1987 12 19 New Order Wembley Arena Review

PERFECT KISS

NEW ORDER

Wembley Arena

MOMENTS to love when love is not a three-ring circus but a fork-tongued serpent, when bliss rhymes with lice and diandry is a girl's best friend. This was astonishingly, gratifyingly, abominably perfect. This was New Order at their best, worst, and nowhere in between. They were slovenly and majestic, apathetic and intense, and it took the shackles off as many heads as it jaywalked over. Albrecht, lovable obstreperous sarcastic bastard cutey-pie Albrecht, mutters something about "Bon voyage" and serenades sophistry with something else about “the perfect kiss is the kiss of death*. I start formulating theories about how this is New Order’s farewell gig, but you would have to verify this fantasy with someone who wasn’t so shaken by the shoulders and stimulated. I was glued to it, and well away.

New Order don’t emote, they defy you to be touched despite their laconic ennui. They also—even at the Wembley stage—jessie about with their swirling anthems, and if they feel like chucking a brick in or hauling a starfish out, they do it, no apologies. Arrogant aimless water-treading fatalists, who can't bear the sight of their success. Slurp.

Two nights previously, in the same not-very-conductive setting, The Cure bored me bloody rigid. They didn't have the guts or the pazazz to reject expectations wholeheartedly. They pandered. New Order pander as often as a giraffe slinks under doors. They are grossly unprofessional, and greatly inspired. They are now so very pained and strained and gasping and fascinating that they're worth one million Joy Divisions and 12 million Paul Youngs. Don't worry about the records; they're fine but they’re not this ramshackle gala, conch-shell rock and peony hip-hop. Tonight was just one of those things—they played with no conviction whatsoever, which in their unique case means their heart was in it. You don’t need to do a Bono with raw material this scorched, this honestly etched from—not despair, too poncey a word—from vague nagging disappointment. It was supremely effortless, a coup de grace on a par with making breaking wind funnier than breaking glass, it was sublime and splendid and when it soared I’d have voted for whoever you told me to vote for but spoiled my card with asses' milk first.

Oh, they got "Touched By The Hand Of God" out of the way first while they were still wondering what they were doing here, then “Ceremony" and "True Faith” while spelling “attitude" like “altitude". You could’ve heard a Panzer drop during “Every Second Counts" and “Love Vigilantes", but "Subculture" and "Temptation" are, like, apocalypse —whatever colour her eyes are. Searchlights. Thunder in a tee-shirt talking in Sanskrit, Hook burning the gangplank, and “Perfect Kiss" nudging Bizet. And an encore! Heavens! This must be goodbye! "Blue Monday” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart" are everything they should be—doomed, snarling, buoyantly hopeless. If this wasn't the end it was a dress rehearsal. It was like watching a cat shrug and say, “Yeah well, that’s eight gone now but what the hell, y’know?" It was, I stress, merry and moving and regal and raw; the wisdom of age pleading to be clasped to the exposed chest of beauty. Exemplary. Futility ain't what it used to fail to be.

CHRIS ROBERTS