New Order - New Jersey 05 August 1989

Last night nerves - NME

NEW ORDER, PIL, THE SUGARCUBES
NEW JERSEY

“UP YOURS too, ya wanker..." In the bowels of a New Jersey basketball stadium, two Englishmen - one a pineapple-topped dayglo Andy Pandy, the other sporting a £500 Comme Des Garcons suit jacket, tangerine acieed shorts and flip flops- are swapping V-signs . . .

The cartoon aggressor is rotten PiLlock John Lydon; the pricily casual clotheshorse is Factory Records supremo and all-round smartass Tony Wilson. Whether their snarling interface is genuine antagonism or playful release is hard to say. This is, after all, the last night of a three month marathon that has seen PiL, New Order and The Sugarcubes on a coast-to-coast grind from one air-conditioned dome to another, so any emotion is possible.

High above the designer slanging match, 18,000 kids - guys in Peter Saville T-shirts at $25 a throw, chicks in Madonna/Estefan/Easton lace bras - are blissing out on the climax of what they know is the hippest US tour of the year. In the compact catacomb of dressing rooms below, me and Cummins - thanks to the miracle of gold-dust backstage passes - are part of the final act of this long-running mobile soap opera

BUT SPINAL Tap this isn’t. Factory executives - Wilson, Alan Erasmus and Tina Simmons - mingle and chatter, enjoying what is in effect a transatlantic works outing. Lydon’s wife Nora, done up like a leggy birthday cake, stalks the corridor, practising Being Important.

In a quiet corner stands a man in glasses and comfortable shoes; it’s Steven Garvey, erstwhile bassist with the legendary Buzzcocks, here to look up a few old mates from Manchester. Married and a father, he’s shaking his head in saddened incredulity, a grinning Steven Morris slides up and gives him a handshake of the ‘hey, it’s you’ variety . . .

Not everything, however, is relaxed end-of-term bonhomie. There is tension here too, all of it emanating from the New Order camp. The word arrives in ‘don’t quote me’ nods and whispers; Barney has been playing the prima donna, acting the prat, and Hooky, Steven and Gillian are sick to death of him.

The cancellation, a few days earlier, of a concert in Detroit (where Barney cried off with an unspecified stomach complaint) has brought matters to a sullen, simmering head. For New Order, it seems, Manchester airport and separate lives can’t come soon enough . . .

THE SUGARCUBES have no such problems. These are their biggest ever dates, they are playing well, going down a storm and loving every second of it. As they bound backstage after their encore, Bjork unrecognisible with her startling new crop, they positively swagger. In their dressing room it’s instant party time.

From there, a few minutes later, reels a maniacally grinning Einaar. Armed with a pint beaker of  pernod, he corners the only person he can identify as a journalist. “We are going to rule the world,” he assures me with a certainty born of a heady mix of alcohol and applause, “it is obvious!..."

He is wearing a very snazzy wool and leather-sleeved black tourjacket, the NO, PiL and 'Cubes logos embroidered over the left breast. The Sugarcubes merchandising people had them made up, he boasts, “because we sold far more T-shirts and all that stuff than PiL or New Order..."

“Well,” he corrects himself, “maybe not more than New Order..."

It’s hard to say this about a man with three tiny horns of hair on the back of an otherwise shaven head, but Einaar may well be right - if their present rate of global expansion is maintained, then The Sugarcubes may well end up ruling the world. But for now, Einaar, exultantly returning to his mates, has work to do. Beer and spirits are dearer than motor cars in Iceland, and the Sugarcubes
rider is enormous...

AFTER THE exchange of insults between Lydon and Wilson - grown millionaires both - PiL take the stage. How Lydon must love America! In his own country he’s now no more than an historic curio, a sneered at rentamouth; but here, he’s treated - just listen to that crowd! Teenage apeshit!! - like some sort of god, like he’s still dangerous, like he still means something.

“Get those f-ing hands in the air,” he commands at the start of ‘This Is Not A Love Song’  (singalonganarchy - even McLaren couldn’t have dreamt up something this vacuous, this insulting), “get the f-ers together . . . ” And they do. And they love him, feeding the ego that still protests, when cornered (and we do it to wind him up!), that PiL are not supporting New Order, they’re joint headliners.

In truth, PiL are pathetic, a loathsome nightmare of careerist rock, fat cheques collected for supper club renditions of (Addams) family favourites. And afterwards, he swans about like someone determined to make the most of their last night as a bigshot...

NEW ORDER, the headliners, shamble onstage amid more security than Mo Johnson’s gonna need. What follows is a 90 minute demonstration of the twin facts that all is not rosy in NO’s garden and that Americans, once they’ve paid their entrance money, will cheer any old shit...

Too far gone (and maybe too honest) to wear their collective hearts anywhere but on their Sav-designed sleeves, New Order play a set that confirms every one of those side-of-mouth whispers.

Hooky and Barney are distant, aloof from one another; the latter sings each song in a doubled-up-puppet position, his voice a classic shade of ‘couldn’t care it less’. They autopilot through great swathes of the peerless ‘Technique’, plus souped up versions of ‘Ceremony’, ‘Every Little Counts’, ‘Temptation’ and ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’. But the grimmest indication of their mental/corporate state comes with the last song of the set.

The full, kitchen-sink-and-optional-extras version of ‘Perfect Kiss’ is thundering to its operatic climax; Peter Hook turns to the array of percussion he’s due to beat the hell out of for the next three minutes; he gives a couple of desultory taps at a snare drum before turning, firing the drumsticks across the stage in the general direction of Barney, and standing, arms sulkily folded, for the duration.

There is a horrible fascination in watching New Order when they’re having one of their off nights. With so much of their live sound pre-recorded, there’s a sadistic glee to be had from seeing them dragged reluctantly along by a force over which they have no control, from seeing a musical monster turn on its creators.

New Order are always (each and every time, without exception!) great. Tonight they were f-ing rubbish too...

AFTERWARDS, THEIR dressing room (occupied by the band, their manager Rob Gretton, a minute coterie of invited friends and a pair of intrepid/nosey hacks) is quiet and still, a huge ‘thank-Christ-that’s over’ sigh hangs, unmistakable and spoilsport, in the air.

The cold buffet remains in clingfilm, the bowls of jelly beans on the tables stay unchewed. Even six bottles of vintage black label champagne languish unopened in the ice-tray, a situation that the NME contingent move swiftly and with commendable determination to rectify...

In a corner, Hooky transforms himself from dishcloth to rock god by replacing sweat-sodden white T-shirt, blue jeans and motorcycle boots with white T-shirt, blue jeans and motorcycle boots.

Gillian, meanwhile, alternates between pining for her and Stevens’ bed in Manchester and bending my ear about an NME article that described her as the band’s ‘mother hen’. According to her, that’s Steven’s role in the group. “S’right,” hisses her (now) half man, half rider drummer boyfriend, “I’m the no-nonsense, down to earth one . . . is there any chance of any more of that champagne?”

In the back of my head the combination of tour things - the gig I’ve just seen/survived; these muted, tired, backstage scenes; the slow coming to fruition of Barney’s solo LP; and the knowledge of Hook’s extra-mural band, Revenge - keep egging me on to ask The Ultimate Question. Eventually I corner poor Gillian: So, Gill, have we seen the last ever New Order gig?

“Oh no,” she replies with a sigh as deep as time, “We’ve still got to do Reading..."

Through the mesh of tiredness, drink, flippancy and homesickness, she can’t have realised what she’s saying, can she? Surely...

But before I get the chance to follow her revelation up, the dressing room door swings open and Lydon announces his departure in another welter of spleen and four-letter body language.

Eyes roll. Shoulders shrug. It’s been a long night. It’s been a long three months.

Danny Kelly