Peter Hook and The Light are monumental and majestic in the perfect setting of the Town Hall, framed most appropriately by the massive organ as a backdrop.
The Great Hall appears to be at capacity. The stage is shrouded in mist and smoke and the lighting is dim, until the welcome is sent out by the unknown MC.
The show is in two parts and New Order songs are given the opening berth.
In A Lonely Place and immediately the cavernous drums reverberate with the deep cathedral-like tone that is unique to the historic hall.
Peter Hook plays six-string and four-string bass. His son Jack Bates also plays bass, with occasional drum back-up.
In the original incarnation of Joy Division, and similarly with the pre-dating Warsaw, Hook played in a distinctly melodic style. He would be one of the most innovative Rock bass players in history, akin to Paul McCartney (of Wings y’know, and maybe one other Boy Band).
The essential momentum of Joy Division and the dance energy of New Order are built on that.
The quintet is completed by David Potts guitar, Paul Kehoe drums and Martin Rebelski keyboards and synthesisers.
Lonely Place sounds like Celtic Folk. Emphasised by a melodica solo played by the guitarist.
But even more like Big Country is Temptation. A morse code keyboard coda precedes a huge stadium song with simple hypnotic riffs like a mantra. Bass emphasises the drone.
Cries and Whispers reaches back to the early Sixties and the motorcycle electric guitar drone music of Davie Allan and the Arrows.
Ceremony is a favourite from the original New Order, and it appears to be a major influence on Shoe Gaze.
Everything’s Gone Green has a similar opening to Blondie’s Heart of Glass. Great Eighties synthesiser Dance Pop.
Blue Monday and the band just keep elevating and reaching for the Gods. They do that at the end but in a totally different approach. There is Duane Eddy twanging guitar (in bold as he passed away a few weeks ago) and orchestral keyboard textures, along with electronic artillery.
The show feels like we are inside the Metropolis movie, with those massive banks of pipes behind the stage. Steam does issue from various places.
Thieves Like Us and the bass growls and throbs. Matched with dreamy keyboards and we are in Human League territory. Shellshock is just as good.
Perfect synthesiser Dance Pop with wonderful rolling rhythmic attack. Bizarre Love Triangle is the closest to a blue-eyed Soul vocal.
There are comments that Hook’s voice is too low in the mix. I think the sound desk has his tenor weaving seamlessly into the songs. He gets to shout at the appropriate times.
A break before the Warsaw/ Joy Division second half.
Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner both attended the now legendary Sex Pistols gig at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall on 4th June 1976. Members of the future Smiths were also there.
They connected to the deep and buried messages that were at the heart of the Pistols. First, address your own useless fucking generation!
Hope I die before I get old was not what they were trying to communicate. Look inside yourself first to change the world.
No future for you was not directed at the Queen, or the fascist regime. That was maybe their biggest wild gift to Rock’n’roll.
It took a little while for the group to reach the critical mass of detonation. On the way they conscripted Ian Curtis and Stephen Morris.
Hook is solemn as he pays tribute to Curtis before they start again.
Half the second set are Warsaw songs (the name inspired by Bowie’s Warszawa).
No Love Lost surprisingly connects to the first song of the New Order set. Guitars are to the fore and it has a metronomic minimalist beat in the style of Marin Rev and the infamous Suicide.
Glass is half full of twanging guitar. The other half is darker elements.
Inside the Line is the closest to a genuine early Punk sound, in a Buzzcocks fashion. Pete Shelley and Howard DeVoto were also at that Manchester Pistols show.
One more twangy one. Autosuggestion is stripped back and stark, an ominous prelude of what was about to be birthed.
The first impression I got from hearing Joy Division was of the Doors, especially Jim Morrisons baritone voice. Curtis has named him and James Iggy Pop Osterberg as big influences. The unwieldy spastic unsyncopated dance routine eventually led to real epileptic fits on stage.
Transmission performed tonight is a surprisingly good dance song, heavy bass intro and all. Hook has also cited Jean-Jacques Burnel of the Stranglers as another key bass influence. (Check out Hanging Around right now).
She’s Lost Control and Shadowplay are masterpieces from that seminal Unknown Pleasures album. The fifth member of that was producer Martin Hannett, who added space and depth to the sound.
He commented that he was lucky as the band had no fucking clue.
Darkness may be all around, but the music is uplifting and inspired in a way that reaches back to far older roots. The best comparison I can make is to the Original Carter Family who started recording in 1927 and helped to establish Americana.
Stark with a mystical and mythic element reflecting the human soul.
In the shadowplay, acting out your own death, knowing no more/ As the assassins all grouped in four lines, dancing on the floor.
William Burroughs appears like a spectre. The song Interzone is on the album but is not performed tonight.
With Atmosphere, Hook delivers an emotional tribute to Steve Harley of Cockney Rebel, who died just a few days ago. That’s a gut punch. I liked his Psychomodo album from the mid Seventies.
Love Will Tear Us Apart is given a tender vocal by Hook who is sounding a little hoarse after 29 songs. The crowd give it the big stadium chant.
Back they come for two cuts from the Closer album. The Eternal and Decades. Gloomy and cinematic. Ingmar Bergman crossed with Leonard Cohen.
The pace might be funereal, and the keyboards are at maximum gothic church. But the great bass lines abound, and Peter Hook and The Light are monumental and majestic to the end.
Rev. Orange Peel