!

Every great band

needs its own special chemistry...

...and Bez was a great chemist.

Can I offer anybody, Iike,

the best drug experience they've ever had?

His favorite chemical was ecstasy.

Stop! Shut the f*** up!

i first saw them at the Battle of the Bands

at the Hacienda.

They came last, but i signed them anyway.

-I'm getting in the front.

-You're not.

Get the gear in the back first.

It's dance music, and it's rock music.

It's got a kind of....

It's got that indie guitar sound...

...and it's got the kind of whacka-whacka,

wah-wah thing.

It's souIfuI and it's rocky.

It's got the rawness of rock

and this sort of souIfuI feeI to it.

Give him an exampIe of some of your Iyrics.

Go on, anything.

''Good, good, good.

Good, good, doubIe good.''

That is f***ing horribIe.

Shaun's Iyrics, on a good day, are on par with...

...W.B. Yeats on an average day.

I've got some sweet-and-sour over there

you can have.

-ShaII we do a song, then?

-Let's do it, man. Come on, Horse.

-Right now?

-Now?

We've got to go. Come on, Bez coming in?

-Stay here. What's the point?

-Why not? He adds to the f***ing vibe.

He's not in the f***ing band, is he?

''You don't want that face,

because the bones stick out''

I think it's top.

-Sort of out of tune, isn't it?

-Something's not right.

''My freaky dancing is cooIing your thing''

Can you stop?

What are you stopping for?

Somebody's out of tune.

Can you check your tuning?

Who's out of tune?

-F***ing not me.

-Barney's out of tune.

-Mark, can you give me an E?

-Yeah. Bez is your man, mate.

He'II sort you out.

He wants an E.

That'II tune you in, Barney.

That'II take you right in, mate.

On the stage, Bez. Come on.

What are you f***ing doing?

-To me, that is dance music.

-No one's dancing.

Come on, man.

-What the f*** are you doing, man?

-PIay your banjo, man.

This is Bez.

Four thousand years ago,

the Egyptians buiIt the very first canaI.

The first canaI in Britain

was buiIt by the Romans.

The Fossdyke in LincoIn.

This is the RochdaIe CanaI, buiIt in 1804...

...when Manchester

was the worId's greatest industriaI city.

Their negIect mirrors the decIine...

...of post-war IndustriaI Britain.

Suddenly, everything came together.

The music, the dancing,

the drugs, the venue, the city.

i was proved right.

Manchester was like Renaissance Florence.

Mike Pickering was right.

You don't need bands in a club.

Shaun Ryder was right.

New Order were right. We all came together.

Everyone came to the Hacienda.

it was our cathedral.

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