Discerning clubbers will know that some of the best nights out happen just before the weekend officially starts.
Before the typical crowds flock to the clubs and bars on a Friday and Saturday, Thursdays can be when the weekend really begins, when venues can be playful and cater to those with less conventional tastes.
One place that held a legendary Thursday night out in the 1980s was the appropriately named Legend nightclub. Located on Princess Street in Manchester city centre, it would later go on to become home to another iconic nightclub, Fifth Avenue.
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Prior to becoming Fifth Avenue, the subterranean space was the precursor to the Hacienda, featuring state-of-the-art sound and lighting rigs. The site was also the location that the Happy Mondays chose to film the video for their track Wrote For Luck in 1988.
Celebrated DJ Greg Wilson, who was the club's resident mid-week jazz-funk DJ from 1981 to 1983, said it was "undoubtedly the greatest club I have ever worked in". The venue later played host to the likes of Mike Pickering, A Guy Called Gerald and Paul Oakenfold in the nascent rave era.
A brochure for the club, which opened in 1980, boasts the venue's "circular sprung dance area raised above the general floor level peppered with 2000 Tivoli lights" and describes itself as a "new futuristic disco club."
As the decade wore on, a completely different crowd made Legend nightclub their home. And like all good churches, this place of worship to the early rave culture also had bats in its belfry.
Thursday nights at Legend became a mecca for Manchester's alternative crowd. Goths, glams, rockers and everything in between arrived for one of the city's most lauded alternative nights.
While we often associate this era in Manchester with ravers and the acid house music scene, it was also an era when other subcultures thrived. With venues like Legend, Pips, De Ville's, The Ritz, The Banshee and Berlin there was something to please the goth, rock, post-punk, and new romantic crowds every night of the week.
The venue's Thursday night crowd would descend the stairs to pay the £1 door fee which came with a free drink ticket. One of the most popular trade ins for the ticket was for an aptly named Red Witch, a potent concoction of Pernod, cider and blackcurrant.
Downstairs, the club's state-of-the art lights and lasers bounced through clouds of ice dry across the dancefloor, belched out by smoke machines. An impressive setting for alternative clubbers to dance to Bowie, Sisters Of Mercy, Human League, Depeche Mode and The Cramps.
The fashions, of course, matched the music. Many photos from the era show hair frozen into exotic forms created by endless cans of hairspray, leather jackets and tight trousers, dramatic eyeliner - for the boys and girls. Although not officially unisex, young men could just as easily be found perfecting their look in the female toilets which had better mirrors and lighting.
Much like The Banshee, it was a place where people were encouraged to dress as they pleased without the fear of being turned away at the door.
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Although the club was called Legend it was better known as Legends. Barry Stewart and his friend Stewart Grieve were Thursday night regulars there in the 1980s.
Both originally from Scotland, they had moved to Manchester and became known as the 'mad Scottish goths'. Barry told the M.E.N: "Legends had the best sound system I'd ever heard in a club.
"The velvet semi-circular seat next to the dancefloor was our regular perch. [We] had some great nights there; partied with a group of Hells Angels one time - nice bunch of lads."
Barry said he was at Legends at a point in his life when he "lived for clubbing", going out three times a week minimum. He remembers it as an era of "carefree drunken times and great friendships."
His fellow Scottish goth, Stewart, said: "Legends was a regular Thursday night for me and my flat mate. Barry Stewart and I had grown up together and when I moved down to Manchester when I was 18 - I told him how good the clubs were and it wasn't long before he followed me down.
"Being both from Glasgow we became fairly notorious as 'those two mad Scots goths' and we revelled in our time down there, making many friends and loads of the best memories."
Recounting one of his most vivid memories of the time, he said: "The dance floor was always wet with spilt beverages, and [while] wearing smooth sole pointy Cuban heel boots [...] I fell and put my hand down to stop the fall, only to realise minutes later that I had cut my hand on a main blood vessel.
"[My hand] was spewing blood everywhere on people's faces, clothes - the floor and I was covered in it, very goth, but a bit messy. I had to call an ambulance and go and get stiches, just another night out in Legends. They really were brilliant times."
The M.E.N. asked members of the Facebook group Legends In The 80s to tell us their favourite memories of those Thursday nights.
Helena Sohawon Skeels, said: "Loved Legends on a Thursday night in the late '80s. Half price drinks before 10pm, so had to be two pints of Red Witch. Only problem was trying to make it to work the following day as a legal secretary in a well known high street law firm. Often went in after going out straight from work in my day clothes and not being recognised.
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Julia Howell, posted: "[I] went every Thursday night between 1984 to 1989, loved it. Everyone dressed up - fantastic music." Julia, pictured in the middle of the main image of this story, said she "had to stand up all night in those leather thigh boots, as they didn't bend."
Jayne Wilma Dawson, said she "loved Legends on Thursdays!" Adding: "They could never seem to get the right balance with the smoke machine though, numerous times it was that thick you couldn't see a thing."
Mike Dixon, another Thursday regular happy to consume six pints of Red Witch during happy hour, remembered: "The styles of people in this club was amazing. The make up on the girls, and guys, was superb."
Paul Green, said: "My main memories of the place was the toilets were unisex and nobody cared, the incredible lights including lasers." Adding: "Most of us that went on a Thursday would probably get murdered on a Saturday there".
While Nikolai Castro said that pre Hacienda days, Legends "was probably the best club in Manchester."
As well as those who had come to dance, Legends was also a special place for the DJs who played on the Thursday nights. Ralph Mayles who used to play on Thursday nights alongside fellow DJ Paul Rae, said about the club itself: "What Legend had, as I'm sure you know, was a brilliant sound system.
"A quarter of a mile of neon lighting [and] the strongest laser in the country at the time (a four watt argon water cooled laser ) and zillions of extra lights. Paul and I took turns to operate, swapping roles as DJ and light jockey every 45 minutes or so, so we could really keep the energy high in the room."
Does Legend nightclub awaken any memories for you? Let us know in the comments section below.
Another former DJ, Alan Maskell, remembered the eclectic playlist as much as anything. He said: "You'd get Sisters of Mercy etc, but you would also hear early Hi-NRG tunes like Bobby 'O', She Has A Way or Divine, Native Love. Reggae was also on the playlist, along with the likes of Violent Femmes, Psychedelic Furs and quite a bit of retro stuff."
While the Hacienda put Manchester's club scene on the map during the 1980s, there's no doubt Legend (or Legends) deserves its place as one of the city's most iconic venues.
Do you have a favourite nightclub, bar or pub you would like to read a story on? Maybe you have photos of you and your friends enjoying the venue in its heyday. If so, and you'd like to see your favourite haunt of the past in the M.E.N., email lee.grimsditch@reachplc.com
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