DOTMUSIC'S REVIEW OF THE LONDON SHOW

At last, here are the young men - Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris. Three undeniable legends, who rose from Manchester and took music where no man or machine had gone before.

Over a period of more than twenty years, Joy Division and then New Order have plunged fearlessly into dark but beautiful territories, painting unforeseen colours, and almost killing themselves and each other in the process. Of course there have been casualties, most significantly the doomed Ian Curtis. Equally, in recent years the only time the band - tonight minus the sadly absent Gillian Gilbert - were likely to appear together would be at a funeral.

Which is perhaps why this year's glorious resurrection has been so telling. New album 'Get Ready' is a thrusting, guitar-heavy rocket of classic New Order pleasure and pain, setting the heart racing for this potential coup-de-grace. However, they have always been an unpredictable live force, as the Brixton Academy witnesses this evening. Of the highs, and there are many, the band reach bravely and often magnificently into their peerless back catalogue, projecting memorable bile, drama, energy, glory and - occasionally - limp confusion, right before our eyes.



You expect the rumbustious barrage of opener 'Crystal', the mighty resonance of a charged 'Regret' and it's also blindingly obvious Bobby Gillespie will appear for the neanderthal hedonism of 'Rock The Shack'. But it's asking a little more for the revolving electro and guitar welter of 'Temptation' and the naive, pure drive of 'Ceremony', enlivened with the glorious "avenues alive with dreams" imagery.

Then placed against a string of other weightless experiences and this show is not that far from touching greatness, albeit with a twitch of nostalgia nagging at the back of your skull. The ethereal wonder of 'Your Silent Face' is a rare joy indeed, while three unforgettable Joy Division tremors are delivered with sublime aplomb and a gloomily fitting and yet strangely anthemic mood.

A vigorous, spellbinding 'Transmission' and the cascading dream of 'Atmosphere' are tumultuous joys, and there is a stunning symmetry to the symphonic washes and urgent bass and drum rhythms of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', although a terrace anthem, which the track becomes, it is not.

Elsewhere - and back in the real world - there are a collection of tracks to suggest New Order have toiled impressively to earn their inconsistent live reputation, as 'Touched By The Hand Of God', 'Bizarre Love Triangle' and 'True Faith' are mauled and mangled beyond recognition.



Amidst a flurry of misguided, messy sonic aberrations, muddy sound and some of the worst dancing known to man from the suddenly melting-before-your-eyes cool of Sumner, humiliating defeat is almost snatched from the jaws of a glorious triumph. Where at once Heaven's door is creaking open, seconds later we are clumsily scrapping in the mud with Beelzebub.

However, adversity is a by-word for renewed adrenalin in New Order's language. And so it proves at the last stand, when 'Blue Monday' is thankfully delivered in thrilling style. Their most complete, inventive and revolutionary moment will not further tarnish a contrary but wholly memorable return.



That's New Order for you: avant-garde but populist, doom-laden but joyous, at the end of the road but unstoppable, confusing yet clear as crystal. We will not see their like again.

Ben Gilbert