Forty years after it opened, the legendary nightclub is credited with changing music and Manchester.
After it shut, he declared that "nostalgia is a disease" and argued that erecting flats in the city centre was more important than preserving the original building.When a 24-hour Hacienda-branded virtual party was held on New Year's Eve, it attracted four million viewers,
And on Friday, Manchester's hottest current rapper, 22-year-old Aitch, released a new single harking back to the Madchester heyday, on which he raps that he wants to "rave like it's '89".The original club was not an immediate success. Julie Bancroft worked on its reception on the opening night. "There was the indie-rock phase, where it was very poorly attended generally. It lost a lot of money and it seemed to be too big for the audience," he says.
In his forthcoming book Manchester Unspun, Spinoza argues that the club kick-started the regeneration of the city centre and paved the way for the skyscrapers that now tower over the site, and the new £186m arts venue The Factory - named after Wilson's label.