Thu: 05-19-05 Live: New Order Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, NY: 5 May 2005 Story by Amy Phillips It took about 10 seconds after singer/guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook, drummer Stephen Morris, and newbie guitarist/keyboardist Phil Cunningham walked on stage at the sold-out Hammerstein Ballroom in midtown Manhattan two weeks ago for me to realize something surprising:
New Order are fun.
No, it was more than surprising. It was like simultaneously discovering that my dad is a wizard and my mom is a superhero. After all these years of flatlined grooves, austere artwork and Ian-Curtis-died-for-your-sins doom and gloom, I expected an evening of dour, faithful recitations with little fanfare or movement but lots of darkness and smoke machines.
Well, I was right about the smoke machines. Hook positioned himself right in front of one, letting it blow his long blonde hair back romance-novel-style. With his gray wifebeater, copious tattoos, and leering grin, he reminded me more of a creepy dive bar bouncer than the bassist in the most revered post-punk band of all time. Sumner, too, was all smiles, looking like a soccer dad going to the office on casual Friday as he strapped on his guitar. Then he picked up a melodica.
I guess I'd always known that those dinky notes heralding the start of "Love Vigilantes" came courtesy of that goofy little instrument, but the sight of Sumner huffing and puffing away to kick off his group's first New York performance in over ten years was equilibrium-altering nonetheless. Blue lights flashed, smoke billowed, Hook struck rock-god poses, Sumner awkwardly hopped up and down, and any notions of New Order as some sort of historical museum piece were smashed to bits.
It was a living, breathing rock and roll band up there, irreverently tearing through their back catalogue and celebrating songs from their comeback albums, 2001's Get Ready and this year's Waiting for the Sirens' Call. Favorites such as "True Faith," "Temptation", and "Bizarre Love Triangle" were gleefully delivered as the danceable, populist pop songs they truly are, with Sumner interjecting incongruous "WHOO"s and "YEAH"s throughout. (I'm also pretty sure I heard him shout "BLACK POWER!" at the end of "Regret." WTF?) The canned beats and piped-in diva backing vocals on newer tunes such as "Crystal" and "Krafty" sizzled with extra cheesiness, and Ana Matronic from the Scissor Sisters took the stage to add lusty moans to latest single "Jetstream." Show-closer "Blue Monday" exploded with a sample of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head' and enough strobe lights and industrial menace (courtesy of Hook's primeval pounding on a drum pad) to rival an Orgy c! oncert.
But at no time did New Order piss on their legend more than in their renditions of four Joy Division classics. "Transmission", "Love Will Tear Us Apart", "She's Lost Control", and Atmosphere" were stripped of all proto-goth melancholy and transformed into zippy crowd-pleasers. "This is a good old-fashioned sing-along," Sumner announced before "Love Will Tear Us Apart", and indeed it was, complete with much hand-clapping and shoulder-hugging from the sold-out audience. "Love, love will tear us apart again. YEAH!" Sumner shouted, as I watched two dressed-down Wall Street types clink their plastic beer cups in a toast.
Yes, it was all quite disconcerting, but in a good way. Knee-jerk deference to the canon is for purists I wouldn't want to party with anyway. And neither would New Order.
