PHOTOGRAPHS AND REVIEW BY ANDY STURMEY
New Order announced earlier this year that they would be playing new gigs, their first since 2006 and now without founding band member and bassist Peter Hook (Hooky). The split has been well documented by Hooky online and furthermore when he discovered that his former band mates Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert were doing some fundraising gigs in Brussels and Paris without him.
The show was much-anticipated and the band entered the London Troxy stage to the haunting instrumental track ‘Elegia’. This newly invigorated version of New Order saw the band enjoying themselves again and even early on during, ‘Krafty’ Bernard was already doing his full-on wolf-whistling, dad dancing, whooping the mosh-pit up into a bouncing, singing mass!
Before the show it was never clear if Tom Chapman, Hooky’s replacement and Bad Lieutenant bassist, would be able to replicate those famous bass lines, but by the time ‘Confusion’ was playing later on in the set, it was as if Tom was Hooky onstage with them there.
Gillian stood next to Sumner as subdued but cool as ever, breaking into asmile only occasionally, sharing her keyboard with Sumner during ‘Blue Monday’, him taking the higher instrumental string parts while she played the bass notes.
Bernard himself demonstrated his multi-talented musicianship, playing melodica during the ‘Love Vigilantes’ intro, guitar on ‘Regret’ and countless other tracks as well as the aforementioned synths.
A bespectacled and smart looking Steven Morris sat proudly at the rear of stage hidden behind his kit and drum machines, performing with metronomic pace and rhythm, most evident during a brilliantly executed ‘Age Of Consent’.
Musical highlights included newly extended versions of ‘True Faith’, ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ and ‘5-8-6’, all set to a video backdrop showing clips from their videos alongside abstract computer generated visuals and a stunning light display.
‘1963’ was another gem, the track, originally a B-side from the ‘True Faith’ single, and later released on its own as a remixed single in 1994, had Sumner introducing it to the crowd as a ‘sensitive’ track which he sung with conviction.
During the encore Alan Wise – larger than life character and friend of the band – appeared to make a speech, jokingly referring to the band as Bad Lieutenant and also mentioning Hooky.
It was perhaps refreshing to see only one Joy Division track, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, being performed, a worthy acknowledgement of the band’s past but after all, the fans had come to see them play New Order tracks.