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Joy Division's technical nightmare at Preston is well known. Interpol played Paris last month and the drummer had to make a quick exit half way through Hands Away to vomit!
Any similar equipment / personnel malfunction ever affect New Order? Or any other band you can think of for that matter...
New Order at the State in Liverpool March 23rd 1983.
Lot's of technical problems, with Barney apologising for them, then when people were shouting out for certain songs he got all stroppy and said if you shout it we won't play it.
Where to start? Most 82 shows (very unreliable sequencers), Sobell 85 is a classic one, JD Erics 79, New Order Chicago 83 (where the sequencers failed halfway through the set, and they'd already played the guitar songs), New Order Denver 87 (sequencers failed after 8 of 12 in the set). Literally dozens of equipment problems, but the best one of all was Washington 83.
Hooky disappeared before the gig. They took to the stage without him, but with Rob as mysterious 4th member. The only song they could play realistically without bass was IALP, with Rob on cymbals. Hooky turned up at the end of it, jumped on stage with an "alright shitheads", and began Ultraviolence!
Three non-NO incidents:
THE POPGUNS at The Richmond, Brighton - ex-Weddoes drummer (and lifelong Albion fan) Shaun Charman was banging the sticks so hard that one of them splintered and an inch long shard shot into his eye. Like Ben Johnson off the blocks, he leapt from behind his kit, off the stage and into the toilets with his bandmates and the crowd wondering what the hell had happened. After a short pause, he returned to finish the set and later gave me the offending drumstick, which I've still got!
POP WILL EAT ITSELF at Stanmer Park, Brighton - about half a song into their set at The Essential Festival their equipment just refused to play anymore. After several attempts to get it sorted out they decided that they'd have to abort the show but promised to come back later in the year and play another gig just for us. They kept their word with a one-off at The Hewison Hall, a small room off the main hall at the Brighton Centre.
NED'S ATOMIC DUSTBIN at The Guildhall, Portsmouth - shortly after starting the final encore (the excellent Titch) some joker in the crowd decided he was going to climb the speaker stack at the left hand side of the stage. Half way up he, and everyone else, realised that it was beginning to lean alarming towards the crowd and fearing a major catastrophe the band stopped playing. Thankfully, he jumped off and the stack corrected itself - the knobhead was carted away and we were treated to the awesome intro to Titch all over again.
Still dredging the memory for others...!!!
Chris :)
Originally posted by oldmonkey New Order Chicago 83
Not sure if it was this one, but I do believe I read in an interview somewhere Barney and Gillian talking about sequencers, Gillian says something along the lines of backing up the sequencers with other sequencers, then backing the back up sequencers with more sequencers....to which Barney said something like...."One night in Chicago I was let down by 17 different pieces of equipment" 
Another famous one closer to home, Hultsfred 2002, namely Crystal and 60mph where they carried on without Hooky's bass.
Originally posted by PAUL TROWELL Mid gig disturbances. What about the big scraps at Macclesfield and Preston
And Portsmouth, Salford Uni, Malvern (though not as bad), fleetingly at Oxford.....
Originally posted by oldmonkey > Originally posted by PAUL TROWELL> Mid gig disturbances. What about the big scraps at Macclesfield and Preston
And Portsmouth, Salford Uni, Malvern (though not as bad), fleetingly at Oxford.....
Ah, but the band played on...
I remember another, The Smiths at Portsmouth Guildhall '83. Someone gobbed at Morrissey. "People don't do that where we come from" he said, and left the stage. Johnny Marr went with him, but Joyce and Rourke stayed looking a little bemused. This great act of defiance lasted a whole ten seconds before everyone was back on stage again.
More from Preston, but this time NO in 1985, someone threw a pint over hooky, he called them a sheep shagging bastard, but carried on playing. About a year later, the Smiths were playing their opening song, someone threw a 50p coin, (pentagonal shape for all non English) cutting open Morrisy's head,(first time he'd seen any blood probably), the band walked off not to return, short gig that one!
