New Order "BBC Radio 1 live in concert" Review

 

HOT SUMNER NIGHT

NEW ORDER

BBC RADIO 1 LIVE IN CONCERT

(Windsong)

AN experience shared is generally an experience diminished severalfold. Pop festivals usually test the patience to ugly extremes. And live albums are mostly crackly, hissy wastes of time and money. But this particular memento of New Order's performance at Glastonbury in the summer of '87 isn't the sonic abomination it might have been due to a) the quality of the recording and b) the presence of New Order, who have this pathological condition that prevents them from doing anything crap, ever.

In June 1987, New Order were particularly invincible, mere weeks away from releasing the mightiest double A side of the Eighties, as well as one of the last truly great "Top Of The Pops" appearances. When Bernard introduces "True Faith" here by saying "This is a new song that we've never played before, so bear with us if you will," it strikes as a bit like God telling us there'll be an earthquake in a minute, so try paying attention at the back.

Because of their delicious insistence on the latest state-of-art gadgetry and psychotic commitment to the future, and because they show most other groups up for the Luddite technophobes they so obviously are, New Order made terrific sense at Glastonbury. Indeed, those responsible for next year's festival line-up should take note: pick New Order again, or Kraftwerk, or Public Enemy, to offset the superannuated grubbiness of the mud-encrusted surroundings, and to show the world how dangerously counterproductive retrogression is.

New Order are never less than powerfully compelling, whether on stage, in print, or on television. This can't simply be due to the sheer weight of their history, because Joy Division were an intensely charismatic unit from day one. It's some weird ethereal link between Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris. Revenge and The Other Two don't have it, and Electronic don't need it, because they're more of a studio concept and, besides, their records speak (wonderful, divine) volumes for themselves.

No, New Order need to be together to really devastate. New Order, cosmically assured, detached, mocking, poignant, imperiously cool hard bastard New Order, with their lethal blend of humility ('Notice all our songs finish with big endings,” says Bernard after 'Bizarre Love Triangle". 'Big songs, small dicks") and barbaric superiority, will always have that elusive Something Special for which 99 per cent of the planet's other bonds doubtless pray nightly.

It's a treasonable magic essence that spills all over New Order's performance on 'Live In Concert”, from Gillian's magnificently tacky techno doodles to Hooky's bearded monster boss riffs to Stephen's extraordinarily crisp and crunchy machine drum attacks to Bernard's irresistibly vulnerable musings on, oh, everything that ever mattered.

It's even there in the titles. 'Perfect Kiss'. which they've extended here to almost ten minutes yet is still unnervingly neat and precise, never fails to achieve the gooey plastic immaculacy of its name. 'Your Silent Face” is just that poised and perfect. And 'Age Of Consent", as is so often the case with this band, offers bugger all clues as to its lyrical content. But then, New Order have for a dozen years now been pop's one shining example of how to be baffling without trying.

The only time New Order, who rarely do covers and whose relationship to their material is quite organic (organic/ electronic - paradox!) don't astonish on 'live In Concert" is when they climax with 'Sister Ray' by ancient cult zeroes The Velvet Underground. Immediately, one's reaction is to feel resentful that New Order should be in any way be indebted to the Sixties. F*** the Velvets and The Byrds - they're all dried up and dead. At least listen to Orange Juice or Big Star, who've far more juicy energy.

Better still, worship New Order, the most important band of the age, who are not only alive and well but whose next masterpiece of criminal disco invention will be released some time during 1992. Get the message?

PAUL LESTER