The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Forum / New Order

New Order

by 46 Comments

I see New Order are apparently playing a gig in Chile in November. These big one off gigs aren’t that unusual for them but for this one they’re going to be without Stephen or Gillian due to “personal health reasons.” It goes without saying that I hope they are ok…they have unfortunately had quite a few family health related difficulties over the years. However, this gig is surely now a Bad Lieutenant (see Bernard’s 2009 project) in all but name?

0

Comments

  1. Of course I hope they are well. Bad Lieutenant you say? Every NO solo project ranked…

    PH and the Light (as they only do covers I think)
    Revenge
    Freebass
    Bad Lieutenant
    The Other Two
    Monaco
    and at no 1…Electronic

        • Basically agree, there’s a (bit) to admire on the second Electronic album, but the third one is dire. It’s all about the first album, and non-album awesome single Disappointed.

        • What the Monaco album has is of course Hook’s bass. It misses the wildness. the choppy guitar and sublime synths of the other New Order elements, but the heart is still beating. Even the singing has the tones and silly rhymes of Sumner/Albrecht/Rubble.

          Without that, any music/band is not in the JD/NO family for me. Disappointed sounds like a Pet Shop Boys song, which is fine, but it isn’t in the same class. I used to think Getting Away With It was up there, but the supergroup thing doesn’t do anything for me. They were inspired by Technotronic, apparently. Hmmm.

          I’ve never seen New Order live, but I would rather see Peter Hook in a small village hall than Barney with hired hands in an enormodome.

          • I have seen New Order twice, once in the 80s in a fairly small club in Swansea, they were shambolic. Then a few years ago in Toronto in a 20,000 amphitheatre, ironically in a double bill with Pet Shop Boys. I missed Hooky but they were excellent. Clearly without Stephen Morris they are no longer New Order though (Gillian has taken breaks in the past).

            Plan to see Peter Hook and the Light in August. Looking forward to that. And Disappointed is wonderful, but I am a big PSB fan too

            • I saw Joy Division half a dozen times and New Order thrice. The contrast was stark. As JD, they were a disciplined, tight outfit, even with wonky synths. As NO, sloppy and all over the place, excepting playing songs written when Curtis was alive.

  5. “Bernard, Phil and Tom are really sorry that Stephen and Gillian can’t join us this time”

    So it isn’t even Bad Lieutenant. Blur aren’t touring, so maybe Alex James is free for a BL reunion?

    I’d rather got used to the idea that NO was over – Bernard is 70 and hasn’t been interested for years. The last NO album was 11 years ago and the last single (an out-take from the album sessions) was in 2020.

    For goodness sake, Barney, knock it on the head.

    Get well soon, Stephen & Gillian.

    • Alex James is more interested in schlepping his own rather crappy concept britpop big band or whatever it’s called round minor festivals these days.

      • Barney really needs a Rob Gretton to tell him “don’t do it.” I really can’t think of a worse state* for NO to be in prior to their induction into the r’n’r hall of fame, or whatever it is. It’s going to surpass the Blondie debacle.

        (*) Well, I can, having seen two G*ry Gl*tt*r albums on sale yesterday.

    • 100% this @fentonsteve. Just give it up – there’s been more ho-hum live albums in the past twenty years than they ever did before and they were nothing special, there is no new music on the horizon, Barney blames Hooky for “spitting in the soup” and trashing the box set reissues and the mooted Unknown Pleasures box set (hence the holding ‘Eternal’ box set) and even if they were making new music, which maybe they will as Barney and yer granny on the bongos, would it be New Order, without Gillian and Stephen? No.

  6. Weird. It was only a couple of days ago that I started doing a deep dive into the whole NO + associated catalog, and found The Other Two’s album (and really liked it.)

    Then elsewhere on here I tried to summon @fentonsteve by raising the ugly prospect of Barney’s singing.

    Did I somehow jinx New Order…? If so, do the readers have any other bands that they want me to disrupt? I can’t take the credit for the great Bob Dylan strike though.

  7. I always wondered who was on the right in the big NO feud and coming round to the fact it’s Peter Hook

    Bernard Sumner should knock it on the head, he’s desecrated a great band with all this nonsense. Just play solo and play your songs. It’s not New Order

    • I read Barney’s book and it was one of the few I gave away straight afterwards. What a self-obsessed humourless pillock.

      Hooky and Stephen have both written great books. I wish Gillian would do hers.

    • I once chatted to a journalist who had interviewed both Hooky & Barney. He said out of the 2 you would pick Hooky to go for a pint with as he is much more likeable. It is this that seems to Irk Bernard more than anything….

      Wholly agree on the books @fentonsteve. Hookys & Stephens are great, Bernards read like ‘Bouncing Back’ by Alan Partridge. He comes very close to the ‘needless to say, I had the last laugh’ shtick

  8. Saw them in 1981 at the Roadmender in Northampton, support band was Section 25, my band did a few gigs supporting Section 25 around that time, nice blokes. I’ve seen NO a few times since, most notably at the Sydney Opera House in 2016, sublime. I think Hooky is coming to Oz soon, but I won’t bother this time, the gigs are all about him, not NO or their music.

    Agree with the comments above, probably time to call it a day now, Hooky & Barney.

    • I’ve seen Hook and the Light twice recently, last year and a few months ago, and whatever you think of him – and I think he hasn’t wreathed himself in glory with his comments of late – he and his band put on a blinder of a gig. Joy Division, New Order songs played faithfully and with no little vim and vigour. David Potts does a pretty good Bernard on the vocals too.

  9. It’s all very sad, especially from a group of people who have collectively produced much of my absolute favourite music of the last 50 years…

    Received wisdom is that since the publishing rights reverted back to the band 6 or 7 years ago, Barney especially (since he wrote the lyrics) is rolling in money, and has no motivation to bother writing or recording new material…

    However, Hooky does a good job of keeping their music alive in smaller venues; I’ve seen him do the complete Joy Division catalogue and the complete Substance albums in recent years and they were both great gigs. Back in 2009 I saw Bad Lieutenant supporting Pet Shop Boys and even then virtually their whole set was made up of JD/NO songs, so Barney clearly had few illusions as to how popular BL’s own material was…

    (As an aside, the upcoming Chile gig is part of the Primavera festival; I suspect the band would be liable to a massive fine if they were to pull out, hence Barney playing without Steve & Gillian…)

Leave a Reply