Peter Hook & the Light

Venue:

Auckland Town Hall, NZ

Date: 18/05/2024

I made a point of not viewing YouTube clips of this show because I wanted to see how Hooky pulls this off. How can he perform his floor-scraping bass guitar antics AND “be” Bernard/Ian?

The answer is he doesn’t. Most of the time, there’s a young bass player to Hook’s right providing the distinctive bassline.

This is until we get to some New Order songs that require a softer vocal and at that point a different young guitarist in the group adopts the Bernard persona, cupping the mic in both hands while he sings.

We had New Order songs to begin with and Joy Division songs for the second half. I would have thought the other way round would be better – but then I remembered that Joy Division were hugely successful as a chart band in NZ. Love Will Tear us Apart and Atmosphere were both number one singles down here.

The songs were thrillingly delivered and Hook’s energy level throughout was high. Lots of pointing and occasional windmill arms. He had a good-natured vibe about him when interacting with the band, but the audience banterometer was set to zero, although he did pay tribute to Ian Curtis at one point by saying a few words about him.

In the New Order set, there is a golden run of songs, each of them delivered with gusto by the band.

Here comes the “but” …ready? Here goes.

But…some songs had some important missing bits. One of the most thrilling 3 minutes in all pop music is the post-frogs sequence in Perfect Kiss. The soaring, euphoric Gillian Gilbert synth line which carries this along was so quiet that I thought my mind was actually placing it in the song rather than the keyboard player himself.

Similarly in Thieves Like Us, the synth was fine this time but the grunty repeated guitar riff was absent. A conscious decision but a curious one.

The minimalism works a lot better with Joy Division and thankfully Hook did all the vocals.

I was worried that he might hand over to his young colleague again and this may have led to said youngster staring into the void and flapping his arms around in a frenzy. That wouldn’t have been right at all.

Those “buts” aside, the show was great. A packed town hall, mostly standing, looked up to a stage which had the pipes of an enormous orchestral organ as its backdrop. This gave off a cathedral-type vibe and the more ponderous and bleak moments were enhanced by this setting.

Love Will Tear Us Apart raised the roof and I expected that to be the end. They reappeared for an encore that was very slow and sombre. I didn’t recognise those two songs – I should probably know them as intimately as NO songs but I didn’t.

My companions agreed that the show could shave an hour off its running time and still be a fantastic 90 minutes.

I have shared this before but even as a young and fit concert-goer I do find my attention waning at the 90 minute mark and looking forward to the end.

The audience:

Very cheerful and mostly males in their 50s and 60s wearing T shirts of obscure bands rather than the now ubiquitous Unknown Pleasures. My Depeche Mode bowling shirt earned me a near-wordless but warm embrace from a total stranger and an animated chat and handshake from another. Young people were there too but no more than 10% of the crowd

It made me think..

Perhaps I should go and see From the Jam next time the opportunity presents itself. Hooky being centre stage felt right and genuine even though the other three were not there.

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