New Order

JULY 13TH 2002.

I have always regarded New Order as being one of those bands that just wouldn't be able to deliver a decent live performance. This preconception had been formed after seeing an interview with New Order, which was extremely boring. So I was about to see if my preconception was well-founded or not.


The amount of people that had gathered in the arena was astronomical. The people were so tightly packed that you couldn't even squeeze a bus ticket through the audience. This was strange; maybe the people in the audience had got confused and thought that this was the day that David Bowie was playing.



Once the stage had been set, a few old-aged people walked onto the stage. Judging by the volcanic eruption from the audience I worked out that this must be New Order. At this point I was beginning to think that this is going to be so easy, I was going to have a great opportunity to really criticise them.

However once they had started playing, I soon realised that their show was going to be very entertaining and enjoyable. After they had played 'Crystal', I realised that New Order are magnificent live.


They played quite a few tracks from their 'Joy Division' such as 'Atmosphere' and 'Transmission'. Peter Hook (bassist) dedicated 'She's lost control' to late The Who bassist, John Entwistle.

Every track that New Order played seemed to be a crowd pleaser: 'Bizarre Love Triangle', 'Touched by The Hand of God', 'Regret', 'True Faith', 'Sensation'. All went down well with the audience.

Keith Allen made a guest appearance for 'World In Motion'. Bernard Sumner made reference to Keith’s recent world cup song which was a flop by saying "His last single didn’t do very well, so we had to bring him on".

When Bernard’s guitar went out of tune, he asked the audience "Is there a talented musician out there?". He then followed it up by saying, "Because there aren’t any talented musicians on this stage tonight."



Obviously no New Order gig would be complete without a performance of 'Blue Monday'. New Order performed this but included parts from Kylie Minogues 'Can’t Get You Out Of My Head', because she sampled 'Blue Monday' at the Brit Awards earlier this year.

This performance was excellent, I enjoyed their set and they made me alter my opinion about them. It is easy to see why so many people turned up to see them perform. However Bernard Sumner mentioned that this would be their last live performance for a while because they are going back into the studio to record a new album.

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