Saturday, 24 July 1993

New Order opened with Regret, through the darkness of the night. The song started with the intro 2 (6-8 bars) phrases of Bernie's guitar then 3-2-1 blast off into the first verse with about 1000 bright white lights surrounding the stage and on que. It was f-ing spectacular. It made The The and 808 State seem like sets at the local cafe open mic (no offense Matt, really). Bernie was in rare form that night soloing on the piano and at times looking like he was just about to perform a stage dive. It was truly bloody wonderful. I think the author of the previous post focused to much on Mr. Hook whom is never happy on stage (especially if the sound is f-ed). Thanks for a great and inspired evening. D.

I went to the Shoreline show, which had 808 State and The The opening. My friend and I sat somewhere to the center right of Shoreline, not really great seats. People there were speculating whether Johnny Marr would be playing with the The The, but we were too far back to really tell anyway.

When 808 State first came on, you could tell who all of their fans were; they were the ones doing the "standing still pogo"! They played a great set, even though hardly anyone was there yet, and it was still clear daylight outside. "Cubik" brought a tremendous reaction.

I don't remember much about The The, except they had technical difficulties and cut their set short at the 5th or 6th song.

New Order's set was the same throughout the Republic North American tour, opening with Ruined in a Day, Regret, Dream Attack. I remember absolutely loving Dream Attack and Round & round. The band wasn't being all that chummy with each other, and weren't being all that friendly with their fans either, but not antagonistic either. You somehow get the sense that the show was rather routine to them, which felt sad at the time. The songs were great, but no sense of promise of more. They closed their set with Perfect Kiss, which was truncated b/c it didn't have the intro congas and Hooky bass slaps, and then came out with the encore of Fine Time and Blue Monday, and then that was it. That was the end of the show, end of the sequence, press stop, and rewind for the next show at the Hollywood Bowl. It felt that routine.

Don't get me wrong... fans did love the songs and the light display and seeing New Order, but New Order weren't being interesting at all.