Every Time I See You Falling I Get Down On My Knees And Pray

Heaton Park is all set up for Parklife, a two day festival across this weekend largely attended by people much younger than me. New Order took advantage of the set up and played a homecoming gig there on Friday night. Stepping outside Heaton Park's Metrolink station there's a long line of middle aged fans queueing to get to the gates where Covid passports are checked, bags are rummaged through by security, people are scanned with metal detectors and then finally QR code tickets on phones read by yet another line of security. JD Sports logos are all over the big screens either side of the stage. We arrived late, having missed both support acts (Working Men's Club and Hot Chip) but with enough time to join another long queue to get drinks. No draught beers, just bottles and cans with four cans of Carling coming in at an eye- watering £24. No wonder that so many people turned up having had their pre- gig drinks elsewhere. My unease with Covid and crowds meant we found a spot near the back- usually I'd want to be far further forward. The air is sweet with the smell of substances. The ground is not muddy despite some recent rain. A couple of men near us have a picnic blanket out. There's a chilled atmosphere but as DJ Tin Tin slips Voodoo Ray onto the sound system a palpable buzz starts to fizz through the crowd. Not long after, just as dusk hits, New Order appear. 

I wasn't expecting to be as blown away as I was. Bernard welcomes us all, saying how good it is to be playing live after a shit eighteen months and then adds, 'Fuck Covid', and then they're off into Regret and without much much of a pause Age Of Consent. This is a filled out, muscular New Order, the slightly shonky, thinner sounding, almost on the verge of it all falling apart, group of the 1980s beefed up, loud and powerful. Their romp through the set takes in most of what you'd want New Order to play, the songs that you've danced to at indie nights, clubs and house parties since the mid- 80s plus a handful of newer ones. Ultraviolence, resurrected from 1984's Power, Corruption And Lies, is an early highlight, the bassline bumping and the anxiousness of Bernard's original vocal replaced by something calmer and older (inevitably). They follow it with Ceremony which causes mild mayhem around us, the ringing guitar lines and Stephen's hi- hats cutting through the decades and the masses joining in, 'This is why events unnerve me/ They find it all the same old story'. Moments like this catch you off guard, emotions suddenly bubbling up, songs you've sung for over thirty years that have become part of a  shared history and people's lives. Early New Order songs feel achingly personal, the sound and the words, a response to the end of Joy Division and Ian's death, and when you hear them sung by thousands in celebration it's quite something. Your Silent Face, listed as KW1 on the band's setlist, the working title for the song back in 1983 (KW1 = The Kraftwerk One) is a joy, Bernard's melodica solo just as shaky as it ever was. A friend said elsewhere that half the attraction of New Order is when they 'nearly fall to pieces... they're never quite 100%' and I think that's exactly right. Their frailties and lack of polish still gives them an edge even if they're nowhere near as unprofessional as they used to be and have equipment that is one hundred times more reliable. 

The final eight songs are a blur, one high after another. A monumental Subculture (one of their greatest moments for me), that keyboard riff hammering out and the stuttering drums crashing around Prestwich. Funnily enough the group's old rehearsal rooms are just down the road, the songs that were written and worked out in a bunker in Cheetham Hill now filling the air a mile away. As Subculture ends there's less than a moment to draw breath before the bass intro of Bizarre Love Triangle slams though the PA and we're taken yet another notch higher and then as they segue into the majestic Vanishing Point, they lift us even further- the kick drum, sequencer and those delirious guitars and keys, 'My life ain't no holiday/ I've been to the point of no return...' 

Bizarre Love Triangle (12" Mix)

Vanishing Point

As if that wasn't enough they play The Perfect Kiss next. Plastic from their last album is dedicated to Denise Johnson and then we're into the home straight and True Faith, Blue Monday and Temptation. True Faith has been one of my favourite New Order songs since it came out back in August 1987, I never tire of it- the version they paly live is housed up with piano all over the chorus. Temptation is in a class of it's own- that acidic sequencer line bringing us up and Bernard's words the sound of a million kids now grown up and a thousand nights out, 'Heaven/ A gateway/ I hope... Tonight I think I'll walk alone/ And find my soul as I go home'. We all do the whoops and sing the basslines and join in with the chorus, 'Up, down, turn around/ Please don't let me hit the ground'. The tension and release that everyone knows is coming still hits hard, one of those heart in the mouth moments, 'Oh you've got green eyes/ Oh you've got blue eyes/ Oh you've got grey eyes/ And I've never seen anyone quite like you before'. 

If that was all we got I think we'd have been happy (apart from one of our party, Geoff, who shouts for Procession and in his own words 'always shouts for it but they never seem to hear'). Bernard, Gillian, Stephen, Phil and Tom re- appear for an encore and give us three Joy Division songs- a still fragile sounding Decades with Ian's face projected on the screens, a blistering Transmission and then finally Love Will Tear Us Apart- and that's it, we're done, spent, wrung out, happy. 

At this point my brother's wife's cousin decides to shin up the nearest flagpole and fair play to him, fired up by Mancunian dance rock, lager and natural excitement, he gets a good way up it.