After the Hacienda had temporarily closed because of the worsening security situation in January 1991, there were various discussions about what the next step should be. Not that I had much to do with these discussions, of course, but every so often Paul Cons would call me and see what my thoughts were. I had left in October 1990 and had started my ‘Freedom’ night at the Boardwalk, so even though various voices were suggesting that if and when the Hacienda re-opened then I should be invited back, it was by no means straightforward.
The first thing was for the Hacienda’s security issues to be sorted out (there’s more on this in ‘Manchester, England’), and eventually management had persuaded themselves this was done. The second thing was the music policy etc. In the end it was decided to invite Mike Pickering to do Fridays, Graeme Park to do Saturdays, and me to do Thursdays. So we were kinda where we had been a year or so before.
Looking back on it, I’m not sure this was wise – to go back to the original line-up and maybe it would have been better to have had a complete re-think, although obviously I was flattered to be asked back even though I’d been openly critical of the club back in October on the last night of the Temperance Club.
Beautiful 2000 was supposed to move on a step from the Temperance Club and still keep the idea of quality eclectic music going (I remember playing a lot of Nirvana over the next few months), but on the other two nights (Mike’s and Graeme’s) the playlist was solely house so the club became even more identified with house and my attempts to stay eclectic floundered a bit. ‘Beautiful 2000’ lasted just over a year I think, into the second half of 1992, but by this time I’d started ‘Yellow’ at the Boardwalk as well as ‘Freedom’ so I had plenty to move on to.
This time the split with the Hacienda was more amicable; I think I just said to Paul Cons “this ain’t working” and he agreed. It wasn’t quite the end of my Hacienda years though; four years later I’d be back for ‘Freak’. Bit of a long-drawn-out tale innit?
