Tales from the Dancefloor by Sacha Lord

Author:Sacha Lord [Lord, Sacha and Bainbridge, Luke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2024-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Under the Paving Stones, the Beats

I’d already looked at most of the empty warehouses in the city centre on my first recce, so I started thinking more creatively – thinking outside the warehouse box. One of the things I googled for ideas was ‘air-raid shelters’ and I came across mention of one under Piccadilly station, on Store Street. We went down to have a look and it turns out it was the biggest air-raid shelter in Manchester city centre during the Second World War. If you go through the entrance on London Road there is still an old sign on the wall that says: ‘Warden’s office’.

Inside was an amazing cavernous space created by the huge Victorian brick arches. The only problem was it was currently in use as a car park, which was a slight issue. Undeterred, I set out to find the owner of the building, and by an unbelievable stroke of luck discovered it was Mr Hakim. Although Hakim had called me a ‘naughty boy’ at the start of the first Warehouse season at the brewery, by the end he was really happy with us, and didn’t want to lose us as tenants. We began to get quite excited about this new space. It wasn’t a warehouse, it was a car park, and the ‘Car Park Project’ doesn’t have the same ring about it, but I took Sam and Jon Drape to see it, and we all thought we could do something very special there.

I didn’t realise at first, but this place was also a link back to the first ever Manchester warehouse scene. Around the corner on Fairfield Street, there was another doorway, leading to a smaller space, which held a few hundred people, and that was where those seminal warehouse parties were held in the mid-1980s. The first three parties were held in 1985 by a guy called Steve Adge; this was before acid house had properly hit Manchester. The Adge is a legendary figure. There’s plenty of real characters around Manchester, and then there’s people like The Adge, who are next level. He’d been there, done that, and got the T-shirt, twenty years before everyone else.

Back in 1985, The Adge had somehow managed to get hold of this warehouse space, and Ian Brown from The Stone Roses remembers The Adge ringing him up and saying, ‘I’ve got this place behind Piccadilly train station and I’m thinking of throwing a party. I’m gonna call it The Flower Show and I want a band to play. Are you up for it?’

The Stone Roses were still pretty unknown then, but they’d already put out some of the songs that would make up their 1989 debut album, and there’s a clip on YouTube of them playing ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ from that first warehouse party in 1985. The Adge went on to tour-manage the Roses and he was there throughout their most pivotal moments. It was The Adge who took them to throw paint over their old record company

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.