1985 07 27 WOMAD Melody Maker
RAIN STOPS PLAY
WOMAD FESTIVAL
Mersea Island, Essex
IF Ian Curtis hadn't done the decent thing, New Order would be just another bunch of white electro-dronesters consigned eternally to the middle reaches of the "alternative" (what viable alternative is offered, I've always wondered) charts.
I see a ship in the harbour.
Nah, it's the Thames Estuary, really (Caroline has the same amazing eyesight of Adrian Thrills), but there are a score or more fishing boats at anchor for the night. WOMAD '85 is in Mersea, Essex, an island not quite as remote as the Isle Of Skye, but nearly as inaccessible - the only road link with the mainland floods at high tide. If you're caught on the wrong side - say, on your way home from neighbouring Colchester - all you can do is wait it out. "I don't like that bridge," says my taxi driver. "It's haunted by a Roman centurion." It's a new moon tonight, and she's worried about getting home before the tide floods the bridge. It's three o'clock in the morning. "I won't make it," she sighs, resigned.
Ninety minutes previously, New Order took the stage in front of an audience exhausted and pissed off by delays, chilled by wind whipping off the water only 100 yards from the stage, depressed by the revelation that the festival spirit extends only as far as the light cast by one's own torch. These were real torches, the flaming-pitch kind; an entrepreneur had made a packet selling the things to inner-cityites unfamiliar with the temperature drops experienced by rural areas after sunset. It was freezing, and the myth about the spirit of camaraderie that supposedly keeps these festivals rolling never seemed more of a cynical lie. People wanted to retire to their tents, but were determined to see things through to the bitter end. Your commentator, equally grim and wearing a blanket borrowed from WOMAD's press officer, was mistaken for an itinerant hippie and asked by a solicitous steward whether I needed a place to stay. It must have been the blanket.
The sign outside the tent said, "Travel to Astral Mexico." The 17-year-old proprietor of a venture the government didn't have in mind when it initiated the Small Businesses Scheme was selling dessicated mushrooms at a fiver a gram. "A gram is good for two trips," he explained.
Despite festivalees' concessions to Eighties fashion sensibilities (there were few pairs of flares in evidence, although I did see an Afghan coat when the weather cooled), the teenaged hippie was a prime exponent of a prevailing attitude of "If we ignore the present, maybe it'll go somewhere else". Like, the most popular stall was the one selling Hendrix bootlegs. It was shifting a few of Brooce's Wembley tapes, but Jimi, Janis and Blue Cheer were selling like Mexican mushrooms.
The music? From the programme: "This year, WOMAD (A World of Music, Arts and Dance) features musicians and dancers from 22 different countries, representing all five of the world's continents, with an especially strong lineup of artists from Africa."
Of Saturday's 24 attractions, six and a half were of UK origin. The fraction was special guest Zeke Manyika, late of "a little group I used to hang around with, Oran' Juice." He and his band, including Colette, the best young female vocalist this side of Julie Roberts, played between cloudbursts in the late afternoon, before patience began to ebb. Their Afro-Anglo pop riddims were delightful.
Earlier, ritualistic dance/percussion troupes Lembaga Kesenian Usu (Sumatra) and the Bagamoyo Group (Tanzania) performed to a mildly enthusiastic clutch of early risers. Most festivalees, though, remained firmly a-tent until early evening, when more familiar whiteguys The Pogues, A Certain Ratio and New Order were scheduled.
The temperature plunged as The Pogues ploughed headlong through a set of songs that all seemed to be constructed around one tootling tupenny-whistle riff. Interesting, but I'm suspicious of music that practically demands that the listener be an inveterate pisshead to truly dig it.
A Certain Ratio, nearly the only act who adhered to the posted timetable, finished at 11.30. An ensuing two-hour wait for headlining New Order rendered a tired audience lumpen, dejected. Standing in a field at 1.30 in the morning couldn't have been anyone's idea of a good groove.
"I'm sure it'll be worth the wait," Bernie/Barney Albrecht remarked.
I see a ship in the harbour.
Nah, it's the Thames Estuary, really (Caroline has the same amazing eyesight of Adrian Thrills), but there are a score or more fishing boats at anchor for the night. WOMAD '85 is in Mersea, Essex, an island not quite as remote as the Isle Of Skye, but nearly as inaccessible - the only road link with the mainland floods at high tide. If you're caught on the wrong side - say, on your way home from neighbouring Colchester - all you can do is wait it out. "I don't like that bridge," says my taxi driver. "It's haunted by a Roman centurion." It's a new moon tonight, and she's worried about getting home before the tide floods the bridge. It's three o'clock in the morning. "I won't make it," she sighs, resigned.
Ninety minutes previously, New Order took the stage in front of an audience exhausted and pissed off by delays, chilled by wind whipping off the water only 100 yards from the stage, depressed by the revelation that the festival spirit extends only as far as the light cast by one's own torch. These were real torches, the flaming-pitch kind; an entrepreneur had made a packet selling the things to inner-cityites unfamiliar with the temperature drops experienced by rural areas after sunset. It was freezing, and the myth about the spirit of camaraderie that supposedly keeps these festivals rolling never seemed more of a cynical lie. People wanted to retire to their tents, but were determined to see things through to the bitter end. Your commentator, equally grim and wearing a blanket borrowed from WOMAD's press officer, was mistaken for an itinerant hippie and asked by a solicitous steward whether I needed a place to stay. It must have been the blanket.
The sign outside the tent said, "Travel to Astral Mexico." The 17-year-old proprietor of a venture the government didn't have in mind when it initiated the Small Businesses Scheme was selling dessicated mushrooms at a fiver a gram. "A gram is good for two trips," he explained.
Despite festivalees' concessions to Eighties fashion sensibilities (there were few pairs of flares in evidence, although I did see an Afghan coat when the weather cooled), the teenaged hippie was a prime exponent of a prevailing attitude of "If we ignore the present, maybe it'll go somewhere else". Like, the most popular stall was the one selling Hendrix bootlegs. It was shifting a few of Brooce's Wembley tapes, but Jimi, Janis and Blue Cheer were selling like Mexican mushrooms.
The music? From the programme: "This year, WOMAD (A World of Music, Arts and Dance) features musicians and dancers from 22 different countries, representing all five of the world's continents, with an especially strong lineup of artists from Africa."
Of Saturday's 24 attractions, six and a half were of UK origin. The fraction was special guest Zeke Manyika, late of "a little group I used to hang around with, Oran' Juice." He and his band, including Colette, the best young female vocalist this side of Julie Roberts, played between cloudbursts in the late afternoon, before patience began to ebb. Their Afro-Anglo pop riddims were delightful.
Earlier, ritualistic dance/percussion troupes Lembaga Kesenian Usu (Sumatra) and the Bagamoyo Group (Tanzania) performed to a mildly enthusiastic clutch of early risers. Most festivalees, though, remained firmly a-tent until early evening, when more familiar whiteguys The Pogues, A Certain Ratio and New Order were scheduled.
The temperature plunged as The Pogues ploughed headlong through a set of songs that all seemed to be constructed around one tootling tupenny-whistle riff. Interesting, but I'm suspicious of music that practically demands that the listener be an inveterate pisshead to truly dig it.
A Certain Ratio, nearly the only act who adhered to the posted timetable, finished at 11.30. An ensuing two-hour wait for headlining New Order rendered a tired audience lumpen, dejected. Standing in a field at 1.30 in the morning couldn't have been anyone's idea of a good groove.
"I'm sure it'll be worth the wait," Bernie/Barney Albrecht remarked.
Don't flatter yourself, Bernie/Barney. I see an exceptionally average electro-fourpiece who, through fate's intervention, captured a sympathy vote that's kept them at the top of the heap long past their predestined lifespan.
What makes them so popular? Ghoulish curiosity has been supplanted by genuine obsession, with no entity guiltier than the music press. It's been said before, but, without their heritage, would New Order be anything other than mildly-successful gloombo Mancunian synth-mongers?
The atavistic torches were a curious counterpoint to the technology onstage. I found the dichotomy by far the most interesting thing about New Order, three boys and a girl who make serious music for sexless people. Because of nominal familiarity with their output, I can, perhaps, be accused of not appreciating their nuances, but what I heard was one song divided eleven ways, all centring around the same drum machine programme.
That's New Order, and attempts to imbue them with extra significance, credibility or similar, or perpetuating the notion that, sans the Curtis connection, they'd still have osmosed from droning electroband to droning deities, is bound to end acrimoniously.
A friend reckons that New Order are becoming lyrically blunter, which, presumably, means they're taking a commendable interest in earthier pursuits like girls, cars and bear-rasslin'. This set, however -incorporating material from "Power, Corruption and Lies" and "Low-Life", and a new song called "Shame Of The Nation" - didn't provide an opportunity to appreciate their versatility. It was too cold in the flat field, and Peter Hook's caustic commentary was infuriating. "Very controlled, very professional," he said after "Leave Me Alone", mocking the band's own notices. Laugh? I nearly dropped my blanket.
They didn't play "The Perfect Kiss". (Yes they did, it was the first encore)
At least the rain stopped earlier in the evening.
CAROLINE SULLIVAN
What makes them so popular? Ghoulish curiosity has been supplanted by genuine obsession, with no entity guiltier than the music press. It's been said before, but, without their heritage, would New Order be anything other than mildly-successful gloombo Mancunian synth-mongers?
The atavistic torches were a curious counterpoint to the technology onstage. I found the dichotomy by far the most interesting thing about New Order, three boys and a girl who make serious music for sexless people. Because of nominal familiarity with their output, I can, perhaps, be accused of not appreciating their nuances, but what I heard was one song divided eleven ways, all centring around the same drum machine programme.
That's New Order, and attempts to imbue them with extra significance, credibility or similar, or perpetuating the notion that, sans the Curtis connection, they'd still have osmosed from droning electroband to droning deities, is bound to end acrimoniously.
A friend reckons that New Order are becoming lyrically blunter, which, presumably, means they're taking a commendable interest in earthier pursuits like girls, cars and bear-rasslin'. This set, however -incorporating material from "Power, Corruption and Lies" and "Low-Life", and a new song called "Shame Of The Nation" - didn't provide an opportunity to appreciate their versatility. It was too cold in the flat field, and Peter Hook's caustic commentary was infuriating. "Very controlled, very professional," he said after "Leave Me Alone", mocking the band's own notices. Laugh? I nearly dropped my blanket.
They didn't play "The Perfect Kiss". (Yes they did, it was the first encore)
At least the rain stopped earlier in the evening.
CAROLINE SULLIVAN
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