Sunday, 9 June 2002

The omens are not good. The Cooper Temple Clause, a Chris Martin-assisted Echo And The Bunnymen, Super Furries and Air have struggled manfully to cope with a day of swirling wind and driving rain, rendering the atmosphere before New Order take the stage for their biggest gig in years disappointingly flat.

Then suddenly the sun comes out, Bernard Sumner belts out 'Crystal's pounding central riff and it's like the last five hours never happened. They then go on to effortlessly knock out a set which, while including a couple of tracks off last year's so-so comeback effort 'Get Ready', is wisely dominated by a raft of electro classics ('True Faith', 'Blue Monday', a gorgeous 'Bizarre Love Triangle').

But, perversely, the biggest audience cheers (save for a predictable encore run through footie rabble rouser 'World In Motion') are for the clutch of Joy Division songs smattered throughout the set. It's particularly peculiar to see grown men singing along to every word of 'She's Lost Control', Ian Curtis' still-harrowing depiction of an epileptic. And 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' has been elevated from its tear-jerking monochrome introspection into a communal sing-along understanding of the vagaries of romance.

Mournful, hedonistic, poignant and life affirming, New Order are everything a great pop group should be. Tonight's performance is justification enough for their continued presence after 25 years of death, illness, drugs and fighting. They stopped the rain, but it didn't matter. Everyone is walking on air anyway.

Alan Woodhouse

It was raining most of the day and so it was very muddy. We got there about 5pm while Echo and the Bunnyman played (pretty boring but did 'Roadhouse Blues' by the Doors!). It was my 21st birthday so I got drunk while Super Furry Animals played. Finally french synth gods Air played a really weird set and to be honest was quite bad. The rain didn't help but just couldn't get into it.

     New Order came on about 8.15pm and Barney thanked everyone for 

daring the weather, although he said if it was him he'd of been watching TV at home! 'Crystal' opened the set and straight away everyone was jumping about and singing! The set was the same as the Paris gig, although 'Rock the Shack' was replaced by 'World in Motion' (to the delight of the World Cup faithful!). After this Barney gave the option of 'Rock the Shack' or 'Blue Monday' which was no contest!!! The Joy Division songs went down rather well, John Simm (from 24 Hour Party People) joined them on stage for an encore of 'Digital'. I was annoyed because I went to the toilet during 'Close Range' and missed most of 'She's Lost Control'!!! The only downer, apart from the rain, was that it was all over by ten.

New Order put most other bands to shame and the the energy in their live performances make them seem like a new group, not a one formed more than twenty years ago. A great gig.

Cheers

Steven :0)

There are two seasons in England -- August and Winter. New Order's day in the park was in danger of being washed out with the kind of rain that only the Mancunians who came down with the band can shrug off as just "bloody weather".

In support of Sumner & Co were Echo and the Bunnymen, whose 1980s gutter pop was well suited to the weather and the pathetic fallacy of their music perfectly soundtracked the transformation of wet grass into mud. The special guest of Coldplay's Chris Martin on the "Nothing Lasts Forever" single did more for Martin than for McCulloch.

The brilliance of openers Super Furry Animals was tempered only by the omission of many of their best songs, but "Rings Around the World", "Juxtapose with You" and "Presidential Suite" glowed, while "The Man Don't Give a Fuck" was as scorching hot as the weather wasn't. If you don't already own this single then buy it now, and if you don't love it then write to me and I'll send you the money with a free list of reasons why you're just plain wrong.

French electro combo Air were teeth -- clenchingly dull, but had it been a hot and sunny day, their minimal warbling might have been the perfect background noise to watch the sun go down to. Mid-set there was a downpour of Biblical proportions and the queues for the beer tent shifted to the tea van, but as their set (eventually) ended, so the rain and the clouds parted, letting the first rays of sunshine of the day in. It was the biggest cheer so far.

The thing is, despite weather that would stop you going to the corner shop, let alone standing in a park for six hours, everyone stayed. Everyone was to be rewarded. Sumner apologised for the weather several times as they came on stage but it wasn't really necessary, as his band were about to tear through a set of blistering perfection.

Two songs in and they played "Transmission". Yes, the Joy Division song "Transmission", and throughout the set they also went on to play "Atmosphere", "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and for only the second time in 24 years, "She's Lost Control". Far from sounding dated and maudlin, these songs were as uplifting and rousing as anything in their set post-Joy Division, and they made these songs sound as vital as they were when they were first played. For the fifth Joy Division song, "Digital", Sumner was joined on vocals by actor John Simm who played him in the Factory Records biopic 24-Hour Party People. Art imitates art imitates life.

However, the New Order songs were never put in the shade by the late Ian Curtis tracks. "Bizarre Love Triangle", "True Faith" and "Temptation" showed just why during the 1980s they left the likes of Kraftwerk and (God help us) The Pet Shop Boys trailing in their wake like seagulls behind a trawler.

For a band tinged with tragedy and bad luck, this was a performance that saw them further oppose the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and confirm themselves as bona fide giants. Thanks to the cost of the packaging, "Blue Monday" lost the band four pence for every single that was sold. It became the biggest selling 12" of all time, but still they played the song that became their financial noose with the kind of passion you would have forgiven them for having lost long ago.

Peter Hook was still pulling his rock poses with his bass slung as low as always, and calling the crowd "cockney wankers" like the pantomime genius he wants to be. All the while, an up-beat Sumner was hopping about during the instrumental parts with some primal war dance and happily letting the crowd vote by a show of hands what they want next -- "Right, hands up if you want 'Rock Shack'? Ok, hands up if you want 'World In Motion'."

"World in Motion", the only football anthem ever that isn't woeful, got a rare and unrehearsed outing with its chant along chorus -- the World Cup is on, after all - so never let it be said that they take themselves too seriously. The fact that a song they only co-wrote was their only number-one single is a moot point, as is the fairly poor sales of their latest album Get Ready. Tonight they were glorious in every way, and if they are Factory Records only -- still touring -- legacy then maybe Factory wasn't the failure that some paint it as. Manchester, so much to be grateful for -- as Morrisey once never said.

It's only taken them 25 years, but New Order have finally got this gig thing licked. All you need, it would appear, is a singles set, a few rehearsals to shed that hit-or-miss tag, and an approach to stagecraft presumably inspired by a careful study of pantomime. Here are the showmen, anyone?

"It didn't bloody rain for the Queen," moans Bernard Sumner, contrasting HM's golden jubilee with his band's silver (Concorde even provides a coincidental flypast). In point of fact, it doesn't actually rain for New Order either, though the thousands who've arrived early for an undercard featuring the likes of Air and Echo & The Bunnymen are drenched by torrential afternoon downpours. Things underfoot are decidedly messy - as anyone trusting enough of the English summer to wear sandals can attest - but by the time Sumner and co arrive on stage a little after 8, north London is smiling beneath clear blue skies.

Barney doesn't let that minor detail stop him, though. Dancing on the spot when he's not playing guitar, he hams it up throughout, and as he introduces 'Confusion' his entire band leave the stage after he complains that this is his one chance to star. Boom, and, indeed, boom.

New Order are now happy to not only acknowledge but to celebrate their incarnation as Joy Division, and a great deal of the relaxed and playful spirit of their performance probably stems from this. For a band who have consistently cultivated an aura of mystique, the aimiable blokeishness of much of the set is both unexpected and reassuring. There's something slightly askew about Sumner's aping of Ian Curtis' chin-in-chest vocal during 'She's Lost Control', but the thorough going-over they give to 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' shows that their attitude to these songs, so special to so many, is rightly respectful without being over-reverential.

Just as soon as it's warming up, though, the set comes to an abrupt end. And while an encore isn't long in arriving, there's a palpable sense of people feeling somewhat short-changed. Still, the Joy Division obscurity 'Digital' - with guest vocals from Barney's '24 Hour Party People' double, John Sim - followed by a spectral 'Blue Monday' both go a long way to alleviating those concerns. And, while 'Your Silent Face' is the last song, the curtain is really brought down by an inevitable, euphoric 'World In Motion', New Order's feel for the appropriate mood outweighing any artistic preciousness. There are birthday parties where 25,000 people chanting "Ing-ur-land" would be, at best, inappropriate - but this isn't one of them.