New Order - Preston 22 October 1985

NME - RE-ORDER

NEW ORDER
Guild Hall, Preston

NEW Order are born again. As a rock group. That's the first thought that hits you the moment they hit the stage.

But, if it’s true, it's certainly, for once, no insult. As the group's appearance is heralded, hordes flock towards them, the taut thread or anticipation is cut by a chord, and a voice speaks (New Order - communicating?). "We're going to start with a very old one. This is called 'Ceremony;."

What else could it be called. under the circumstances? New Order, more than anyone else, you can either love or hate. This time it's love. The only way to take them is existentially: they're constantly redefining themselves. It's not the first time they've been reborn - they seem to have as many lives as a cat (and as much mystique). Tonight, there's a genuine warmth in the music which is too often lacking. It fills everything, mesmeric, committed, compulsive. It makes you want to shout aloud but there's no need - the music's shouting for you. So you dance instead.

The music clatters and bubbles, sways and punches, always unfailingly physical. Unlike the records, though, this takes you body and soul - the response is instinctive rather than mechanical. Hardware and humanity marry - even the sequencers sound human - but the voice comes first. What it's singing is different too. There‘s a lot of new material here tonight, and the words are structured, in verses, like a song not a record. This is art, not artefact, alive now, as alive as anything can be, and never to be repeated.

Percussion, drums, bass and a synthesizer line of great beauty take their turns in luxurious simplicity. There's just enough repetition, just enough interjection. The music swells and groans - the floor's shaking and so are we - and keyboards and voice soar towards the same goal, both fighting for the same thing.

There's one moment of non-musical tension and intervention, as a glass is thrown from the crowd and an answering missile almost thrown in return, but it doesn't put a stop to the magic. Tonight the music of New Order is more important than the musicians in New Order. And the music’s reborn. Again.

PENNY KILEY