Livid in the past.

Let me ask you this...is the reason groups record songs so we can buy them and keep them and listen to them whenever we want? I think so. So why does New Order continue to play Blue Monday, True Faith, Bizarre Love Triangle, Temptation, etc, at every concert?

The Finsbury Park dvd was great, New Order has never sounded better live. And this complaint does not include the playing of Joy Division songs because they did not get a fair amount of play as the band was tragically cut short. However, why does every concert have to be "The best of new order of the last 20 some years?" They have 10 songs on "Get Ready" plus Player in the League, Brutal, Behind Closed Doors, Sabotage, and Here to Stay. Also, a few songs from Republic as that was their last album previous to Get Ready.

I am not saying Depeche Mode is better than New Order but they have their act together and I think its the reason they fill stadiums the way they do. That is, because apart from the odd older song thrown in once in a while they treat their new non-single songs as if they were just as good as the stuff they recorded 20 years ago. I love the old songs, I listen to them all the time...probably why I don't need to go to a New Order concert today.

Honestly, when I compare One Night in Paris to Finsbury Park its like night and day. Sure I love them both but my God I wish New Order would stop running a song museum.

Love em to death though...always will.

welcome jackson....unfortunately, this argument has been beaten into the earth spawning countless threads like "What is your ideal setlist" and "What songs should newOrder drop from the live set" and "What song would you like to see added" and many, many more...

Yes it sucks but will it change.?...Barely if at all so curse the fact that you weren't in the UK in the mid eighties when the band were at their peak creatively and the setlist changed nightly...oh well.

I guess the subject has been blathered on about but I was moreso making a point on the direction of New Order today (and beyond) from an average slob's point of view. Not so much a fantasy setlist which I have piped up a few times among friends imaginary and/or drunk enough to hear me out.

i see. i really enjoy Get Ready and thought the band sounded fantastic during the most recent dates. the set list is boring but...BUT they are still making great music and it's an altogether different experience in the crowd than on the couch. i have been know to complain about the band a few times but in the end we're lucky to still have neworder making great tunes and giving the fans a show.

now about that fantasy set list just one more time.....

1. Elegia
2. Crystal
3. Sub-Culture
4. Primitive Notion
5. Sunrise
6. Leave Me Alone
7. Regret
8. True Faith (original)
9. Vicious Streak
10. EGG/Temptaion/586

11. Love Vigilantes
12. Here To Stay

*subject to change

New Order have always played what they wanted to (so they said anyway), hence the sets in the early 80s with often half a dozen unrecorded tracks in a set of ten. These days, it is more to do with laziness and this misguided belief that the people want to hear BLT, Blue Monday etc. I think their heads were turned by the US market insisting on Blue Monday every other song in the set every gig.

Blue Monday was is and always will be their "trump card" and 99.99% of people that have heard of NewOrder around the world associate them primarily with this song before any other song they have recorded. - thats primarily why they have played it live and generally saved it for the encore so often down the years...

Originally posted by DoN Blue Monday was is and always will be their "trump card" and 99.99% of people that have heard of NewOrder around the world associate them primarily with this song before any other song they have recorded. - thats primarily why they have played it live and generally saved it for the encore so often down the years...

And why they vow to hate it and always complain about "having" to play it !! The truth is that they love it, as it's 7 minutes off for everyone but Hooky.

Some of it is to please the fans (they think); they're clearly sick to death of Blue Monday and have been for some time. I say skip it and see if you get another riot.

Some of it is logistics - they can't do the grab bag setlist any more because the catalog is so huge and the setups for (some of) the songs so complex they were killing their road crew and programmers.

Some of it is probably laziness - it's a lot of work staying acceptably tight on the songs, so why change them around? To put it more favorably, they sound like they're more concerned about their performance than they used to be.

Some of the songs they simply can't play live (or not very well), like Everyone Everywhere (the chords make Barn's hands hurt) or Rock the Shack (or was it Slow Jam they screwed up?).

As for new stuff vs. old stuff, some of the new stuff is better than some of the old stuff, but I think Primitive Notion is the only GR track I haven't heard live but would really like to. Republic I don't miss a bit. It'd be nice to resurrect some of the less-played (or less-recently-played) fan favorites, though.

Or maybe they're afraid the youngsters won't recognize anything but the big hits.

Depeche Mode's shows were always *very* polished compared to NO, too polished if you ask me. I don't care for their new stuff at all, though, they seem to have lost the concept of melody.

There's a funny story in the Retro liner notes about the origin of Blue Monday (and why it's so often played as an encore). God only knows if it's true though.

Like it or not aside from the hardcore few at a gig the majority of people at gigs - (middle to back) go wild when Barney announces Blue Monday, i'd personally much rather hear them play a setlist of relativly obscure album tracks but thats another story...

I like the OLD ones.So they play em to suit the ROCKET!:D One day they will play NOVELTY and i will be the HAPPIEST MAN alive.

as they are touring less and less then the old songs need more airing as its what people want - i dont see why they couldnt work out two different set lists & alternate - shouldnt take that much more programming

sure you want to hear the new songs live but playing mostly new stuff at gigs is more about promoting the new stuff so people go out & buy it, with a little bit of it being more interesting for the band to play stuff theyve not toured before

i personally dont think new order are like that, theyve always done what they wanted & never played the game conventionally

they drop old favourites all the time - eg ceremony was omitted on the uk leg of the comeback & only resurected after the states bit due to constant requests from certain people on this site

The randomness of their mid-80s sets was what made following New Order around the UK on one of their mini-tours so great - you never got the same setlist twice.

My heart sinks a little when you compare the 2001/2 dates and see that, bar a few swaps, the setlist remains constant.

I accept that they no longer have banks and banks of synths and sequencers and reverb units, but the Roland XP80 is a powerful enough workstation to cope with being loaded up with a whole load of programs (although admittedly not the whole back catalogue !).

Phil will clearly only have rehearsed a set number of tunes with the band, which in my humble opinion restricts that spontaneity that was always so special about New Order (eg, let's do a Confusion encore...oh bugger the sequencer needs programming...well let's do it anyway and keep the fans waiting for five minutes while it loads up - see Glasgow Tiffany's 14/4/83).

It would be nice to see a few more golden oldies resurrected (Age of Consent - easy enough to play, Perfect Kiss - a bit trickier, some of the other Lowlife tracks), I agree. It's become a bit too formulaic and "greatest hits"-ish, I agree, but then the band have been going for a while now !

I would faint if they played something like 5-8-6 now : in the mid-80s it was a staple member of the setlist.

D'oh, double post :stupid:

Personally I can't see them changing that much now, they've done the hard graft in the 80s. I'll settle for a the odd surprise (EGG, AOC etc) but don't expect them to play the Village or 586 as they will sound too dated. I would rather they drop TBHG which sounds a mess live IMHO. Next time they come round I expect one or two JD tracks (Decades anyone?) to be incorporated and maybe AOC plus some new material. Just as long as they don't drop Temptation!!

Depeche Mode?!!! Threads about Erasure?!!! I know I keep bangin on about this but please. Gis a break!

As I think someone mentioned on here before there was a very funny short letter written into the NME last year that went a little something like this :

"Depeche Mode? Why are they still about? If I want to listen to shite New Order B-sides I'll put on the second disc of Substance"

Made me laugh anyway.

Originally posted by Hibster as they are touring less and less then the old songs need more airing as its what people want - i dont see why they couldnt work out two different set lists & alternate - shouldnt take that much more programmingsure you want to hear the new songs live but playing mostly new stuff at gigs is more about promoting the new stuff so people go out & buy it, with a little bit of it being more interesting for the band to play stuff theyve not toured beforei personally dont think new order are like that, theyve always done what they wanted & never played the game conventionallythey drop old favourites all the time - eg ceremony was omitted on the uk leg of the comeback & only resurected after the states bit due to constant requests from certain people on this site

It was also probably our banging on about the set that got Love Vigilantes as the opener at Old Trafford !

We've had all the old excuses about the need to reprogram tracks time and time again, the fact that technology has moved on and they have left whole chunks of the back catalogue behind. It's not that difficult to relearn predominantly guitar songs such as Age of Consent, Sunrise, Leave Me Alone etc. They simply don't care anymore, they know we will turn up regardless.

I agree that they should work out around 25 different songs and mix it up a bit from night to night - identical sets (no, I don't count leaving out RTS one night) at Brixton over three nights was a disgrace.

Days when you really didn't know what would be first - how I wish you were with me now.....