Try - but probably fail - to keep this short. The Order take the stage around midnight with no preceding intro, no dance music, no nothing. We just wait in the rain for an hour after the previous band's set watching the roadies (a lot of new faces in there tonight) getting things ready.
Mr Sumner, surely the coolest man in pop tonight in sunnies (he wears these the ENTIRE set) and 3/4l trenchcoat (this finally gets ditched for BLT), promptly FALLS OVER, backwards, flat on his arse, during his first bout of Barn Dancing in the opener, Crystal. This, after he'd introduced said song as being off their new album called, um, he'd, er, forgotten.
Sound problems play havoc with the entire set, one Swedish Sunday listing Regret, Atmos and LWTUA as the worst offenders but the band themselves did an equably good job of butchering 60mph and She's Lost Control. Indeed, during Regret the entire PA fails for half the track but the Order - true professionals that they now undoubtedly are today - carry on without realising anything's amiss off-stage. Eerie moment though for us fans, watching the band go through the motions with the PA totally silenced.
Slightly shortened set tonight with Ceremony & Close Range both culled from the recent gigs - gutted about the former, quite pleased the latter's gone AWOL. Oh, and watch out for Barney's new 'lassoo-spinning' routine during the 'round & round' line in Brutal. Classic. Actually, the Barnster was on one tonight saying the Swedes shouldn't mind that it was 'pissing down' (it rained throughout the entire day) cos they all appeared to [ahem] like pissing on each other in the Swedish videos he'd seen. And tonight BLT was allegedly about when Hooky and Phil met Bid Daddy in jail. Big Daddy, tonight, being Roger Lyons, standing in the wings.
This weeks' Stash Stakes were a sweep on the first mention of 'Sven Goran Eriksson' by Barney. Being 11 of us over for this one we only listed the first expected 11 tracks in the set and although Barney spent half the gig banging on about football he only ever alluded to 'our Swedish manager' and we had to wait for the encore, World in Motion (Damon rapped again), before he actually mentioned Mr Eriksson by name. Saturday's Stash Stakes in Germany will be for the first mention of David Beckham (about 5 or 6 songs in at Hultsfred, I think?).
Best track of the night, audience reaction wise, was always gonna be Blue Monday, with LWTUA a close 2nd. If I had to plump for a 3rd place it'd probs go to World In Motion! All those Scandies, singing for England!
The Swedish Sundays we saw gave the Order 2 out of 5, a 3 out of 5, then a 3rd said they 'saved the festival'. One review listed the attendance as 15k though not sure where they got that figure as the festival itself boasted at least double that number, whilst probably only less than 10k actually bothered with the Order. Certainly no crush of any sort down the front. The pre-printed setlist promised Digital/BM/WIM for the encore, but instead we got BM/WIM/KW1, the last track finding Hooky either dangling his legs from the stage, or lying on his back with legs raised in a dead fly stance.
Good gig all in all, though not quite Paris or Finsbree. Cracking weekend away for the banter and beer though - just a shame I've had to be in the office so early cos I didn't make it through the door till 3am this morning.
Oh, and one final thing; it was actually getting LIGHT when the band finally left us close on 2am! Ah, so that's why Barney was wearing those sunglasses!
[Disclaimer: Right, am gonna shamelessly go and cut&paste this to any other forums where people might take an interest. Has there been an amnesty in my absence as Sloppy appears to have posted on a couple of threads further down!]
Top class reporting from you Jarvo........nice
Amnesty not sorted out yet!!