Get Out More....Gig Review

New Order, Wolverhampton Civic Hall

31-10-2006

Aspost-punk doomsters in Joy Division theypractically invented Goth, and then as New Order they created indie-dance. But despite all that, we still love them. Damien Doran's checks out the latest visit of Manchester's finest.

I have always avoided old school reunions. All thathope and expectationand rememberingpast times before you realisethat you no longer have anything in common with people you drifted apart from many years ago - no thanks!

So it was for me at Wolverhampton Civic Hall on Sunday as New Order played the last night of their current tour.

When the band emerged from the ashes of Joy Division in 1981, I was a devoted follower, travelling anywhere from Walthamstow Assembly rooms to their Hacienda in Manchester. They didn't do things like tour, they played one-off concerts which lasted -at most -an hour. Withno encore. Brooding, distant and cool, they just played the music and left.

In those daysI stayed up late hoping to catch their new record on John Peel; these days I just look more like John Peel.

It wasn't untilthe release of “Blue Monday” and their cross over into dance and popularity that we parted company. Though I occasionally bought their records, I hadn'tseen them since 1984.

Ironically (I hope) they take to the stage to the theme from “A Few Dollars More” and the packed crowed goes mad. The audience is a mixture of old (my age) and young, but mainly male. To the familiar football tune of “who are yer?”, the chants of “New Order, New Order" reverberate around the hall.

And tonight they rock - giving the crowd exactly what they want (except when they play songs from their new album, of course). Peter Hook, base hung low like some gun slinger standing at the very front of the stage and Bernard Sumner whipping up the crowd and even (hold your breath) dancing around the stage (and yes, his dancing is every bit as good as mine).

Throughoutall the previousgigs Ihad seen them, Sumner hardly said two sentences to the crowd, but tonight you can't shut him up. Introducing “Transmission” as “an oldie but goldie” and urging the crowd to “come on” to join in the chorus of "Love Will Tear Us Apart".

Even "Atmosphere", one of the most beautiful and understated songs gets the full singalonga New Order treatment. Only when they turn their backs to concentrate on playing “Blue Monday” do they bring back the memories of theband I usedto know.

Of course all this says more about me than about them. We just haven't kept in touch and while they have changed, I clearly want the old not the new New Order.

But it was good to meet up after all these years, though I don't think we will be seeing each other again anytime soon.

I left before the end - for me New Order just don't play encores -reflecting on thetimes we had spent together, pausing only to purchase my Joy Division T-shirt.