“I got a part-time job working behind the bar at The Haçienda,” explains Boulton. “When I finished my degree, I worked as a cleaner there, just to add a bit of extra cash, and then on reception. That’s how I met Rob Gretton – and then he needed an assistant. At one point I was going to move home because I just didn’t know what to do, but he offered me a job and so I came back up to Manchester and started working for him.” Largely bankrolled by New Order, The Haçienda left an indelible mark in UK music history long before limping out of business in 1997 (Spiritualized were the last band to play the venue). But Boulton admits its everyday reality has come to be viewed through rose-tinted glasses.
“It was empty half the time,” she laughs. “The legendary [era] was around 1988. When people think about the Haçienda, that’s the time they think about. I remember it from 1982 onwards and of course there were some big nights, but there were some very, very quiet nights too!”
Still, why let the truth get in the way of a good story? And though the building was finally demolished in 2002 (in a depressingly familiar sign of the times, it is now home to flats), its legacy lives on – not least through Boulton and Robinson. “What did I do at The Haçienda? I did a lot of partying at The Haçienda!” chuckles Robinson. “In 1988/89, it was my home. Before that I was working on stage crews for a promoter called Alan Wise in Manchester. I got to know some of the New Order people – Terry Mason, who was on their crew, and [bassist] Peter Hook – and they asked me to come and be part of the stage crew at The Haçienda.”
Robinson would go on to become New Order’s keyboard tech and tour manager. But shortly after regrouping following a five-year hiatus, tragedy struck the band when Gretton died suddenly of a heart attack in 1999, aged just 46. “It was such a shock when he died, because he was so young,” remembers Robinson. “It was such a sad time for Rob to pass away because the band had been through all that crap in the ’90s, with The Haçienda closing, and were coming back together again. We had an offer to play a festival and were gearing up for that, but Rob didn’t get to see it.”
“There’s a myth and a legend around [Gretton] that he was this abrupt, working class, laddish bloke. But he wasn’t at all,” reflects Boulton. “He was one of the least sexist people I’ve ever encountered, which people might be a bit surprised by, and he was very gentlemanly – he was very generous and passionate about music.
“He had a few ups and downs himself personally, so that impacted on his health – he had good times and bad times – but he was a lovely, kind man. We lived in the same part of Manchester so we’d be in the pub on a Friday night and it wouldn’t be about work, it’d just be because he was a mate, so that’s the person I remember.”
With Gretton’s death leaving a void that no one person could hope to fill, Boulton and Robinson offered their services to the band as co-managers.
“When Rob died, none of us really knew quite what to do,” recalls Boulton. “But Andy and I just said, ‘We know what we’re doing, in theory. Let’s see if they want us to carry on doing it’. “I don’t know what the discussions were between [the band members], but the end result was that they said yes.” “We’d worked for Rob for a long time and we had both moved into managerial roles, so we were covering most aspects of the business [already],” adds Robinson. “We just thought, ‘Let’s put ourselves forward for the role’. Amazingly, the band accepted.” “There was a new [record] deal about to be put in place and they were about to start work on a new album, so it felt like a new chapter anyway,” says Boulton. “It did seem like the music industry was changing at that point in time – and it was different from Rob’s world. So even though they were big boots to fill I just thought, ‘I can’t be like that, I’m going to have to be something different’.
“Being different meant trying to be good at some of the things that maybe Rob hadn’t been brilliant at. That’s not a criticism of Rob, because he was brilliant at loads of things, but inevitably in life everyone’s got their pluses and minuses, so we switched to a more businesslike approach.”
“When people think about The Haçienda, they think about 1988. But there were some very quiet nights too!”
REBECCA BOULTON PRIME MANAGEMENT
The pair, who also represent the interests of Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Debbie Curtis in the managing of Joy Division, quickly found their respective qualities worked hand in hand. “We’ve got very different strengths, so we cover the whole spectrum,” suggests Robinson. “We’re both really good at what the other one isn’t good at,” nods Boulton. “It was a natural divide. Andy’s quite technical: he can programme a keyboard, he’s very computer literate and he knows about equipment. He’s toured and worked in the studio a lot, and has great knowledge of the catalogue. That’s not my forte, but I’m very organised, so I was good at making sure everybody knew where they had to be and what they had to do – that the accountants and lawyers spoke to one another and all of that side of things. “We also started to bring in new people. For example, Rob never really worked with agents outside America, which you could do at that time, but we thought, ‘We’re going to find somebody’. So we started working with Ian Huffam at X-ray Touring – mainly because he was an old friend, but it’s turned out he is one of the biggest agents going – and that’s been a really good relationship.”
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True faith: Boulton & Robinson have repped New Order since 1999
ew Order released their first new album in eight years with 2001’s Get Ready (120,695 sales, OCC) and followed it up with Waiting For The Sirens’ Call (74,676 sales) in 2005, both of which cracked the UK Top 10. The decade also saw Boulton and Robinson become involved with two Manchester-related movies: the Tony Wilson biopic 24 Hour Party People (2002) and Control, Anton Corbijn’s 2007 biographical film about late Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. For Robinson, the productions evoked contrasting emotions. “I’m happy to watch 24 Hour Party People, but Control is not a movie I necessarily want to keep watching because it’s darker and
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