I've just got back from the FAC251 Launch gig!

This is how my night went:

My ticket said it started at 7pm, Facebook advised a 7.30pm start so I rushed to get there and got in the queue at about 7.10pm.

TV crews were all over the place, rushing around, getting panorama shots of a queue, filming signs. It looked like dull work.

A reporter from Key103 came down the line and asked us all our thoughts on the FAC251. I couldn't really think of anything meaningful so I just blubbered out a few incoherent sentences about how Manchester would have great expectations of a venue with a background like this ones. I went on to speculate as to whether this would be the Hacienda of the nouties...

At about 8pm the line was really getting quite long but we were finally ushered in, had our printed out digital eticket (with 2D barcodes) scanned and had our hands stamped. FINALLY, we were in.

The stage!

On the ground floor we have the live space. It's quite a nice live space in my opinion. It's fairly small, intimate, friendly.
The stage basically fills the opposite end of the room to the end you come in through. There is a stone/concrete floor, a bar at the opposite end of the room.

Hooky!

I managed to get right at the front at the barrier, but the amount of people with SLRs or commercial-grade video cameras was almost stunning for me.

At times, I couldn't work out whether it was a press conference or a gig I was at.

All I had was my Nokia N900, no 3G and only 1/2 my battery!
It kicked off and I immediately realised that as I was behind the main speakers, I wasn't getting the sound quality I might have expect had I been stood in the middle 3 metres back. However, with people squashing me from 3 directions, the last thing I was going to do was move to get better sound quality!

Guitar!

Throughout the evening, I was microblogging persistently and my followers and subscribers had taken quite an interest. Some people's response was along the lines of "Lucky Git" where as others remembered The FAC51 Hacienda. Some felt that FAC251 would just be full of chavs where as others were really happy to see something rise out of the ashes of the Hacienda...

The crowd were loving it!

For me I think there were two highlights from a musical perspective - two times when I thought the music was absolutely outstanding (not including The Blue Monday Song).

When Rowetta started to sing (confusingly a Joy Division cover! )I was mesmerised. Although she only did two songs, it was clear by the crowd reaction that I wasn't the only one enjoying listening to her.

Hooky mentioned, that, before Joy Division's Ian Curtis killed himself, the band had been working on a song that had been left unfinished.
Hooky went on to explain that him and some others had gone away and finished the song and then proceeded to debut it to the wider world.

I couldn't believe how good it was. It really was all there, fantastically delivered vocals, catchy guitar riffs, a driving tempo. Yes, I'd quite like to hear that song again whatever it was called...

Rosetta and Hooky

They finished off the set with the pace getting ever faster. Finally, as an encore, the played The Blue Monday song. As New Orders probably most iconic track, it turned the the group of SLR wielding yuppies crowding next to me back into headbanging teeny-boppers again. Memories, hey!?

I really enjoyed the gig, and the subsequent club night, however details of the club night will have to be another post, as I now desperately need to go to bed.

Creative Commons

All my photos and videos of the FAC251 Launch gig are available on flickr.

Please reuse and remix and remember to attribute Tim Dobson as the photographer. :)

Any links to tdobson.net are always appreciated! :D

All content was taken on my Nokia N900 mobile phone.

All content is be licenced under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.

More than ten years since the legendary Fac 51 Haçienda closed it's doors and almost three years after the death of Factory Records boss Tony Wilson, you would have been forgiven for thinking that Manchester's "Madchester" era had all but died out.

However, it would appear this is not the case!

Peter "Hooky" Hook from legendary Manchester bands New Order and Joy Division is launching a new club with help and support from the Gary Manny "Mani" Mounfield (Stone Roses/Primal Scream) and former members of the Happy Mondays.

FAC251 as it will be known, is based in the original Factory Records headquarters on Princess street.

There is a slight bit of irony involved. In October 2009, Hooky released a book entitled "How not to run a club" detailing his experiences running the Hacienda and swearing he'd never run a club again!

Anyway, I've managed to get tickets to the official launch event which is tonight, .

Apparently this is what I'm going to be looking forward to:

PETER HOOKS 'THE LIGHT' Live gig

A special one off performance featuring PETER HOOK joined by MANI (Roses), ROWETTA (Mondays), HOWARD MARKS performing RARE AND EXCLUSIVE Joy Division and New Order tracks plus a WORLD DEBUT from Hooky and Mani's new project FREEBASS..

Should be good! Stay tuned to me on identi.ca and twitter and watch my flickr page for live updates!