This is a good one.
CALL OF THE MILD Sober, safer, but still sensational – Chris Condron on New Order – The Eye – June 19
Something is wrong at the New Order soundcheck. “Hold it, hold it!” shouts the bassist, Peter “Hooky” Hook, halting the unmistakable New Order sound that had been soaring across the empty arena towards the industrial estate at the edge of the Primvera Sound festival site in Barcelona. “ I was playing the wrong song and you lot didn’t notice,” he giggles. “Let’s face it, though, they all sound the f****** same!” The lead singer, Bernard Sumner, is also laughing, despite a foot injury that he picked up in San Fransico. With an NME-ascribed “God-like genius” state, a summer of eagerly anticipated shows and, as Sumner describes it, a new album – Waiting for the Siren’s Call – that “sounds more like New Order”, the bolshiest band on the block are in fine fettle. And here in Spain, they’re warming up for a trio of festival appearances back home. “Things are good the moment,” says Sumner, “because we’re doing things in a sensible way. We’re sober. I think we were drunk for most of the first 18 years, or inebriated in some way.” The old New Order could be a mind-blowing live experience or, occasionally, more out of it than the audience. So what of the new New Order? Has relative sobriety blunted their live edge? “Viva Espana! Sorry we’ve been away,” Sumner tells the 30,000 crowd of trendy Spanish pop kids and New Order nostalgics. Crystal, the one piece of pure New Order pop on their guitar-driven 2001 album Get Ready, sends the crowd into a frenzy, chiming piano samples drifting into the still night air as Sumner and the band’s new guitarist, Phil Cunningham, crank up the amps. Blond hair now flecked with grey, Sumner still has the voice of a fallen angel and the face of a naughty choir-boy, while Hooky’s trademark low-slung bass now hangs lower than a builder’s trousers as he sweeps across the stage to the crowd’s delight. The tracks from Sirens are received well, if not ecstatically, but everything explodes when Steven Morris dusts off his disco drums and Sumner says: “We’re going to play some tunes now, because we’re whores.” Bizarre Love Triangle gets Sumner dancing round the stage like an old uncle at a wedding, as though his brain remembers exactly what he should be doing but has got the hump and refuses to tell his body. True Faith, a caustic I Will Survive for the indie-dance generation, sounds as fresh and perfect a piece of pop as the day if was first aired at Glastonbury in 1987. Packing more punch than Ricky Hatton, Morris drives the band on through the Joy Division classics Transmission and Love Will Tear Us Apart, as arms reach for the stars and a glimpse of love turned sour turns into an irresistible look-into-your-mates’-eyes-and-tell-‘em-you-love-‘em sing-along. The unmistakable drum sample intro of Blue Monday, a song older than most of the audience but still dirty and uplifting, kicks off the encore, sending the crowd into electro-pop ecstasy. New Order’s place on festival line-ups packed with 1980s-inspired acts will have today’s downloaders marvelling at their heroes’ heroes, while the rest of us dust off our old 12in records. The highs might not be quite as high, and the chaos has been replace by calm, but the new and reliable New Order are hitting all the right notes.
