Three years ago, I got tickets for Peter Hook’s planned celebration of his old mate Ian Curtis life, performing the two Joy Division albums, Unknown Pleasure and Closer in full with his band, The Light. I think I’m right in saying the original show was to have taken place on the 40th anniversary of Ian’s death, 18 May 2020. Of course, Coronvirus had other plans for all of us.
On Sunday night, me, Jo, my cousin Josh and my mate Ads were finally able to hand over tickets which had been sat in drawers since April 2019 and walk into the Brixton Academy for an advertised 8pm start.
I have to give Hooky some major props here – one of the themes of his excellent book about his time in New Order, Substance, was how he got fed up with going on late just because. So, more or less 8 on the dot, Hooky walked the walk and took the stage for a warm up set of New Order before the Joy Division business could begin.
The warm up set started slowly with Lonesome Tonight and Leave Me Alone – and then the rampaging sequencers of Everything’s Gone Green took the roof of my head off. In no time, I was hollering “It seems like I’ve been here before!” at Ads and a slightly nonplussed Josh. A cleverly arranged Regret, which saw Hooky ceding vocal duties for the chorus followed and then, a heavyweight one-two, the “Ooooh – Yeahhhhhh” of Crystal (one of my top five New Order tunes), followed by the “Oooooh oooooooh, oooooh oooooh” of Temptation (surely one of everyone’s top three New Order tunes).
Having brought the Academy to fever pitch – I had already lost both my voice and my mind, Hooky & the Light promptly fucked off offstage for a few minutes.
They returned to a Kraftwerk tune – I believe it was Trans Europe Express, although that could be my alcohol soaked brain playing tricks on me and, after a few early Joy Division singles “NO LOVE LOST!”, launched into the moment by which Ads said he would judge the success of the gig, Disorder.
I mean, fair enough, in a lifetime of iconic Hooky basslines, is Disorder not the most iconic of all?
Spoiler alert, it passed with flying colours. Day of the Lords sounded exactly as heavy as you would have wanted it to, but it was the three songs in the middle of the album that really landed. For me, anyway. New Dawn Fades, with its buzzing guitars, the driving rhythms of She’s Lost Control, during which I really felt as though I was the one who had, er, lost control and then the magnificent Shadowplay.
“To the centre of the city in the night, waiting for you..”
I was completely lost in the music, a pathway created by this music out from the stage, through my brain & body, out the doors of the Brixton Academy, travelling north over the River Thames and up onto the M1 towards Manchester. I could have been on my own at that gig and it wouldn’t have mattered to me (no offence, gig comrades!). The passing of 40+ years has, in my opinion, diluted none of this music’s power; conversely, the man at the centre of it all has probably become a much more rounded performer in that time. Even if Ads was slightly put out that Hooky wasn’t singing AND playing his bass – as I said though, it doesn’t seem fair to expect one man to be both Hooky AND Ian Curtis.
What was not up for discussion were the arrangements chosen by the band, or the presentation of those arrangements. Eschewing projections, or fancy lighting, this was very much – as Ads said, a “garage band” presentation of Joy Division material. Or, perhaps better put, as Ads and I agreed, the band Joy Division had been and that, really, Hooky maybe wishes he was still in.
I have long held, I’ve said it here, that as much as I love Unknown Pleasures (and I do love Unknown Pleasures), it’s Closer which is the true Joy Division masterpiece. However, even I would concede that it fared less well here. Part of it is the songs themselves, which are much more internal than on Unknown Pleasures, part of it was that I think Hooky’s voice couldn’t always be heard above the music. But the clattering Atrocity Exhibition, Heart And Soul and the aching Decades all very much hit the spot.
Hooky being Hooky, he wasn’t going to leave us on the horror of Ian Curtis fatalistic, self prophesising, vision of the future, so we then got an encore of Atmosphere, Ceremony which was incredible and still not the highlight of the night because that was the next track, a face meltingly heavy version of
“DANCE, DANCE, DANCE TO THE RADIOOOOO!”
Transmission, before the eternal Love Will Tear Us Apart closed out the night. People talk about how some songs are immortal, I suppose I do it quite a lot, but I think Love Will Tear Us Apart is absolutely one of those songs everyone would agree on. There’s a reason both Hooky and his former bandmates in New Order who can’t seem to agree on anything can absolutely agree on this one thing and both finish their sets with it.
Three hours of absolute mayhem and totally worth the three year wait – and hangover.
Cheers, Hooky!