PETER hOOK & THE LIGHT LIVE AT YORK’S BARBICAN CENTRE

★★★★★ (5/5)

**PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT PERFORMING AT GLASGOW'S O2 ACADEMY**
**PHOTOCREDIT: PAUL STORR**

I grew up on New Order and then discovered Joy Division. I’ve seen New Order live without Peter Hook but have never seen him play live before as I wasn’t lucky enough to see the original and best line up play together, so I turned up to this gig hoping to be impressed.

The gig was billed as Peter Hook and the Light playing all of both the Joy Division and New Order Substance albums, in full, with a few other songs thrown in for good measure. There was no support act, but the band were billed to be on from 8 until they played all of the songs or 11pm, whichever came sooner. It took a little while to get through the stringent security but once I was in, I quickly remembered what a great venue the Barbican is, especially with the ground floor seats out to allow for standing which was where I was.

A browse of the merchandise stall beforehand showed that Peter had personally autographed everything on sale, a nice touch for fans and a sign of a good connection between the band and their audience. The audience itself was mostly people who had clearly been with Joy Division or New Order from the start with a healthy smattering of younger people who had clearly found the bands after their commercial heyday.

The band strolled out onto the stage at the promised 8pm to an enthusiastic reception and proceeded to give a masterclass in playing New Order songs. I don’t know if they vary which album they do first between shows, but the first half of this show was all about the New Order Substance album. Opening with Your Silent Face, moving on to Procession and Cries and Whispers they then really hit their stride, Ceremony, Everything’s Gone Green, Temptation, Blue Monday (which started then stopped as Peter searched the crowd for someone who had been a sound engineer on the original song to thank him and make it clear it wouldn’t have been the same record without him, a very nice and personal touch), Confusion, Thieves Like Us, The Perfect Kiss, Sub-Culture, Shellshock, State of the Nation, Bizarre Love Triangle and finishing with a welcome deviation from the album to finish off with a barn storming version of True Faith.

It was like I’d died and gone to heaven; these were all songs I’d grown up loving, I sang, I danced, I had a brilliant time. Everyone else was doing the same apart from one guy who it appeared had too much of something and eventually had to be removed as he kept falling into people. Hooky adopted his signature low slung pose on a number of occasions which just took me back, as a founding member of both bands he was integral to their success and his silhouette is iconic The musicianship, the surprisingly good vocals, the interaction with the crowd. It was all brilliant, I had a massive smile on my face. At the end of True Faith, the band took a well earned break for a few minutes and the audience took the opportunity for comfort breaks and to get drinks etc.

While quite a few of the audience were still out in the foyer the band came back out on stage and launched into Joy Divisions Substance, starting with No Love Lost they played note perfect fantastic versions of the whole album. The guy next to me who was probably in his late 50’s quickly reverted to the indie discos of his youth and started dancing like he was a teenager again, it was brilliant to see and highly infectious, I couldn’t help but join in. Quite quickly the whole audience was transported back and loving every minute of what they were seeing. I won’t list the full set of songs played but my own personal favourites were Warsaw, Leaders of Men and Transmission. The whole set was finished off with Atmosphere and finally some song you’ve probably never heard of called Love Will Tear Us Apart. I don’t think it could have been any better. Tearing off his t-shirt and throwing it in the crowd was the perfect way to leave for the someone who was one of the great post punk and indie dance innovators and who was clearly enjoying himself, this was no tribute act, this was a band proud of what they were playing and one of the tightest acts I’ve seen.

I left the Barbican still wanting to dance, to sing, with a smile on my face and incredibly glad I’d finally got to see the final member of the band that I’d never seen live. If you haven’t seen them and get the chance go and see Peter Hook and the Light live, it’s a perfect gig and you can’t help but enjoy it and feel joy at hearing these songs being played live. Both Joy Division and New Order were innovators and at the cutting edge of music in their day and that comes across clearly in all of these songs. What a great night!