Cuttings

SHAMING THE NATION With last year's album 'Low-life', NEW ORDER finally laid the ghost of Joy Division and emerged as one of this nation's saving graces with a unique sound and demonstrable staying power. One night at the Hacienda in Manchester, they spoke to Adam Sweeting about past, present and future. Moody and magnificent poses by Tom Sheehan By Stephen Morris's account, New Order are very shy. Very, very shy, in fact. I'd suggested to Morris, who's the drummer, that New Order often seem aloof, even entirely dismissive of their audience. They play their songs, stop and walk off. End of story. "Er..." said Morris, wincing in the general direction of the floor. "Very very shy..." Is that right? "Certainly is. Cos you're just being yourself onstage. It would be quite easy to go 'are ya feelin' alright!' and all that, but ... Good grief, no! I don;t think we've been aloof. You can't really ignore an a

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

Page 6—New Musical Express 27th July, 1985 IT'S A WOMAD, MAD, MAD WORLD GAVIN MARTIN and ADRIAN THRILLS return from ‘The Mexican Embassy’ and other vantage points at last weekend’s WOMAD Festival in Essex to declare — hey, some of these events are good! First, second, and third world pictures by FOUR EYES . IT STARTED late, of course, and stayed that way the whole time I was there. The crowd didn’t seem to mind, they arrived gradually in painted charabancs and buses —weekend campers, the festival freaks, alternative entrepeneurs, purveyors of mind-altering stimulants, women carrying their children in kangaroo pouches, squaddies from the nearby army camp, kids with outrageously painted faces. They set up home in a cross between a Saxon village and a Morrocan street bazaar. The easygoing frugality extended to the backstage area where the changing rooms were a collection ofsmall marquees (no limo entrances and hasty Glastonbury style exits here). Flanked on one side

ROCKIN' ALL OVER... WOMAD Mersea Island  SEA-SPEED-samba-Sufi-shhhhh-sensational: WO! MAD! 1985 was like being plugged in to a satellite-linked cable TV with a benzedrined conductor flicking manically through the channels. The test card never appeared, the suspense was as rife as the smiles, and the movie had a happy ending. Lord have Mersea, for the latter is the island near Colchester where this copulation of musical cultures took place. The dividing line between scrambled synapses and sublime sounds is as broad as a greyhound. The day before I reached the World Of Music Arts And Dance, I was mugged by a dog in London park who stole my baked potato. I didn't notice any Afgans, but maybe they'd already been turned into waistcoats. Yet while Pete's Planetary Incense reeked, there were moments when the globe was a falafel and it tasted real good. For on a weekend when the South African Government was considering implementing emerge

UPDATED New Order have played a fourth time in Wales, at Portmeirion . ============================================== The logical step after travelling from South Essex to Birmingham would be to then travel on from there to Swansea the next day. So I obviously didn't do that. I got back from Birmingham about 5.30, went to bed, and was up again at 11.30 to head to London and from there to South Wales, arriving in Swansea about 6pm. The ticket was torn in half at the venue, but I'd taken a photocopy of it first. None of my mates were able to come to this gig, so this was one on my own, which also meant wandering fairly aimlessly around. The Mayfair is another venue that, as far as I can see, is no longer around. I got chatting to someone in the queue outside, who had got autographs from the band earlier, and had also taken these pictures: I seem to recall I was sat at the front of a balcony looking out to the stage, so had a pretty decent view. We were treated to a D

UPDATED To include a better scan of the review, and my photocopy of the original ticket (which I have a feeling was light blue) Another trip out of the South East to see New Order. Like Tiffany's, the Tower Ballroom  is no more, closing in 2017. It had been the location of a  classic New Order gig less than two years previously, and had a few songs in common too. Back in 1984 (Monday March 25 in fact) when I rang to get tickets for New Order, they didn't even take cheques - I had to pay by postal order, which is like something out of Billy Bunter! The door ticket was not a glorious thing, but I held on to it nonetheless.... And this is a copy of my original, secured by postal order... My mates and I drove up from South Essex, and got to the Tower, right next to the Edgbaston reservoir, about 6.30 (ridiculously early).  Waiting outside, we heard both Age of Consent and Love Will Tear Us Apart being soundchecked, and a little later were let in, with the doors promptly being

Tiffany's, no longer around , was at the end of the Merrion Shopping Centre in Leeds city centre. Not a particularly auspicious location, but was the venue for one of my favourite New Order gigs that was also a massive step up from my previous show in Margate. It was a bitterly cold night, with a fair bit of snow around too. Not so good for the 3½ mile walk back to Armley afterwards. In retrospect, I see that Happy Mondays were the support, though I didn't realise that at the time and it seems I wasn't too impressed by them either (" .. a bit derivative "). There's a video of the show, although the one I found on YouTube  is longer than the copy I have (some of the comments say similar). The tape bootleg is of very good quality, which probably adds to being able to listen back to it compared to the afore-mentioned Margate. By now, the songs that had been in experimental stages at earlier shows were now fully formed, but of course the names were still a