Manchester Apollo 14th November 2005
After the amazing gig at Brixton, the band were highly praised on both neworderonline and worldinmotion. I cannae remember any negativity from anyone after Brixton. So all the people who weren’t lucky enough to get down to London were really looking forward to this gig. The Corby Order (myself, John, Lorraine & Baldrick) travelled up to Manchester about 2 o clock, hitting Manchester itself about 4.30 then spending fookin ages looking for the venue so we could park the car, much to the amusement of Rocket Mick and Lucy who tried in vain to tell us where to go! As with London, plenty of planning had already gone into this gig, we all arranged to meet at a pub called Joshua Brooke’s which is basically 10 minutes from the venue, we eventually got to the pub nearer 6 than 5! As we got to the pub we could hear plenty of noise (that would be Rocket Mick again) and sure enough on entering this establishment several familiar faces were present. Just getting to the bar was a cnut as all the neworderonliners were stood around it. Everyone seemed in great spirits and as soon as we got the beers in people started coming over to say hello, first over was DoN saying long time no see, then Tim grabbed me and said “You’ll never guess who’s in here!” then he mentioned Marty Gray was in the pub. Marty was one of the original online nutcases, when I started posting back in 2001, it was always Marty and Tim I’d have a mad craic with when I got in from my backshift, usually posting absolute shite till 3 in the morning, no-one was safe when Marty decided to have a rant. Marty was also a member of Goldblade who were fronted by famed gobshite John Robb, and he also played a main role with Alex and Tim when there was a neworder tribute night at the Roadhouse the day after 2002’s Move Festival.
MARTY. ROCKET. BARNEY ARMY
NICK KING. FRADS
I had a good natter with Marty, Rocket Mick, JT & Lucy, main part of the conversatioin was how daft JT & Rocket looked in their 18 hole DM’s and the fact that several of the lads had shorts on…..in November…..in Manchester, these included JT, Mike Garrity and Frads (Hibster took great delight in pulling at Frads leg hair) Then Tim gave me a shout and he was with an unfamiliar face, it was Ricardo who had travelled all the way from sunny Brazil to see The Order, what a lad! I have to be honest, he speaks better English than several of The Vikings, I am thinking particularly of The Hac, DoN, Hibster & Alex. Ricardo was also coming to the UK Hall Of Fame with several of us, so it was gonna be an eventful couple of days for him. After a brief chat about the site I was off to see Nick King and Ally whom have been helping me out with several neworder related projects that people will see next year.
WILL & NESS
WITH CHRIS BROGAN
CHANT. JOHNNY GILES
Unfortunately I missed out on Steve Campbell from Northern Ireland, but did manage to bump into the Southern Irish Order in Cuana D, Conor & Angel with a catapult. I also said hello to a few others in the pub, Gerry Jamieson and his mate who were down from Scotland as were Grahame Ferguson and Colin Torr, Al was being constantly pestered for Viking badges and he was stood with Johnny Giles, Hibster, Wolfram, Ness, Will and Dave Legge. Vinnie yet again asked for the Electronic DVD that won’t be available until February 06, so that has become a running joke and he is gonna be last on the list for a copy. Then there was Chris Brogan who was at school with Peter & Bernard, another couple of female Onliners in Chant & Sweetness, I remember talking to sweetness cos I thought she was a Manc, but she is over here from America, then there was The Stoke Order, Frads, Danny & Sam, Liam, Barney Army & Bansheeman, a late arrival was a lad called Neil, he is a Geordie and posts on the site as Emile Strunz, through Steve (Wolfram) I managed to get Neil a ticket, so he was well made up with that.
NICK KING. HIBSTER
BANSHEEMAN. BARNEY ARMY
Late arrivals were the Brothers Mac, Gary and Our Kid, later christened the Brothers Grim, If you think Rocket Mick is mad, these two are equally nuts, if not more! After another 3 or 4 beers the pub suddenly emptied out, and I had to grab DoN and Hibster to ask where everyone was heading, they were all going up the Apsley Cottage, which is situated next door to the Apollo itself, the only people left in JB’s were The Corby Order, Brothers Grim and Gerry and his mate from Scotland. I introduced John, Lorraine & Baldrick to Garymac and Ourkid, I had already told Lorraine that they were exactly like characters from the TV series Shameless, and within five minutes of listening to the stories from Gary and his brother, Lorraine looked over and nodded her head. We decided to join the rest up at the Apsley and headed for taxi’s, one turned up instantly, but foolishly I decided to wait with the Brothers Grim and Gerry & his mate, we were stood in the freezing cold for a good 10 or 15 minutes, in the meantime, Gary had phoned Hooky to see if we were in for any surprises, we were hoping for the band to play Sunrise, Hooky said it was a possible but not a definite, so when we eventually managed to flag a taxi we were in good spirits.
SHUG. GERRY & MATE. JOHN
ROCKET. LUCY. ANDY ROBINSON
?.BROTHERS GRIM, ROCKET.LUCY. BALDRICK
As soon as we reached the Apsley Cottage both the mac brothers dived from the taxi in fear of paying and left me with the fare, but they made it up by getting in the first round, which I was extra thankful for cos the pub was chocca, the pub is small enough as it is anyway, but tonight there were a good hundred stood outside it having a craic in miserable manc weather, Hooky’s car was also parked outside and that attracted a few pictures cos of the personalised number plate.
All the Vikings were about and discussing whether we’d get any surprises and generally getting drunker by the minute. Loads headed round for A Certain Ratio, who were supporting The Order, but a good few of us stayed for another few beers, just stood listening to Rocket Mick and The Brothers Grim kept us warm with their inane banter and we got a few photies. We decided to head into the Venue just before 9, as we were walking round I clocked Andy Robinson stood at the side door of the Apollo, I’d not met Andy before, but have heard a few stories from Al and Johnny Giles, so I decided to go over and say hello, top man is Andy as soon as I mentioned Al and Mark he knew who I meant and called them a pair of Southern Cunts, well, words to that effect. And to be fair he happily posed with several of us lot for pictures. Lorraine and Lucy decided to try and blag some aftershow passes and ushered the lads away while they fluttered their eyelashes in shameful scenes, we were stood waiting for 5 minutes in the rain, but in the end Andy sorted them out with 3 passes and he told Lorraine to stay behind afterwards for another couple of passes. Top man.
JOHN. SHUG. ANDY ROBINSON
? BALDRICK. SHUG. NICK KING. LUCY. ALLY. JOHN
We headed into the venue and straight for the bar, we were with Barney Army and Neil and the queue for the bar was a right bastard, so we split up and finally got served after a few minutes, Barney Army and John were talking about this proposed New Order Online day and the fact that the Corby Celts would win the 5-a-side at a canter, Nick mentioned his mates were all big bruisers, but that holds no fears for us, well, maybe Baldrick. We headed down to the front, continually held up by John and Nick still arguing about the football, we managed to get to the front remarkably quickly and noticed all the usual suspect down the front, there were a few moans and groans as we forced our way through, but it wasnae too bad. Lorraine managed to talk this big guy into letting her stand on the front of the barrier, right in front of where Hooky plays and not too far from her was Ness (Vinnie directly behind her) then around us were The Irish Order, The German Order, The Stoke Order, The Scottish Order, The Manchester Order and London Order….oh, and Ricardo. That saves me typing out all their names! Hibster had blagged another photo pass from the site, so he was lurking in front of the barriers.
Alan Wise enters stage two minutes later to rapturous applause and thanks Simon Moran for sorting out the last two new order gigs then goes onto introduce the band as 5 crazy lads from Unsworth – The Beatles. Barney comes on and says hello, then just before they launch into Ceremony, Hooky dedicates the song to Phil Grubb and tells Darren that the band are thinking about him, a great touch from the band and Darren was genuinely touched, not to mention dumbfounded, as Al and Mark had been sorting this out as a surprise, Andy Robinson also got in touch with Al to say he’d spelt the name wrong, on the speaker was Chubb instead of Grubb, Al blames this solely on Andy as he sent a text with Grubb. Phil had died earlier this year through cancer and was only 40. Unfortunately he also lost his mam through cancer a week after this gig, so all of the Viking’s thoughts are with him in this tough year. Darren’s another Viking who first met up with Al and my Uncle John in Dublin ’93.
AL & DARREN WITH THE GERMAN ORDER
R.I.P PHIL.
Ceremony sets the night up perfectly and the crowd react in the right way by going mental, what was left of our beers is now all over the people around us, but no-one cares, poor Baldrick didn’t last the pace and ended up watching the gig from the side after Ceremony! A cracking start to proceedings, Barney then tells the audience that they played Brixton the Thursday before and that this crowd have to be better “’cause this is Manchester” Cue loud cheers, then it was onto Love Vigilantes, a solid start and the band clearly enjoying proceedings, Crystal was up next and Barney introduces Dawn to the crowd, with some in-band joke about Dawn nearly getting him arrested the week before, the crowd around us start singing “Manchester la la la” so we all join in. Crystal was quite flat to be honest, the crowd didn’t seem to get into it at all, which was very surprising, Regret got everyone going again with a rough and ready take and Krafty followed, and at one point we thought we were going to get Lisbon all over again with Barney shouting the lyrics, unfortunately we weren’t quite treated to the full shouting version, but it was close at times, this cheered us up.
DoN. GRAHAME
Barney then hits us with the old “We’re professional these days, wait till we tune up” and after a couple of seconds of fucking about with the guitar, says something along the lines of “You wouldn’t catch fucking Jennifer Lopez doing this…….then again, you wouldn’t cos she doesn’t play guitar” a Barney special. Turn is announced as only the second time they’ve played it, so if it’s shit it’s not the bands fault. We did notice at the gig that the guitar’s and the mic could have done with being turned up a bit, but after a slow start the song kicked in and all of the band looked like they were enjoying themselves and the song got a lot clearer with loads of the crowd now joining in with the singing. Hooky is clearly enjoyed himself as he prances around all over the stage, sharing a quick laugh with both Phil and Barney as the song goes on. The song finishes and we get Barney giving the crowd his alcoholic preferences in reverse order and finishing with “now it’s Perrier water” to which Hooky quickly adds “Is it fook”
Hibster has now appeared after the first three songs of him using the photo pass, he says something about bumping into Frads who was totally fucked and talking absolute nonsense and being told by one of the security guards to sit at the side! The band crack on with an amazing version of Transmission which sends the crowd into a frenzy again, Steve absolutely panning the drums and at the same time giving the subtle sound to the cymbals a la the the start of Age Of Consent, a song still mourned today cos it’s not played live. As we move 10 feet from side to side, both me and John clearly see Jarvo launching the smaller and skinnier people around him into the mosh area in front of him, aided subtly by Colin who was passing people onto Al, a funny sight indeed! After the chaos of Transmission, Barney tells the srow that they are gonna slow things down, as much for us as themselves. Your Silent Face starts which leads me into reaching for a well deserved fag, the crowd have totally calmed down and are just bobbing their heads along as they sing all the words. Hooky’s stood in front of us posing with one foot on one of the speakers.
Barney introduces Waiting For The Sirens Call and tells everone it’s gatting it’s Manchester premiere, which gains a few inquisitive looks from Steve, but for once, Barney’s spot on. The song begins, but the crowd don’t really react, apart from a few of us on Hooky’s side, at every other gig this year the crowd have been going mad and singing along, so I was quite puzzled that we weren’t being murdered. As the chorus kicks in Rocket, Mike Garrity, Hibster, Don and Cuana D have joined myself and John in a type of Celtic huddle as we sing and dance along, the chorus also awakens a few more people in the crowd and the jumping up and down starts again.
COL. ROCKET. SHUG
JOHN. DON. CUANA D
VINNIE. NESS
The remixed True Faith is up next and we are treated to the strobe lights for the first time, again the crowd are very still until the chorus, I even have enough room to spark another cigarette, this should not be right, I should be getting battered and crushed, maybe it’s cos all the one’s down the front really are getting too old to sustain the momentum for a full hour and a half. Which is a shame really. Bizarre Love Triangle sparks a bit more life into the crowd, Barney has now lost the guitar, mic in hand and dancing around the stage a la Jools Holland 2001, it’s a sight to behold, but he’s clearly enjoying himself, we get to the chorus, and of recent Barney gets down on his knee’s as he sings the chorus, much to the enjoyment of all the people who have sneaked camera’s into the gigs. Hooky is also making use of every inch of the stage as he prowls from side to side.
Keeping the fast pace going we are quickly into another monstrous version of Love Will Tear Us Apart, for the first minute or two of this song, it’s back to how a neworder gig should be MAYHEM. It’s that bad at this stage that we are dragging poor unfortunates up from the floor and at the same time trying to avoid flying elbows from Mr Jarvis, which is a trick you mater after being skelped three or four times, I also managed to shove Al into the mayhem, this he will deny for sure. To be honest, I just added a bit of force as he was already heading in front of us. It was weird at the same time, cos almost everywhere you looked it was all the faces from the pub, Johnny Giles had glasses at the start of the gig, by the time we were halfway through LWTUA they had gone, so I am not ure whether he took them off or were lost in the crowd, Rocket Mick was wearing his shades during most of the gig, daft bastard is Mick, we were also joined around this time by the Brothers Grim, poor Gary had a wool jumper and hat on, clearly he is dafter than the Rocket, Ourkid was already topless as they danced around. We got plenty of “Come on” shouts from Barney and “Here We Go” from Hooky, but they really didn’t need to do this as we couldn’t have been more up for this song! This was easily the best rendition and crowd reaction at any of this years gigs I’d been to.
JOHNNY GILES. SHUG. JT
RICARDO. DANNY. ?
We are almost immediately into Temptation, Barney quickly mentions that any other group would be walking off stage at this time to get ready for their encore, but they were a cut above everyone else and the song’s begun, as usual John and masel are shouting along the guitar parts and everyone around us is joing in with “Der der der der” chants, all the crowd look genuinely delighted and the band are playing up to them, we are fookin knackered by this stage but still giving it everything we have, there are loads of hands in the air punching and pointing at the two frontmen, Barney gurning as he concentrates on his solo and Hooky stood dtaring at the crowd, lapping up the attention. The 1,2,3,4 shout from Barney sparks another 10% from the crowd and everyone is now one down the front (a big sweaty mass!) Before leaving the stage for the encore we are treated to the obligatory Blue Monday, again, much to the amusement of Mike Garrity, who by now has left the mosh pit and is stood at the back shaking his head, much to our lot’s amusement, Hibster is in front of us getting crowd shots and I also take advantage for a couple of pictures of my own. All of a sudden the crowd around us are looking at each other wondering what’s going on, Barney has finished his singing and headed for one of the keyboards, segued into the song comes some familiar chords, it is only The Perfect Kiss! Just for a minute we thought we were gonna get the full song, segued the way they used to with E/G/G & Temptation, but we weren’t to be that lucky, at least it shows the band may be planning a return of a few old favourites in the future! At the end of the song Hooky throws both his drumsticks into the crowd, insisting that the second one “goes to the blonde” that would be Lorraine, much to the annoyance of the lad who caught it. (he also happens to post on one of the websites) Exit stage left for the band as we wait for the encore.
MIKE. NICK. LIAM. ROCKET
Throughout the wait there are New Ordah chants ringing around the hall and the band come back onstage and Barney tells us we’re in for a “Joy Division medley” that’ll do me was the concensous of the crowd. Shadowplay starts slowly and to be honest didn’t get to frantic levels, but it did enough to get the crowd moving about again, it was around this stage when the Brothers Grim took it in turns to try and launch themselves onto the stage next to Hooky, unfortunately due to Gary being a rotund wee fella, all he succeeded in doing was landing on the people in the front row with his trainers leaving footprints on several people’s backs! To be honest his brother Ourkid was equally useless only arousing Security into action and pulling both of them over the barrier for the walk of shame. The Brothers Grim returned just in time for the start of Warsaw, with Barney saying that “We’ve never played it in Manchester” quickly followed by Steve shouting back “Course we have” Steve wins this one. The crowd duly go along with the punk ethic and things get a bit hairy for a while (this would be Garymac, who has possibly the hairiest and sweatiest human back in history) At this time we are forced right to the front of the barrier for the rest of the song, this is more like it. After Shadowplay we are given the same option as London between Atmosphere and She’s Lost Control, with the latter winning the day again, only for Barney to say “I guess we’ll have to play both then” The band, again, clearly loving the atmosphere! We storm through SLC and then the band finish the night with a chilled out Atmosphere. Unfortunately the majority of the crowd were just stood watching these songs, not really getting into it, our wee bit at the front were giving it laldy though. Hibster phrased the gig well the other day…..Brixton is better crowd than Manchester shocker. And to be honest I have to agree, ok, for several songs the crowd was a lot madder in Manchester, but the pace wasnae sustained like it was in London, in London it was mad from start to finish. The band on the other hand, clearly looked like they preferred playing at home, both gigs overall were good enough to keep us lot happy for a while, afterall there were 20 or so of us going to the Hall Of Fame just 2 days later!!!
As the band walked off and the lights came up we waited in vain for a set-list, but no joy this time as a sneaky fookin security guard shoved a set-list in his own pocket, after the gig everyone stood about, Lunatic Fridge, Mark Smith from Birmingham and Church of the KLF came over to say hello, in the meantime we waited for Andy to come back so Lorraine could claim passes for us, as it worked out, JT and Lucy had to go straight after the gig as JT was at school the next day (as a teacher, not a pupil) generously leaving us their tickets, which meant we only needed one for Baldrick. Alex had already sorted a few of our mates out, but there were a few people who we were desperate to get in like Barney Army, Nick King, Dave Legge, Ricardo & The Irish / German Order, but unfortunately for them by the time Alex got another few tickets from Andy, the other lads had been booted out by security, we only got Baldrick a ticket at the very last minute. I received a few desperate calls from Ally but there was fook all we could do. We stood waiting for a good 10 minutes, Grahame Ferguson had got a pint from somewhere so I managed to get the last bit of that!
We were then ushered upstairs to one of the lounge bars, at first I thought it was gonna be like the Grafton after the Olympia show in Liverpool, where we were led to believe the band would appear, meanwhile they had all buggered aff to Cream! But slowly it filled and a few known faces started to appear from ACR, Doves and the like. We thought there might have been a free bar as well, but were quickly shot down when the bargirl said that’ll be £14.60. Still, after 16 years of following the band, we were finally at a proper aftershow. I left the Corby Order at the bar while I had a quick look around, just as I was returning Barney walked straight past me as he was talking to his missus and Sarge, I was left dumbstruck, like a wee wean! I have already had the pleasure of a 3hr lock in with Hooky up in Grahame’s bar in Glasgow and Hooky was a fuckin diamond answering all our questions as well as smoking all ma fags. Barney was always just as much a hero when I got into neworder back in 87, I rushed over to tell the rest of our lot to their amazement, we’re all slags you see!
SHUG. BARNEY
After another beer I left the lounge to phone the missus and tell her I’d just seen Barney, she sounded non-plussed but was happy for us as she knows how much The Order mean to us all. As I was walking back in, Barney was on his way out – quickly followed by Lorraine and her camera, perfect timing, we asked Barney for a picture and he was more than happy, although less happy when it took ages for yours truly to work out how to use Lorraine’s camera, “Just press the fookin button” Barney was waiting for his missus, so the rest of the Corby Order took advantage and we all got a picture, I said “Fucking great show the night” he thanked us, I have to admit I stopped short of telling him Brixton was better though. As I say, we’re a bunch of tarts.
BALDRICK. JOHN. BARNEY
I went off in a daze to find Jarvo, Hibster, DoN, Johnny Giles, Gordie, Gary, Wolfram, G, Alex et al to tell them the news, they all said “Been there and done it” most of them were in France earlier this year and secured backstage passes. Now I know how DoN felt when he phoned me with the news they’d just met the band. Grahame came over and told us that he’d just been speaking to Doves’ drummer and that he told the lad that he’d seen them in Tokyo the week before, what G never mentioned was he cut Phil Cunningham completely out of the conversation he was having at the time! Al was also seen yapping awat to Tony Quigley for a bit and Denise Johnson and the rest of ACR were all mingling with all the fans. Hibster was showing everyone all the pictures he’d captured on his camera, as he had the press pass, there were some fookin crackers, several of which have been added to this story.
BARNEY. LORRAINE
Unfortunately Hooky never made the aftershow, his son Jack posted on one of the sites that Hooky “drove the kids home” straight after the gig and we never saw Gillian or Steve or Baker either, I did say a quick hello and cheers to Andy Robinson again. The rest of our lot were stood at the entrance to the lounge and we were also lucky enough to catch Dawn Zee for a minute or two, she was sound and posed for a few more pictures. Last but not least we also managed to get a picture with Phil, even though he was in a hurry he stopped for us – then he saw Liam and legged it down the stairs.
What a fookin night. The last 18 years have been full of ups and downs, but it couldn’t get much better than tonight. We spent the 2 hours home listening to the Brixton show that Mike had given us. I took the next two days off work to recover, my ears were still ringing on the Wednesday morning! Then it was onto the UK Hall Of Fame at the Ally Pally.
A massive thanks to all the usual suspects, and all the new faces we met up with. Many thanks to Alex for sorting out Baldrick, JT, Lucy and Andy Robinson for sorting the rest of The Corby Order out with the Aftershow Passes, we took full advantage of them! NU ORDAH!
You were fucked oot yer heid, no wonder you lost yer flag ya daft get! Though it was good to see yer happy face and the re-untied flag for the Hall Of Fame 
