New Order #6 1985 07 20 WOMAD Mersea Island

The East of England has not been served well by New Order. Only one gig in Norfolk (Pennies in Norwich in 1982), none in Suffolk, only one in Kent (Margate Winter Gardens in 1984), and this, their sole appearance in my own county of Essex. I wonder if in part it's proximity to London, although that logic can hardly be applied to part of Suffolk, Norfolk and Kent that can easily be two hours away.

WOMAD itself has had a nomadic existence, although unlike some of its venues, Mersea Island was not repeated.

Mersea Island sits a little way outside of Colchester in North Essex, and is reached by a causeway that can flood at high tide (and the official programme for the event included high tide times to help with that). This meant that getting to and away from the venue was not an easy task.

On the Saturday in question, there'd already been plenty of thunderstorms rattling around, so a late July festival was not likely to be as pleasant as the season would suggest.

With my mates, we got the bus to the site (I can't recall where, but we parked somewhere on the "mainland"), and from my seat on the top deck I looked down to see a silver Mercedes just to our left - Hooky driving, Barney in front, Steve and Gillian in the back. My mate tried to take a photo, but hadn't wound his film on (20th century problems....).

After enjoying Zeke Manyika and Doctor Love, there were hailstones to avoid before seeing The Pogues. I don't have strong memories of this, apart from noting that Shane McGowan was extremely intent on not spilling his pint(s). I didn't see the entire set (and was not especially familiar with them at the time), but the Pogues played:

  1. Streams Of Whiskey
  2. Repeal Of The Licensing Laws
  3. Boys From The County Hell
  4. Greenland Whale Fisheries
  5. Whiskey You're The Devil
  6. Transmetropolitan
  7. The Old Main Drag
  8. A Pair Of Brown Eyes
  9. Wild Cats Of Kilkenny
  10. Dark Streets Of London
  11. Billy's Bones
  12. Sally Maclennane
  13. Kitty
  14. Navigator
  15. Jesse James
  16. The Gentleman Soldier
  17. Dingle Regatta
  18. Poor Paddy
  19. Waxie's Dargle
  20. Muirshin Durkin
  21. The Wild Rover

I saw Asaah Papa and Graffi Jazz, before my second A Certain Ratio gig (by virtue of which they easily beat New Order's Essex gig history). ACR were superb and according to the setlist on their site, again played Si Firmi.. twice in one show (although it's a good tune).

  1. Sounds Like Something Dirty
  2. The Fox
  3. Si Firmi O Grido
  4. Shack Up
  5. Life's A Scream
  6. And Then Again
  7. Wild Party
  8. Flight
  9. Touch
  10. Knife Slits Water
  11. Si Firmi O Grido

Pics from the show, taken by my mate Robin McIntyre:







(thanks also to @andythephotoDr for his work in cleaning up most of these!)

I spoke to Andy Connell after the show, who told me that ACR were not going to be playing the Youth Year Festival at Platt Fields in August (which meant my already paid for trip to this suddenly became less attractive...) and asked if we could provide a lift to London later on (which we couldn't as we were not going that way).

Thomas Mapfumo and The Blacks Unlimited were quite dull, although that doesn't seem to have been the view of NME and Sounds. 

The official programme had New Order coming on at 11pm. This turned out to be wildly optimistic, as they finally came on around 1.30am. By now it was very cold. Barney apologised for coming on so late and said "I'm sure it'll be worth it". Hooky also commented on how cold it was. The opener was Elegia.

Love Vigilantes was introduced as "a country song, a redneck song", while Blue Monday featured cowbell additions and Leave Me Alone some nice guitar work in the last section.

Hooky asked for any ideas what the next one would be, saying "No, you're all wrong as usual, it's 586", and Barney concluded it was "very controlled, very professional".

This Time of Night saw Barney's mic cut out and State of the Nation made (I think) its second ever appearance after the Hacienda a few days previously.

"Stephen Morris on drums" was Barney's concession to band introductions during Sub-culture.

Denial was introduced by Hook as a song about romance, "as it's so romantic here under these twinkling Sony lights".

Age of Consent had a very dodgy guitar intro, but improves after that before merging into Sunrise (which would have been little more than 90 minutes away), ending the main set at 2.30.

After a gap there was an encore (which clearly Caroline Sullivan was not aware of, a matter which still rankled with the band some time later). Finally got home at 4.40.

New Order pictures, also taken by Robin....







Reasonable assumption that the last was taken during Love Vigilantes!

Set and song timings

1 Elegia 6:31
2 Love Vigilantes 5:29
3 Blue Monday 7:30
4 Leave Me Alone 4:17
5 5-8-6 5:30
6 This Time of Night 4:43
7 State of the Nation 6:52
8 Sub-Culture 4:49
9 Denial 4:44
10 Age of Consent 4:43
11 Sunrise 6:24
12 The Perfect Kiss 8:45
13 Temptation 7:38

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Footnotes

Only one gig was attended between Swansea and WOMAD (although I did see Alexei Sayle at Southend Cliffs Pavilion on June 3rd) . It was Jobs for A Change on Sunday 7th July in Battersea Park.

As can be seen, this was a free festival with a decent line up. I saw parts of both Hank Wangford and Jah Warriors, and all of the Frank Chickens, who performed "Fujiyama Mama" and "We Are Ninja", along with songs about math monsters and green bananas.

Then it was around half of the Three Johns' set, which involved slaggings off for Sisters of Mercy and March Violets, a rendition of "Like A Virgin" and an exhortation for everyone to sit down (which they did).

Billy Bragg did an acoustic set (claiming to be Duckbill Patterson, the "finest blues singer that Barking's produced") where he was joined by a couple of the Boothill Foot Tappers and performed some "dodgy country numbers, but it doesn't matter as you didn't pay", including part of Springsteen's Racing In The Streets.

Bragg then did a main set, and this is where I think the setlist on the UK Rock Festivals site is not 100% correct. Although I don't necessarily have the right order, I have him as performing:

  • Busy Girl Buys Beauty
  • Like Soldiers Do
  • There is Power in a Union
  • A New England
  • It Says Here
  • From a Vauxhall Velox

The UK Rock Festivals list is:

  1. The Man In The Iron Mask
  2. There Is Power In A Union
  3. Springsteen Tickets
  4. A New England
  5. Island Of No Return
  6. It Says Here
  7. People Get Ready
  8. A Lover Sings
  9. Jeane
  10. The World Turned Upside Down
  11. Which Side Are You On?
  12. Between The Wars
  13. Days Like These
  14. To Have And To Have Not
  15. A13 - Trunk Road To The Sea
I didn't see the Pogues, although I see they did almost an identical set in Battersea to that at WOMAD. Aswad were superb, and their set included Roots Rockin', Drum and Bass Line, Not Satisfied and African Children.

OMD came on at 10.20, were again very good, and gave us
  1. Enola Gay
  2. Messages
  3. Tesla Girls
  4. Secret
  5. Julia's Song
  6. Motion And Heart
  7. Talking Loud And Clear
  8. Maid Of Orleans
  9. La Femme Accident
  10. Souvenir
  11. So In Love
  12. Telegraph
  13. Locomotion
Finishing as late as they did meant that, on arrival at Vauxhall tube, we discovered there were no northbound Victoria Line trains. So we headed south to Stockwell with the intention of catching a northbound Northern Line train instead. Only to find there were no trains at all.

This meant a long walk via Kennington, Oval, Elephant and Castle and Tower Bridge to Liverpool Street, and then a wait for the 3.23am train to Southend. No ticket attendants meant no need to pay, but still needed a cab at the other end, before finally getting home at 5.30am.

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