Manchester’s Co-op Live has successfully opened with a hometown concert by rock band Elbow.
The launch of the UK’s largest arena – a joint venture between Oak View Group (OVG) and City Football Group – was pushed back two weeks following a series of hitches, but last night’s belated opening gig passed by without incident.
“It’s been tough,” OVG chief Tim Leiweke told reporters ahead of the event, as per the Guardian. “I’m emotional because this is a big deal and we want to do right by Manchester.
”It’s never easy getting these things built with Brexit and Covid but at the end of the day we’ve built the greatest arena ever built – for Manchester. It’s been tough. I’ve apologised to those [fans] we disrupted… now the building is open and will be for another 30 years.”
”Everybody that’s been working on this building has been so excited today, so nervous but so excited,” Elbow frontman Guy Garvey told the crowd at last night’s (14 May) show. “There was already electricity in the air before you lot got in today and now it’s thoroughly amped up. I hope you can feel it.”
The 23,500-cap Co-op Live was originally set to launch with Peter Kay on 29 April, only for the comedian’s dates to be pushed back due to a delay in completion of the power supply at the site. Days earlier, a free test performance by Rick Astley was only permitted to go ahead at a significantly reduced capacity, while a 10,000-cap test event with the Black Keys was also postponed.
“We were going to take our time to make sure we did this right”
A performance by rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie was then axed for “technical reasons” 10 minutes before doors were due to open on 1 May after part of the air conditioning system at the arena became detached, prompting OVG to announce a “short pause” to events to “allow for an independent inspection of all elements of the arena ceiling”.
“If that was 15 minutes later, something catastrophic could have happened,” said Leiweke, speaking to the BBC. “We [have since] got that double checked and triple checked,” he continued. “We’ve looked at thousands of bolts up in that ceiling now. We’ve looked at the life safety lines. And we were going to take our time to make sure we did this right.”
The A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie performance and five nights with Take That were relocated to the rival AO Arena in Manchester due to the delays, while former boss of The O2, Rebecca Kane Burton, was brought in as interim boss of Co-op Live in late April following the resignation of general manager Gary Roden.
The Black Keys’ postponed show will take place at the venue tonight (15 May), followed by Eric Clapton (18 May), Barry Manilow (19 May), Peter Kay (23-24 May), Nicki Minaj (25 & 30 May) and the Eagles (31 May) set to follow this month.
Other upcoming acts will include Liam Gallagher, The Killers, Stevie Nicks and Pearl Jam.
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