Thursday, 2 August 2001

I just saw the Vancouver show last night. It was excellent. I've been a big New Order fan since the mid-80's, but only saw them live for the first time last night.

The set list in sequence (but I am starting to doubt my memory!!) Atmosphere Regret Crystal Your Silent Face Turn My Way Bizare Love Triangle Touched by The Hand of God Love Will Tear Us Apart Temptaion 60 mph Blue Monday

The played for exactly one hour and it was a *great* show. (The Roots before them started 25 minutes late, and that 25 min delay bumped their start time back 20 min from 5:05pm to 5:25pm)

When they first came on stage, Hooky said something about " ... this being a big headache ..", but I'm not sure what he was talking about. He had his usual "I'm bored" expression whenever he wasn't playing bass. But man could he play when he did! He did his usual low-slung bass / crotch movement routine.

Bernard introduced " ... and the scummiest man in rock... Stephen Morris". It was one of the few time Stephen even looked at the audience and smiled, but I know that's his style.

It was a typical rainy day in Vancouver, with showers on and off.
Temp was about 18 to 20C During most of New Orders' set, the rain stopped, causing Bernard to say "We're from England, we like the rain like you ... not that you have any bloody choice."

I was about 50 to 60 feet back on the floor, dead centre (so I couldn't see much of Stephen Morris as he was centred behind Bernard). The sound was excellent. Lighting was minimal as it was still daylight. The smoke machine kicked in a few time; more of an annoyance than anything. Billy Corgan didn't seem to a big influence on their sound or on-stage style.

The crowd I was near only had a few people who were familiar with New Order. You could see the smiles on their faces and then singing along. The crowd only really responded to BLT, Temptation and Blue Monday. Maybe the real die hards were closer to the stage or in the covered grandstand.

When someone screamed out for them to play Ceremony, Bernard said "Cermony sucks. We want you to buy Crystal and not Ceremony, so we're going to play Crystal". I'm sure that's his usual on-stage attitude.

It was well worth the $64CDN ($55/ticket + $9 in service charges from the evil tickemaster) I paid, and Moby and the DJ Tent were great bonuses!

• Jim Jones in Vancouver

It was shite weather for the entire show in Vancouver today. It rained and was like 14 degrees. The entire show was pretty good, but I thought that the Roots were a little weak. Outkast was decent and Moby was very good.

New Order played a similiar set list to San Fransisco, except for no True Faith - which was just about unbearable to leave that one out. Very few people seemed to know the new stuff (understandable), but they drew a very respectable crowd in the open area. Tracks seemed good and solid, sounded full - like a proper band. Hooky was prowling and Barney was very much into it. I heard a lot of people comment on Morris's excellent drumming. Temptation was the highlight for the energy level.

Billy was somewhat subdued/uninterested throughout most of the gig. I thought he looked ill. I think that if it had been a different venue, at night, the show would have had more kick. Not musically mind you, just some effects - lights and lasers. The pictures I've seen from the other shows like Liverpool and Fuji seem far more jazzy. When I saw them in Toronto for the Republic tour, they had a much better stage light show.

A good show, but really, it was Moby's show overall. He rocked the crowd into a frenzy. They went bananas. I know thats not New Order's thing, but on this day, they were definitely not the main act. If they did a little more stage prep, I think it would really add to their show.

Cosmo

It was great! I have seen them three times previously (once in Toronto during the Republic tour in 1992, and twice more in the U.K. during Recycle in 1998. I still can’t believe that after having travelled so far to see them in the past, they would happen to come to Vancouver, where I now live.

They came on a bit earlier than I expected, at about 5:30. The crowd was friendly, laid back, polite, not overly rowdy. Much less crazy then the scene New Year’s Eve in London in 1998. Although the crowd lacked a bit of energy, the plus side was that it was nice to get up close without getting jostled or trampled.

Here is their set list; I am pretty sure about the songs, but the order may not be quite right:

1. Atmosphere
2. Crystal
3. Regret
4. Turn My Way
5. Your Silent Face
6. Bizarre Love Triangle
7. Touched By The Hand of God
8. Temptation
9. Love Will Tear Us Apart
10. 60 mph
11. Blue Monday

(same songs as in San Francisco, except that they omitted True Faith)

Here are my thoughts on the concert:

They sounded great! Barney was in fine form, enthousiastic, bantering with the audience between songs. He seemed to be having a great time. He didn’t seem to mind that the crowd was somewhat quiet. Hooky looked somewhat tired, like he just got out of bed or something. I think he was still suffering from that Japanese flu virus. Nonetheless, he was still great, with his signature style, swashbuckling bass-pirate that he is.

Barney introduced Steve as "the most obnoxious man in the music business", obviously very facetiously.

Billy Corgan seemed to add a nice dimension, he stayed (appropriately) low-key, playing back-up guitar for the most part, except for singing on "Turn My Way".

I thought all the songs were great, except perhaps "Turn My Way" was a bit so-so. Crystal was quite good. 60 mph was a pleasant surprise, lots of energy to it.

I am not sure who the other back-up guitarist was (?Vulture or something like that). He also did some keyboards on some songs, basically taking Gillian’s place. He seemed to play pretty well.

The in-between song banter was at times quite funny. Early on, Hooky said: "Hey Billy, I see your sister over here!"

Barney heard a guy yell out a request (for I think Ceremony), and said, "sure just for you, we’ll play it, yeah right!" Then asked him ("the guy with the yellow and blue sweater") what his name was, then said "I feel like I’ve known you all my life". The way he said it was quite funny, but you had to be there.

Luckily there was very little rain during most of the set. It started to rain again a bit towards the end. (Later, it rained fairly heavy for Outcast – ha-ha :-). Barney commented that he liked the rain, reminds him of England.

Hooky made a big gaffe, but apologized quite sincerely. He made a comment about it being slippery up on stage (it wasn’t really). The crowd reacted appropriately to the suggestive comment, so Hooky said "You Americans are all the same…". The crowd protested quite appropriately with a loud "Hey!!!" (We Canadians do not like being confused for Americans). The look on Hooky’s face, you could tell that he was embarrassed for having inadvertently insulted our national pride. He asked for forgiveness, and dug himself a bit deeper by saying that he will forgive us. Barney rescued him by cutting in, saying "Don’t listen to what he says, listen to me, I am the voice of truth, and this is Temptation!" It came across as facetious, not pompous. Again you had to be there.

Barney later introduced Love Will Tear us Apart by saying it was the first time playing it in Canada, with a bit of extra emphasis on "Canada" to make up for Hooky’s gaffe.

Temptation was great as always, Regret also was amazing. Blue Monday and BLT came across also very well. I was amazed at how great they sounded. They sounded even better than on the Reading 98 CD/DVD, despite the crowd not being as energetic. I wish they could have played longer, but I knew to expect a short set (because of the word from the San Fran show). I would have loved to hear "Ceremony" and "True Faith" especially, and some Technique stuff too would have been good. (Of course, in an ideal world, they would have played for 3 hours!)

Overall: excellent! It was all about the music, no other bullshit, which is what I admire about New Order.

See you all tomorrow night at the Gorge!

Rob

Area: One in full-on rave mode

Choosing between DJ sets and live acts proves to be a fun exercise in trying to have your cake and eat it too

Kerry Gold Vancouver Sun

The rain may have dampened the 12,000 or so bodies in attendance, but it couldn't drown out Area:One, which was basically a marathon dance party that stayed in high gear at Thunderbird Stadium.

The summer festival, brainchild of electronic artist Moby, turned out to be two concerts in one, and it lasted for eight hours. Inside the stadium, Rinocerose, the Roots, New Order, Outkast and Moby played 40- to 90-minute sets on the main stage. Outside the stadium, high-calibre DJs Juan Atkins, Timo Maas, the Orb and -- the biggest draw of all -- Paul Oakenfold held court in a tent that swelled beyond its capacity of about 3,500.

France's Rinocerose started things off at close to 3 p.m., too early to enjoy the throng that dribbled in and finally filled the place by 5 p.m. The five-piece band rocked out on electric guitars against taped layers so attuned to the spirit of vintage disco, the atmosphere begged for a light show and dance floor, as opposed to raingear and tarp carpet. In keeping with the theme of the day, the bass was propulsive enough to drive your liver up against your lungs.

Word had it that most members of the Roots got stuck in traffic, which delayed the show and ultimately cut their set short by about 15 minutes. The human beat box that is Rahzel got to the stage first and kept the crowd occupied with a 20-minute set of his amazing vocal skills, once again making impossibly real scratching and live instrument sounds with only his mouth. By the time rapper Black Thought showed up and joined the stage, the Roots dove straight into its soulful rap -- too short, but sweet all the same.

The men who helped start it all, New Order, brought things full circle with a highlight set studded with the new guitar-driven material off their upcoming album, including Turn My Way, on which Billy Corgan sings harmony. Frontman Bernard Sumner included a hefty amount of retro fare, returning to the synthesizers and giving Corgan little to do off in his corner of the stage. Actually, Corgan didn't contribute much in the way of performance, dressed sedately in big black hat and clothes, and seemingly devoted to making as little of an impression as possible. The old, familiar beat was back on songs like Love Will Tear Us Apart, dry ice escaping over the stage and military drum-machine riffs charging from the speakers, transforming the atmosphere into an '80s disco at the peak of that period's cool.

Claustrophobics would have lost it in the DJ tent, where a gridlock of sweaty bodies made moving, never mind dancing, impossible. Onstage, the foggy silhouettes of programming duo the Orb composed a dense soundscape artier than preceding DJs Atkins and Timo Maas, whose similar techno and house styles were geared toward dance more than observation. Mind you, the tent was comfortably spacious during their earlier sets. When Atkins and Maas played, the tent was truly in rave mode, people dancing beneath video screens and lights, others sitting cross-legged on the grass floor. It was a more enjoyable atmosphere that didn't last. After all, raves are about having extreme amounts of fun, not suffering heat exhaustion.

While the party raged on at the DJ tent, hip hop's fun boys Dre and Big Boi of Outkast brought the main stage crowd to a roiling, partying boil of its own with infectiously boisterous songs like Ms. Jackson and Bombs Over Baghdad. With the most elaborate set of the day behind them (what appeared to appropriately be the throat of a tornado), the outrageous rappers caused the stir they've been raising consistently on this tour -- basically hijacking the entire event with their self-deprecating good humour and brazen brand of theatrics, and warped-speed combination of swaggering rap, soulful balladry, gospel inspired rhythms, Broadway production and moves to rival James Brown. The large crew was backed by a couple of female back up singers, and a mob that included power-chord guitars and clothes straight out of Lil' Kim's wardrobe (worn by the men).

The most difficult part of the day was trying to divide time between Outkast and Oakenfold and then Moby and Oakenfold, whose conflicting sets made it a frustrating choice. For his part, the always hyper Moby continued with his electro-acoustic soul ballads and rock compositions from Play, and fleshed it out with a string section and big-voiced singer Diane Charlemagne. He also paid homage to his early techno days with bursts of older material, winding the day up perfectly, with his personable presence, stellar band and ridiculously infectious material.

If Moby was hoping for a shared experience between the DJ sets and the live acts, he'd attained the exact opposite. Area:One, at least Thunderbird Stadium, proved to be a fun exercise in trying, but failing, to have your cake and eat it too.

And while the tent has been a source of controversy at previous shows on the tour (too many people, too little room inside), Moby's efforts to improve access by opening some of the tent's side panels, would have been a good idea -- unfortunately, it was raining.