Joy Division mystery gig ?

I've just been sent a scan of a set-list, in Ian's handwriting, of a gig presumably late 78-early 79. The set-list is

Soundtrack new one Shadowplay Leaders of Men Wilderness Digital The Kill Ice Age Warsaw Walked in Line Transmission

encore (tracks written on in different coloured pen) Glass Sister Ray

This "soundtrack" featured on a March 79 set, and nobody seemed to know if it was a song or some music that opened the set. I think it is likely that it could be I Remember Nothing, given the fairly limited repertoire that the band had at this stage. There's no tape, sadly.

I'll upload the scan to my webspace and add it under here later this evening.

could've also been a very early version on "Love Vigilantes"...

Yeah Tim, I got a scan of this too, the encore handwriting's a bit iffy, not sure if it was written by IC, but the main set (in black) seems to resemble his script...

Originally posted by Atrocity Exhibit Yeah Tim, I got a scan of this too, the encore handwriting's a bit iffy, not sure if it was written by IC, but the main set (in black) seems to resemble his script...

Glass is definitely him, and it looks as though Sister Ray may have been him added later. Basic structure of the letter T is the same.

Originally posted by Ricardo > Originally posted by Known Pleasures This "soundtrack" featured on a March 79 set, and nobody seemed to know if it was a song or some music that opened the set.

Maybe it was the "Nosferatu" soundtrack opening the gig just like they did in the second night at Rainbow.

I can upload the setlist right now, send it to my e-mail if you want.

Doubt if it was that, but it is a possibility. I'll e-mail you the scan now.

I didn't think Nosferatu was released that early in '79 (but I can't remember for sure). If 'Soundtrack' is a song then that would make this an 11 song set - very unusual for Joy Division!

Originally posted by Philip Collins If 'Soundtrack' is a song then that would make this an 11 song set - very unusual for Joy Division!

True enough - I think there may be one or two though.

I think the Electric Ballroom October '79 set was an 11 song one. According to Mark Johnson's book The Kill was played at Bowdon Vale in May '79 so maybe this set dates from around that time?

Originally posted by Philip Collins I think the Electric Ballroom October '79 set was an 11 song one. According to Mark Johnson's book The Kill was played at Bowdon Vale in May '79 so maybe this set dates from around that time?

He says (and everything in there that isn't proven elsewhere must be taken with a pinch of salt, unfortunately) that the Bowden Vale 23/5/79 gig was one of the few times that they played the Still version of The Kill, and the lights went out when Ian was playing guitar. Wouldn't have thought there were two guitar parts in that one, but there you go !

Originally posted by Known Pleasures I've just been sent a scan of a set-list, in Ian's handwriting, of a gig presumably late 78-early 79. The set-list is

Soundtrack

What a bunch of lazy f#cks... rehashing an old tune like that for the Saville show cd.;)

The only set-list I've ever seen with a song called "new one" on it was the Birmingham "Still" gig - and that was "Ceremony", but this ain't it. Presumably though "new one" was a generic title for anything new that didn't have a proper name yet.

My guess is that "new one" on this is "Dead Souls", if "Soundtrack" is from "Nosferatu".

May '79 is too late for me.

All known titles refer to songs that definitely belong to the 1978 pool of songs (the lyrics to 'Wilderness' are quoted in the run-off groove of FAC 2). We know two set lists of early March '79 (Marquee & Altrincham) which start with She's Lost Control - Shadowplay - Leaders Of Men - Insight (see http://members.aol.com/lwtua/c1979.htm#048 which has a scan of the Marquee setlist). This leads me to suspect that either She's Lost Control or Insight could be the 'new one' (most likely SLC, I would think). If this is correct, the above setlist must predate the first Peel session (Jan 79), where both songs (and also Exercise One) were played. A late '78 date seems most likely to me.

Oh yeah, 'soundtrack' is also mentioned on the Marquee 03/79 setlist.

Would've thought that She's Lost Control was a fairly obvious title - no real need for a generic title there. Disorder on the other hand has no obvious title in the lyrics. However it's introduced as 'Disorder' by Ian at the March Bowdon Vale show so if 'new one' is Disorder then it must pre-date 14/3/79.

Originally posted by Philip Collins Would've thought that She's Lost Control was a fairly obvious title - no real need for a generic title there. Disorder on the other hand has no obvious title in the lyrics. However it's introduced as 'Disorder' by Ian at the March Bowdon Vale show so if 'new one' is Disorder then it must pre-date 14/3/79.

You have a point about the title of She's Lost Control... but you could just as well argue that maybe, when the song was still brand new, Curtis tried to come up with a more oblique title (compare 'Wilderness'), before settling on the obvious one.

Exercise One can confidently be scrapped from the list of candidates, as its title is already mentioned in the Sounds review of the 4/9/78 Band on the Wall gig.

The exclusion of SLC (at least by title) and the inclusion of all 'punky' songs still lead me to think that it must be a pre-Peel I gig (and a very energetic one, too!).

Do you think of selling this setlist at ebay? i bet you would get loads of $$$ for it

A few more thoughts:

• until new evidence shows up, 'I Remember Nothing' was only used as the set opener from September '79 onwards
• I don't think the band ever played a brand new song (i.e., one that didn't have a title yet) second on a show

Hence I'm inclined to think that 'Soundtrack' wasn't a song played by the band. But then again, why would Curtis write it down on the setlist??

I just asummed that 'Soundtrack' on the Marquee, London setlist was refering to the Popul Vuh music in Nosferatu, or it could just have been Ians term for 'setlist'.

by the way, on the YMCA, Prince Of Wales Conference Centre gig 2nd August 1979; did they really play that gregorian chant music (not Nosferatu) during the intro and the extro?, or were they just put in for the bootleg?

Those chants were added by the bootleggers.

And the Popol Vuh 'Nosferatu' soundtrack was released in 1978, so it might be possible that they already used it before the November '79 shows in Hemel Hempstead & London.

My money is on "Soundtrack" being I Remember Nothing, and "new one" being Disorder. I'm pretty sure that this gig is March 79, maybe late Feb 79. The set is virtually the same as the Marquee and Bowden Vale, with just a few slight alterations.

Dead Souls didn't appear until June 79.

Suddenly Hope and Anchor is screaming at me - the journalist source of this set-list lived in Islington !

27/12/78 or 1/3/79? If it weren't for the inclusion of 'Soundtrack', I'd go for the '78 date...

How did you find out about the source??

Originally posted by Known Pleasures Suddenly Hope and Anchor is screaming at me - the journalist source of this set-list lived in Islington !

Hang on a sec! The setlist owner got it 12 years ago and the journo lived in Islington then - he didn't say how long he'd been there before that. The (admittedly unreliable) Mark Johnson book reckons that the band played the same song twice at the second Hope and Anchor show so if (big if!) that's true then the list can't have come from there (unless they changed their minds mid-set!) if (another big if!) it is from a London show.

I'm incredibly impressed that the guy picked up a Sordide Sentimentale for £40 at the same time!

Originally posted by Philip Collins > Originally posted by Known Pleasures Suddenly Hope and Anchor is screaming at me - the journalist source of this set-list lived in Islington !

Hang on a sec! The setlist owner got it 12 years ago and the journo lived in Islington then - he didn't say how long he'd been there before that. The (admittedly unreliable) Mark Johnson book reckons that the band played the same song twice at the second Hope and Anchor show so if (big if!) that's true then the list can't have come from there (unless they changed their minds mid-set!) if (another big if!) it is from a London show.

I'm incredibly impressed that the guy picked up a Sordide Sentimentale for £40 at the same time!

Yeah, I took that into account, but I'm still thinking Feb/early March 79 as being most likely.

I'd heartily concur with an early '79 date for this set - the band didn't play many gigs in the first 3 months of that year so there aren't that many to choose from. If that is the right time frame for this set list then it's interesting to note (well I think it is - maybe no one else does!) that the band appear to have dropped Interzone from their set - it doesn't appear on this one nor on the Marquee or Bowdon Vale lists. Wonder why they went off it but revived it for Unknown Pleasures?

Originally posted by Philip Collins I'd heartily concur with an early '79 date for this set - the band didn't play many gigs in the first 3 months of that year so there aren't that many to choose from. If that is the right time frame for this set list then it's interesting to note (well I think it is - maybe no one else does!) that the band appear to have dropped Interzone from their set - it doesn't appear on this one nor on the Marquee or Bowdon Vale lists. Wonder why they went off it but revived it for Unknown Pleasures?

3 setlists from spring '79 (if the mystery gig is really from that time) are hardly enough to determine whether the band were off any songs or not by that time. And if their interest in 'Interzone' really had dwindled by that time, it was obviously rekindled by the added set of lyrics which Ian Curtis penned in time for the album sessions.

Apart from that, I'm still bothered by the absence of 'She's Lost Control' from the setlist (that is, if it isn't the 'new one'). The band were obviously very proud of this song. That's why I find it hard to believe that it wouldn't have been played in spring '79, certainly in London!

The similarities between this mystery setlist, the Marquee one and the Bowdon Vale gig certainly suggest to me that they all date from around the same time and if the mystery one is from a London gig then there's no other time it can be. The band only played 6 gigs in '79 up to the first one at Bowdon Vale so I'd have thought that the absence of a (comparatively) new song like Interzone while tracks from An Ideal for Living and other older songs like Ice Age and Walked in Line were still being played regularly would suggest that the former had fallen out of favour bearing in mind that they didn't have a huge pool of songs to choose from. As to why there's no SLC on the list, who knows? Maybe Steve's syndrum had packed up that night (after all there's no Insight in the set either!).

Can't explain why She's Lost Control wasn't on this set-list, or Insight or Exercise One, but none of them can have been "new one" if this gig is Feb/March 79 as we suspect. They'd all been played on the Peel session and given names by the band. The similarity to the Marquee and Bowden Vale March 79 sets really is the strongest clue, (as is "Soundtrack") that we are looking at a Feb/March 79 show. My money is still on Hope and Anchor 79 and Disorder as "new one".