Saturday, 5 June 1993

The posters of Peace Together were everywhere in the city of Dublin. 3 groups came on before NO and Liam (Hothouse Flowers)+ friends came on after them. I saw Barney's playing his guitar very carefully and am happy he'd tried to dance but wondered how he learned that chopping action... The Festival started at 7pm and ended around 1am, although most of NO fans (at least half of them seemed MU fans as well) had left before Liam appeared was such a shame. But don't blame them because NO was brought only to bring people from UK and we were happy. Peace.

This was New Order 'headlining' a concert for peace in Northern Ireland - which meant that they went on at normal headline time - got to play for twice as long as anyone else - & then other bands came on after them again as the gig went into the early hours. As their first gig for the Republic tour it was surprising how tight they sounded - very few of their normal mistakes. Barney (& Hooky) danced like they had been taught by the karate Kid - all standing on one leg with their arms in the air. I had a little pity for the bands who came after NO as more than half of the 7,000 crowd left once their set finished. Other than NO the best band on the night would have been Something Happens, who had the crowd bopping - but NO literally blew them all away.