More about: Peter Hook And The Light

A greatest hits night at The Brixton Academy, with its ceiling that resembles the lunar surface; it's the perfect venue for a celebration of Joy Division. But for some fans, they think Ian Curtis would be turning in his grave as the band’s bassist continues to tour the back catalogue, following his classical re-boot with Manchester Camarata in 2019.

Even a nuts and bolts celebration of Joy Division seems a contradiction in terms. Especially in the height of midsummer, as the performance, after a brief aperitif of New Order, essentially charts the trajectory of a troubled singer’s odyssey to suicide as The Light segues from Warsaw material to the albums Unknown Pleasures and Closer in full. 

So little at first glance stacks up in the enterprise’s favour. And there is also the challenge of reproducing live those two albums which are masterpieces of studio production, singularly crafted in 1979 and 1980 by Martin Hammett of Factory records. There was further grist to the sceptic mill as Hook’s voice failed to carry on occasions and the sonic intricacies and depth in tracks such as Insight and Wilderness were lost. 

Hook, of course, has every right to do it though, as he was not only a member of New Order and Joy Division, but central to both’s architecture and unique sound. Like Jacque Burnel’s in The Stranglers,  his bass functions like lead guitar; at the base of the fretboard for New Order and nearer the top of the neck for Joy Division. Hook makes a valiant attempt to ape Bernard Summer and Curtis’ vocal styles, even as he hangs over his bass like a sullen, dispirited gorilla or a costume of one hung out to dry, rather than attempting to mirror Curtis’ onstage echoes of his own epilepsy.

At other junctures he wields the instrument as a piece of machinery that’s capable of felling a redwood, legs wide apart to emphasise its heft. This is entirely fitting for the early DIY Warsaw tracks, grandiose terrors of Day Of The Lords and the explosive chords of Shadowplay; that come surging at the audience like the wrecking of an afternoon’s peace on a deserted country highway, by the onrush of a juggernaut. Just as they do on the original recording. The magisterial New Dawn Fades is also faithfully intact. Nevertheless at the interval the ledger records Unknown Pleasures as a somewhat mixed success.

As we process to Closer, whose original tone is one of inexorable fate being played out, a fait accompli like a Greek tragedy, Hook’s macho physical posture is at odds with Curtis’ even keener mental fragility. However, besides A Means to an End, its emotional punch is consumately transmitted. The atmospheric and ethereal Heart and Soul retains the album’s clean, crisp drum riff and The Eternal is just as heartrending as on the original vinyl. Paul Kehoe captures Stephen Morris’ distinctive drum patterns brilliantly throughout the night.

The set naturally concludes with Decades, building gloriously to its climax of lyrical beauty and abject desolation. Then the horde is pulled down the Academy’s famous slope, for a rousing encore of Atmosphere, Ceremony, Transmission and Love Will Tear Us Apart that creates sheer delirium, just had as it did with the New Order coda, Temptation, at the evening’s outset. 

To paraphrase Atmosphere, people like us did indeed find it easy, and we were, all said and done, by the end walking on air. Perhaps Curtis would have been posthumously cheered to have seen his brief but extraordinary contribution to the output of the post punk years still dragging forward the fans with its irresistible undertow. Salford Rules, read one of the amps. Hard to disagree on an July night like this.

See photos by Richard Gray below:

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More about: Peter Hook And The Light