Hacienda Classical coming to Castlefield in Manchester

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00:00Where did the idea from Manchester City Classical come from?

00:05That's lost in the mists of time, I think.

00:09It probably involved conversations and alcohol and late nights.

00:14Fletch, who manages Hacienda, spoke to me about it.

00:18I was working at Sankey's at the time.

00:20They got a phone call from an orchestra and they're like,

00:22we want to come down and, you know,

00:24to work out how we could do something within a dance environment and in the club.

00:27Then, next thing I know, we sat in Acosta in Wilmslow

00:32with a guy called Tim Crooks, our conductor, to see if it could work.

00:36I got a call one day from a guy that I knew,

00:38saying that they were putting something together.

00:41Was I interested? And so I kind of went along.

00:44We had the meeting. I was just like, I just couldn't see it working at all, you know.

00:48What they wanted to do in Sankey's was have their live musicians perform along with the DJs.

00:53And it just, for loads of reasons, it didn't work.

00:56It didn't work acoustically.

00:57It didn't know where the speakers were positioned.

00:59Strings of Life came on at one of Graham's sets.

01:02And it was like, you know, it just fitted perfectly for an orchestra.

01:05You know, one thing led to another. We discussed it more.

01:07We took the idea to Hucky, who wasn't...

01:09Hucky thought we were bonkers at first.

01:11I was struggling with the concept, mating a live orchestra to dance tracks.

01:18And then once we mocked up the idea and put it together, my God, it made them bigger.

01:29Until I got a DJ mix from Graham and Mike the very first time,

01:33I think then I sort of started to understand what I got myself into.

01:39The next minute, Fletcher's email on us a couple of weeks later going,

01:42I booked the Bridgewater Hall in February.

01:44It ended up being two shows.

01:46Next thing we know, it's festivals.

01:49And it ended up being 14 shows.

01:51And then every year, shows got bigger and better and more fantastic.

01:56We actually got quite a lot of criticism in the first year that we did it.

02:04From various journalists saying, you know, this is a really weird format.

02:09It doesn't really work.

02:10And I thought, well, actually, it's not.

02:12Because people want to pay money to come and have a good time and dance to music.

02:15That's, you know, it's a good product. It's a great product.

02:18So Castlefield Ball does appear, if you go in there,

02:21to be this beautifully produced, well-run, slick, well-oiled machine.

02:26And it is, but there's always, like, stuff going on backstage.

02:29I mean, one year at Castlefield, it was...

02:32We had thunderstorms, which were like...

02:34I mean, the rain was just insane, you know what I mean?

02:36But I actually thought that brought the whole crowd together

02:39and made it a really special event.

02:40But it was quite close.

02:41We never had to cut it off,

02:42because the thunderstorm was, I think, three miles away.

02:44If it got within two or something like that,

02:46we would have to cut it off.

02:48Luckily, it didn't happen.

02:49Yeah, that was memorable on that.

02:51You know, a load of people dancing off the tits in the rain.

02:53It was brilliant.

02:54Playing Castlefield is like coming home.

02:57The energy at Castlefield is absolutely electric.

03:00It is a deep honour to be part of that show.

03:05And every year, the show seems to get better and better and better.

03:09Like, it's the ground, it's Manchester, isn't it?

03:11And they're in that space with 8,000 other people.

03:14It's difficult to put your finger on what it is.

03:16It's almost the fact that it's surrounded by fire ducts and buildings and stuff.

03:21It's just a very interesting space,

03:23and it sort of, it brings people together right in the middle of the city.

03:26That kind of spread of generations,

03:29a special, special kind of atmosphere,

03:33you can only get from a Manchester crowd.

03:36That's the grand.

03:37That's the grand.

03:38Thanks to the grand.

03:39You

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