Cuttings

NME - CRIES AND WHISPERS New Order North London Polytechnic NEW ORDER at the London Poly was sold out before it was announced: by Christmas most outlets were starting to turn people away. The straggle of fans desperately searching for touts outside the hall demonstrated how popular New Order have become. It would be easy to put their popularity down to the legacy of an inherited legend, but they've not so easily dismissable. That they have something valuable to offer in their own right was evident a long time ago from a Peel session recorded early last year, which sounded a lot more confident than their live appearance at the time. When they played Heaven in February, they were nervous and unformed, a condition catalysed by the heavy cloud of anticipation hanging over everyone, and the obvious scrutiny with which they were observed and assessed. At Walthamstow in early autumn, they sounded old and tired, almost jaded before they'd fully begun.  Maybe they were disi

NME - NO GLOW IN THE GYM NEW ORDER London Michael Sobell Centre THIS VENUE - a hangar-Sized indoor sports complex — seemed unwittingly appropriate as Manchester's perennial championship challengers left the platform of this ‘gigs for jobs do. The stagefront rowdies were a Kop-style sea of waving arms demanding. and getting. an encore; albeit an embarrassed ‘Happy Birthday for Gillian and a headspinning drag-strip chicken run through ‘Temptation’ - last one to the coda's a cock rock crowdpleaser! Meanwhile. further back in the vast brick and parquet echo chamber, less enthralled mortals contented themselves with outbreaks of the traditional ‘fuck off you Northern bastards'. New Order had achieved a hard earned draw away from home. A result, Brian. The boo boys had no case. OK. so the set was ragged and rattled, often only kept mobile by the grim ferocity of Hook's pighead macho playing — only Burnel has ever been allowed to play rock bass this dominant, t