Mike Pickering & more discuss Hacienda at Metropolis

Four legends of the Manchester scene are fresh off the stage, where they discussed the halcyon Hacienda days (and where it all went wrong) with our own Eamon Sweeney.
Interior designer Ben Kelly was on hand to discuss his initial vision for the Factory-run club, saying that he understood "what Peter Saville was doing two-dimensionally" and envisioned expanding that vision in the club space. "The opportunity was a massive blank canvas... I was allowed to get on with it."
He remembers it like a cathedral, that they turned into a "people's palace."
Not that the DJs on the panel were completely enamoured by set-up
Mike Pickering recalls the DJ booth being in a bunker below the dancefloor. You could tell a set was going well when "you could see their ankles move.
Dave Haslam also praised the hands-off approach of New Order, Tony Wilson and Factory in general, recalling that, over the course of 11 years and more than 500 gigs, he openly had "two conversations about music policy."
The first was just before he started, and the second occurred one night when Wilson approached his booth with records and asked "Dave, do we play reggae?" Haslam said no. "I thought not," replied Wilson, and he left.
Also up for discussion was how everything changed when Bez brought ecstasy into the club. Pickering recalls the drug, and euphoria, spreading "like a Mexican Wave" across the Hacienda in early '88.
Producer and DH Greg Wilson then spoke about the club's decline as gangster and drugs took over. "It went very bleak, very quickly." They all agreed it should have ended before '97.
By then, its legacy was already secure. The Chemical Brothers had taken what they'd seen and ran with it elsewhere, Cream had opened in Liverpool, and the fusion of indie and dance was mainstream.
In 2015, Pickering says the spirit of innovation lives on in Manchester's Warehouse Project. "We don't look back any more, we've got a new palace."
Pickering plays a Metropolis set tonight at 10pm.