New Order - Brixton Academy 01 December 1983

NME 

NEW ORDER
THE WAKE
JAMES

Brixton Academy

FOR GRAND Master Flunkers of a less-than-Arfur Baker-ed funk, New Order have received more than a fair share of sycophantic press coverage in their three year history. While their monotonous guitar breaks rang around the country to cries of "Spectacular!", their superficial spirit sat twiddling its thumbs in boredom. Tonight New Order were spectacularly boring. 

Thank God then for James, a Factory band with the sort of talent that most headliners would struggle to find in a month of blue Mondays. If regulation guitar, drums. bass and vocals are back in style then add to your list of potential hit-makers this magnificent four-piece band. 

Beginning a well constructed, well received set with the patting of a cow-bell in 'Hymn Of A Village',  James build their sound around flurries of cascading vocals tacked on to the janglings of a post-Postcard guitar. Skipping from a chugging, almost Latin beat in 'Withdrawn' to the up-and-down, fast-and-slow motions of 'What's The World' James not only make enjoyable music but actually look as though they enjoy making it. Throwing himself into spasms, lead-singer Tim Booth amazes the audience by singing full-pelt “I-I-I-I-I-I!" then modestly bouncing backstage and almost throwing away the lines “I wear an armour plated suit/You put your lips to helmet slits/ You try to suck me out the tin / I can't get out., I'm welded in!" 

In sharp contrast, The Wake are a classic example of how Factory can chiché themselves almost to the point of ridicule. Three mates and a female keyboard-player, The Wake don't so much gently model their songs around New Order's as steam in and plunder them lock, stock, and barrel. Distraught and wayward keyboards meet dull and listless vocals as pretentious guitar breaks limp into the dead ends of songs like 'Something Outside', and their atrocious cover version of Stevie Wonder's classic 'Living For The City'.

But then if The Wake were atrocious, what words to describe New Order's flaccid and paltry attempt? Utter hopelessness, nauseous repetition or perhaps quite simply, 'Confusion'? Opening their brief but bloated set with a staggeringly long version of this song, New Order instantly proved that essentially they are a studio band. Substituting what is (at least on record) a slick-tracked and tidied blend of new-wave and electro-funk with a disjointed dirge of metallic guitars hacked around a failing vocal. 

Building up the set through the laboriously long introduction of 'Your Silent Face' and the equally monotonous drumbeats and keyboards of 'Thieves Like Us', it was a relief to be told by Bernard Albrecht at the and of 'Denial'; “That’s the boring stuff over,  this is where the fashionable stuff starts". But 'Village’ was a mess and the otherwise enjoyable 'Age Of Consent' an ultra-muddy mesh of distortion.  The set finished with 'Blue Monday', followed by a rendition of 'Love Reaction' by Slim, the band‘s excessively corpulent roadie.

Stupefyingly boring and rat-arsed out of their heads, some day soon New Order are going to have to grow up or get out. Judging by the lame standard of tonight‘s performance they should do both. 

Neil Taylor