Cuttings

NME NEW ORDER Poole Arts Centre NEW ORDER appear on stage swathed in blue light alter a heavy classical introduction on record. The new single ‘Shellshock‘ takes us into livedom. The sound is terrible for the first three numbers. In Poole, loud is good. By the third number the sound engineer had decided to compromise. It actually gets more palatable as the night goes on. ‘Ceremony' causes mass orgasms. Overblown, crashing, aching guitar hacks its way into your fuzzbox and back. Then it‘s onto fresher pastures. A lot of the newer songs don't grip, only the older ones have the clout to cross the dreaded sound barrier. New Order have bared chests on stage tonight. The band don‘t seem too bothered about the audience. They play what they want to and if you don't like it ... well ... go back home to your 12" of 'Blue Monday' . . But hang on . . here is ‘Blue Monday’ alive and kicking. It wafts off the stage to climax an hour set, like Europop in a sweaty Be

NME- DISORDERLY CONDUCT NEW ORDER Oxford THE IMPERFECT kiss. Tonight I should have stayed at home and played with my pleasure zone. I believe in the land of New Order, an ice dust island of volatile emotions entwined with electro-wash creepers and rhythmic sidewinding snakes of shake. For myself, I bring in the carrier bag of my mind expectations of the excellence this group are capable of and fears for the indulgences that sometimes crack their crystal citadel of noise into a million jagged edges. Tonight the latter prevailed, and unfortunately, it wasn't even funny. The sub-culture New Order have constructed for themselves - and it is just that, an aesthetic separateness - is now under serious threat precisely because of their dancefloor popularity. They attract a large number of stiffs for whom the band is a soundtrack to mewling and puking. I know that sounds like an elitist statement but it's something that the band are unable to cope with other than by rever

NME - HIGH LIFE NEW ORDER Powerhouse, Melbourne, Australia THE two-and-a-half years since New Order’s last jaunt Down Under have heralded dramatic changes in the musical output of the group. The solemn moodiness that dominated their sets then has now been totally replaced by the bright, danceable tone of the sequencer. The shrouds of Joy Division have well and truly been removed. To those involved, tonight's gig was more than just another performance. It was on this very night five years ago that Joy Division's lead singer, Ian Curtis, committed suicide. The group knew it, and so did much of the crowd. Under circumstances like that, the atmosphere could be nothing but electric. The Mancunian foursome’s reputation for sub-par shows was definitely not in evidence tonight, as they produced an absolutely inspired performance. The group looked strangely out of place on a stage, totally lacking the "pop star" glamour all too prevalent in much of today‘s music.

NME - NECRO FILLER AN IDEAL FOR UVING: AN HISTORY OF JOY DlVlSlON by Mark Johnson (Proteus, £5.95) 1 . AN HISTORY. . .: note the n by which the tone is set. 2. As pompously enigmatic as any of the obfuscated outpourings to have clouded this group. Mark Johnson's book lists Joy Division‘s career down to the last fart yet ostentatiously declines to say anything at all. 3. I am, however. much the wiser with regard to FACts and figures. Perhaps that is the purpose of this slim volume. No more. no less. 4. Camus, Burroughs, Mishima and sundry other Penguin Modern Classics are extensively quoted as, er, antecedents ? Spiritual kin ? I’m not impressed: put up or shut up. 5. Furthermore, screeds of sub-Kafka and overheated psychobabble, presumably the author's own, additionally reinforce the mythology, the schtick . 6. Of lan Curtis’ death: “Speculation is not only futile, but also an invasion of his privacy. Suffice to say that melancholy had not been a dominant fa

NME - POWER CORRUPTION & TRUTH NEW ORDER Birmingham Tower Ballroom FINALLY, TOTALLY, New Order have swept everything aside. One hour of sheer refined Power, beautiful dignified detail and concentrated commitment, and New Order have tried, tested and then torn up every expectation and desire. They were breathtaking, awe-inspiring, completely unnerving. 'Well old things never die (seems like I've been here before)' At the heart of such strength, New Order's striking, shining singularity sets them above and apart from all others. And the unconcerned confidence with which they began tonight (with the resounding silken grace of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart') left no room for doubt: this would be special. 'It's a strange day in such a lonely way' The gilding daze of 'Truth' ssshakes and ssshivers, before stumbling into a hypnotic, haunting collision of searing, soaring keyboard and bitterly involved guitars to produce a glorious

NME - UBERMENSCH LIKE US NEW ORDER Hamburg Trinity LIKE SO much that has inspired, charmed or annoyed us ever since 'Rock Around The Clock' 30 years ago. the success of New Order's music remains an emotional puzzle. So many words have been spilled in trying to unravel that hopelessly complex set of processes which constitutes our response to music that it would seem a sweet, easy surrender just to listen, to forget explanation. But is immediate sensation the only basis for appreciation ? We owe it to ourselves to try to understand why New Order — four pleasant, unremarkable people — can hold such sway over so many of us. In Hamburg New Order didn't play a wrong note all evening: it was the first date on this tour that had happened. New Order, you see, are fallible. Only the deafest fan would not concede that they have made some disappointing records. And yet from the very first bars of 'Age Of Consent' it is impossible not to be entranced by the spell

'Confusion' is that rare thing, a New Order title which actually figures in the lyrics of the song to which it's attached. The music itself, however, is more of a piece with all of the group's output this year - perhaps too much of a piece. In other words, it's another fragile slip of a song, delicately pinned to an extended electro dance track. The melody walks a thin line between simplicity and banality, the rhythm ditto. And while the finished artefact shapes up respectably well, I think the track would have sat better among the recent album tracks it so resembles. A new New Order single should be something more surprising than all of this, and more surprising. Goes on a bit, as well : the 12" format finds room for one long version of the song itself, plus three Arthur Bakerised variations on same. This dance-mix fetish is all very '83 and trendy; it's also very easy and a bit bleeding boring. Ironic, too, in that New Order's audience aren&

NEW ORDER - TO CATCH A THIEF Gloucester I FEEL like a detective if I try to look deeply into the secret world of New Order (and their devotees). For the cultists. it would be true to say that, for them, listening to New Order should be a private and intimate experience. A Leisure Centre is, therefore, hardly the most suitable venue in which to absorb and accept. For one thing, it's redolent of sweat and socks rather than sustaining an appreciation of the moods in the ‘anonymous functionalism' that New Order purvey. It‘s been said before but, like it or not, there are disconcerting parallels between New Order's current status and that of '70s era Pink Floyd. A part of them shares the Floyd's love of carefully constructed, quasi-symphonic music, full of thunder crashes and grandeur, but then the rest mixes the ingredients in a manner more attuned to the Beat than the Brain. They're all too familiar. The energetic kit or machine rhythms of Steve Mor

NME Macclesfleld THIS WAS the Hometown Heroes Event- local boy and girl make good. The concrete walls echoed in defiance as the intensity of the musical wash heightened. Gee, those pedestals grow with every report, but the post-punk praise is still appropriate. 'Love Will Tear Us Apart‘ (a version) was full of emotion. The guitars and bass growled in contempt, sustaining a power—packed, passionate charge. This was an extreme, along with 'Blue Monday'. Too many backing tapes (dead or alive?), it was still a danceable ditty, suitably refreshing and seriously seductive. But another side was revealed as Bore ‘n' Order welcomed a mass of self-indulgent sogginess, less meaningful masterpieces than hippy-dippy whitewash. No points given for atmosphere (that blue light was certainly overworked) when the music‘s more painful than an ingrowing toenail. It must be a Tall Order living up to their unique reputation, but the fact that our heroes can sometimes cut it means

NME - NO GLOW IN THE GYM NEW ORDER London Michael Sobell Centre THIS VENUE - a hangar-Sized indoor sports complex — seemed unwittingly appropriate as Manchester's perennial championship challengers left the platform of this ‘gigs for jobs do. The stagefront rowdies were a Kop-style sea of waving arms demanding. and getting. an encore; albeit an embarrassed ‘Happy Birthday for Gillian and a headspinning drag-strip chicken run through ‘Temptation’ - last one to the coda's a cock rock crowdpleaser! Meanwhile. further back in the vast brick and parquet echo chamber, less enthralled mortals contented themselves with outbreaks of the traditional ‘fuck off you Northern bastards'. New Order had achieved a hard earned draw away from home. A result, Brian. The boo boys had no case. OK. so the set was ragged and rattled, often only kept mobile by the grim ferocity of Hook's pighead macho playing — only Burnel has ever been allowed to play rock bass this dominant, t

NME NEW ORDER/STOCKHOLM MONSTERS Queen’s University, Belfast SEEING as how Joy Division and New Order have become indirectly responsible for the massive, shuffling grey parade of overcoated young men ruining considerable proportions of the UK's record output since the late Seventies, the disinterested listener only familiar with a low-level of New Order product could be forgiven for fearing, live, the chronic level of stadium self send-up that usually comes to afflict the seminal. Take support slotters Stockholm Monsters; Fred-Perried. clean-cut lads each straining in turn to be their favourite New Order member with a sound approach of mike clenching and guitar abrasion techniques slave-laboured through their mentors‘ mastadon bass and behemoth drum mix. (Simulating throughout, of course, the requisite hopelessness, despair and general malaise.) It often seems that, with this prevalent level of mucking about by all these New Order reserves - the B-Team boys - the orig