PETER HOOK
Co-founder of Joy Division and New Order
Without Ian Curtis there would have been no Haçienda [the club was built with Joy Division/New Order/Factory's money], and without the Haçienda there would have been no Madchester. It changed the face of Manchester, whether you like it or not. The whole indie music merging with dance music, the fashion, everything, it all came from the Haçienda. When I was in New Order I never took any notice of anniversaries. You were totally focused on New Order, so never paid any notice to anything else. But since I split with them I've started taking more notice. I was talking to DJ Graeme Park and he said: "We've got to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Haç, because we're not going to be here for the 40th!" The people behind it, New Order manager Rob Gretton and Tony Wilson, aren't here, so I decided to celebrate it. I love everything we achieved. Tony Wilson, Rob Gretton, Ian Curtis, [producer] Martin Hannett, all these people should never be forgotten for what they did for Manchester. The rest of New Order should be proud too, because without their investment this never would have happened. We lost a fortune but my accountant always tells me: "You'll never miss the millions you lost until you're skint", so it's a good incentive to keep working.
The Haçienda's 30th birthday celebration is invitation-only and takes place on 21 May
SHAUN RYDER
Lead singer, Happy Mondays.
The summer of 1987 is when things really changed. People bang on about the Sex Pistols at the Free Trade Hall in 1976, how there were only 40 people there but it changed everything. But when we first had E, there couldn't have been more than a dozen of us in our corner of the Haçienda. No one had a clue. We had the end of '87 to ourselves, then it all exploded. By the time [the club night] Hot started in May '88, the roof had lifted off the Haçi. If there were 1,500 in there, 1,400 were off their tits. It was our video directors, the Bailey Brothers, who came up with the term "Madchester", but we said, "Great, yeah, go with it", because Manchester was mad at the time. But no one used the term in Manchester, unless they were a prick.
There was absolutely no rivalry between the Stone Roses and us from my side. I thought it was great that when we first did Top of the Pops in 1989, the Roses were on the same show; it felt like Manchester was taking over. People still talk about it to me, blokes in their 40s saying, "I was at college when you and the Roses first did Top of the Pops and it was fucking brilliant!"
Shaun Ryder's autobiography, Twisting My Melon, is out now
SARAH CHAMPION
An NME writer who covered the Madchester scene at the time and then later wrote And God Created Manchester.
I think "Madchester" was born the night the Stone Roses played a benefit gig with James at International 2 in May 1988. Something was in the water that month. Acid house had hit the Haçienda and my drink was spiked with my first ecstasy. We all ended up back at [bassist] Mani's flat until dawn.
I was NME's youngest writer since Julie Burchill, at 16, and my commissioning editor James Brown wanted me to move to London but I stayed in Manchester for a while because it just felt like the place to be. I remember interviewing the Roses in November 1988, and they asked me to meet them at Southern Cemetery, made famous by the Smiths song "Cemetry Gates". We did the interview sat on a park bench and they gave me an early tape of the album and wrote the titles on a paper bag. They were very cocksure in that typical Mancunian way – Ian Brown said to me: "I seriously think we're gonna be huge."
When I got home I played the tape and was blown away by it. Excitement in Manchester was building week by week. It's not just myth, somehow the drugs and music were combining and something big was happening. We really felt we were the centre of the universe. It all peaked with Spike Island [the Roses' outdoor gig in 1990]. After that, the mood changed in Manchester. The Roses and Mondays became huge and left town. The criminal element realised there was money to be made and moved in.
CRAIG GILL
Drummer, Inspiral Carpets
I was 14 when I joined Inspiral Carpets in 1985, and at first I had to take time off school when we had a gig. Early on, Happy Mondays saw us rehearsing at the Boardwalk and asked us to support them, and it just grew from there. We then supported the Stone Roses at the International at the end of 1987 and knew it would be packed because their manager Gareth Evans used to give out free tickets. No one believes that now, after they sold 225,000 tickets for Heaton Park in an hour, but he used to.
Noel Gallagher auditioned to be our singer and didn't get the gig, but we let him down gently by saying he could be our roadie instead. He broke his leg before a tour once, and we must be the only band in history that's had to carry their roadie in and out of gigs. Playing G-Mex, Top of the Pops and headlining Reading in 1990 were the highlights for us. We got paid £27,000 for Reading and spent £20,000 on fireworks. Noel was on stage as a pantomime cow, so that's the first time he played Reading!
After we split, I had a record stall in Affleck's Palace for a bit, and people always came in asking where the Haçienda or Salford Lads Club were, so I decided to start doing music tours of Manchester and there's been a massive demand. The weekend of the Heaton Park gigs I'm going to be doing daily Stone Roses bus tours around Manchester.
ANDY BARKER
Keyboardist, 808 State
The first 808 State records were made in a studio where we'd work all night after the Haçienda shut. Our music took off when Radio 1 DJ Gary Davies heard "Pacific State" in Ibiza and starting playing it on his show. We got a record deal, I quit my job as a roofer, and suddenly we were on Top of the Pops. My mam said, "What are you lot doing on Top of the Pops!?" There was an amazing creative energy in Manchester at the time; people just invented their own jobs – DJs, graphic designers, clothes labels. Everyone decided to have a go, and for once there was no one telling you that you couldn't. "I'm gonna open a car wash", "Nice one, go for it, mate." We also had our 808 Show on Tuesdays on Sunset Radio, and everyone would ring up for a 'shout going out'. It only soured for me when it became a business and we had to talk to idiots at record companies, Phil Collins fans who simply didn't understand our music.
TIM BURGESS
Lead singer, Charlatans
I was born in Salford and grew up in Northwich, Cheshire. I always loved my music and thought Manchester was the place where I fitted in, but I wanted to prove people from the suburbs weren't idiots, so I always made it clear the Charlatans were from Northwich, although that meant nothing to anyone outside the north-west. At the time it felt everyone you met walking down the street in Manchester was involved in music, you'd bump into Mani or [musician/writer] John Robb or 808 State (I still love their early release "Newbuild"). I remember playing the Boardwalk twice within a short space of time and then we didn't look back. Within a year of me joining the Charlatans we had a Number 1 album, but that just felt natural. I was only 23 and everyone was saying, "Bloody hell, it's happened really quick for you!" but I felt I had been waiting all my life for it.
Tim Burgess's autobiography, Telling Stories, is published on 26 April
GARY ASPDEN
Brand consultant
For me, there are two Madchesters. The first is the media cartoon version with students wearing Joe Bloggs and those long-sleeve Ts, listening to "baggy" bands and shopping in Affleck's Palace. I find this version simplistic and irritating. The real version was something far more switched on.The 10 years prior to acid house in Manchester had seen various fashions that had been huge among working-class northern youth but had never been picked up on by the mainstream media. And much of that style was reflected in what people were wearing in Manchester in 88/89.
Me and my mates had all worn flares we bought from the Underground Market around 82/83 and had moved on from them in 84, so when I saw the Roses come out in them in 88 I couldn't help but smile. Flared jeans were not only something that were worn by the 60s psychedelic bands we all loved, but had also been one of the ultimate fashion statements of 80s Mancunian youth… To see the Roses in them just made sense.
LEO STANLEY
Owner of clothes shop Identity, where a lot of the Madchester bands shopped
I first met the Stone Roses when they came into my shop in Affleck's Palace in the mid-80s. Two girls worked for me called Tina Street and Debbie Turner, and all the lads fancied them. In 1988, Ian Brown asked if we could get any Wrangler flares as they were really hard to get hold of. I decided to produce our own. As soon as Ian walked on stage wearing flares, everyone wanted them.
One night after the Haçienda I couldn't sleep, so I picked up the Bible and read: "On the sixth day, God created Man…" and wrote down in my Filofax: "On the sixth day, God created Manchester." That T-shirt went mental. We couldn't print them fast enough. Someone sent me a photograph from a French magazine of Jean-Paul Gaultier and Madonna at a party, both wearing "On the Sixth Day" T-shirts.
At the height of the madness we were on such a high we used to drop an E at work, and have people dancing on the speakers in the shop. We had 18 months at the peak, when it felt like what I imagine Woodstock was like. Like everything else it all comes to an end.
ALISON BELL
Music PR
In the mid-80s, my landlord had a home studio in the basement and the Stone Roses recorded a four-track demo there. I was away at the time, staying at John Peel's house, because I'd written to him and offered to help sort his records. People thought Peel didn't like the Roses, but the reason he didn't play them was because he received a copy of "Made of Stone" with £50 in it. John was quite cross, and sent it back.
The pivotal moment for the Roses was when they played the International club and people came up from London and couldn't believe a band was so huge when they didn't know anything about them. When everything exploded, a lot of people were based in 23 New Mount Street. Our music PR company Red Alert had an office there, so did James, Inspiral Carpets, Mark E Smith's Cog Sinister label, Sunset Radio and SJM concerts. The receptionist was Noel Gallagher's then girlfriend Louise Jones, about whom he wrote "Live Forever" and "Slide Away". Noel, Louise and I went to see his little brother Liam's band, Rain, at the Boardwalk one night. On the way home Noel said he was going to join Liam's band and give him the songs he'd written. A few weeks later he asked what I thought of the name Oasis. I said I liked it but it sounded like a dance act!
TERRY CHRISTIAN
Broadcaster
"Madchester" was more of a phrase than a phase for me. A phrase that flowed out of Factory records as a somewhat cynical attempt to market the Haçienda and Happy Mondays. When I saw the documentary Madchester: The Sound of the North, I paraphrased John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and wrote: "When the truth contradicts the legend, print the legend." So it was ironic that the late Tony Wilson picked up on this tag for 24 Hour Party People, because it was meant as a condemnation of the way I felt Factory were trying to sequester the "Madchester" scene for their own ends. The Haçienda wasn't the first club in Britain to embrace house music, not even the first club in Manchester, and Factory Records didn't sign a single significant artist in 1988 or 1989, just a classical roster, a busker and a pub folk rock band. Meanwhile, the Rock Da House nights run by DJ/producer Johnny Jay directly produced 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald, Chad Jackson, Ruthless Rap Assassins, MC Buzz B, Chapter and The Verse and MC Tunes.
In 1988 I had a nightly radio show on Key 103, and played Manchester's finest; not just the Mondays and the Roses, but Morrissey, James, the Waltones, the Chameleons, Temper Temper, MC Buzz B, Inspiral Carpets, Ruthless Rap Assasins, A Guy Called Gerald, New Order and the Fall. It was great when the Roses and Mondays played Top of the Pops but it shouldn't have been so surprising. Manchester bands were no strangers to success – Herman's Hermits outsold the Beatles in 1965. Manchester in 1988/89 was burgeoning and diverse and I thought the Madchester badge just meant it was too easy for the whole scene to be narrowed down to flares and one club (when there were dozens) and dismissed as a phase by the media with that patronising attitude they adopt when dealing with scallies from "oop north". I experienced this attitude when I landed a job presenting The Word (named after my column in the Manchester Evening News). Every time I tried to get a Manchester band, even Oasis, on the show they'd say, "Oh, Terry, that was just a phase."
Until people look more closely at what happened in Manchester from 1986 to 1990, we'll be left with the same banal Madchester perception of an indie/dance crossover and Haçienda. The music scene in Manchester has always been strong. Hopefully next time round we'll avoid giving it a silly badge.
TINA STREET
Friend of the Stone Roses
I first saw the Stone Roses in 1985, at a rave near Piccadilly station, and ended up being mates with them. They played Manchester University early on and their manager Gareth Evans paid me and my friend Debbie Turner £5 to get on stage and "mob" Ian Brown. We had to get really drunk to get up the courage and I remember Debbie clinging to Ian's legs at one point and he said, "Debbie, what are you doing?" It was a bit embarrassing. Then we worked in Identity, so were right at the heart of what became the Madchester scene.
I also shared a flat with Happy Mondays manager Nathan McGough and we always had people staying, like DJ Paul Oakenfold and [like-minded London outfit] Flowered Up. Everyone wanted to be a part of Manchester. Looking back, we took it all for granted and thought it would be like that for ever. The Haçienda was our second home and you could go in there on your own and know most people. There was a lot of hugging and barriers broken down, it really was the summer of love.