Album Review: New Order - Education Entertainment Recreation (Live 2018, 2021)

I’m probably going to come across like a grumpy old malcontent here. Par for the course, perhaps.

First things first – I love New Order. I’ve got almost everything they’ve ever released in one format or another, I’ve seen them perform live, at their peak, and on any purely non-scientific gut-feel basis, they’re probably the band I’ve listened to more than any other across the past 35 years. Hell, I even named my blog after one of their early minor “hits”, albeit an early minor hit that might just about be the greatest single track ever committed to vinyl. And the band’s debut album, Movement, is unquestionably my number one album of all-time.

And so, all of that said, when Ian Curtis died, and Joy Division morphed into New Order across the second half of 1980 and into early 1981, I really wish the band had taken some time to find a new vocalist who was a naturally “gifted” singer. I completely understand why that didn’t happen, obviously, and I also understand that the passage of time and an ongoing familiarity means that Bernard Sumner’s vocal is now intrinsically and irreversibly linked with the band’s sound and all of its most memorable landmark tunes. My issue is that he’s just not a particularly good singer. That is all too painfully obvious on the band’s latest live release, Education Entertainment Recreation.

(It’s probably no surprise then, that Movement, the album where Peter Hook takes care of a chunk of the vocal duties, is the one right at the top of my own pile. Despite Hooky having vocal limitations of his own, his voice gels masterfully with Movement’s more downbeat feels.)

Try as I might, as much as I don’t want it to be the case, Sumner’s vocal frailty is the biggest takeaway I have after listening to Education Entertainment Recreation. A frailty which is far less obvious - although still evident - on much of New Order’s studio-produced output.

Right. Now for the positives, because wherever you find New Order, you’ll always find a positive: Education Entertainment Recreation was recorded at London’s Alexandra Palace (the “Ally Pally”) back in November 2018 and it contains one of the most comprehensive career-spanning setlists found on any of the band’s live releases. And the music itself - beyond those vocal shortcomings - is absolutely stunning in every respect.

All of the big guns are fired – ‘Regret’, ‘Crystal’, ‘Sub-Culture’, ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, ‘Plastic’, ‘The Perfect Kiss’, ‘True Faith’, ‘Blue Monday’, ‘Temptation’, et al. Amongst many others – there’s 21 tracks in total, a double album (2x CD/3x vinyl), including a few gems from the Joy Division cannon, notably ‘Disorder’, and the three closing tracks ‘Atmosphere’, ‘Decades’, and ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. Sadly, nothing whatsoever from Movement.

There’s a bit of Sumner stage banter as he interacts with what sounds like a massive crowd, and there’s the occasional crowd singalong also in evidence at various points. There is a certain rawness to the whole deal, a sense that the band remain a tremendous live proposition, with an off-the-cuff, unscripted spontaneity, even. It is everything a decent live album should be.

Except for that one small but still very important (aforementioned) detail.

Then again, it is perhaps a little churlish to ever expect a perfect live album.

I did warn you.

Guest Post/Gig Review: Peter Hook & The Light at Bodega, Wellington, 26 February 2015

Michel Rowland … typewriter monkey at ‘This is Gothic Rock’, figurehead at Splintered In Her Head, host of ‘Saturday Night Stay At Home’, and all-round after-party superhero, was out and about … on a Thursday night of all things. The words below all belong to Michel, while the pix come courtesy of the artful eye of James Black (humble thanks to both):

Peter Hook & The Light at Bodega was brilliant. The lasting impression I had from seeing the band play 'Unknown Pleasures' live in 2010 was reinforced last night - Hooky's a fantastic showman - warm, funny, highly energetic and great to watch.

A horde of sweaty 40-50-somethings packed Bodega (interspersed with the occasional scrawny hipster, scuttling between the gaps), transforming the venue's medium-sized dancefloor into a heaving mass, and effortlessly bringing with them a vitality and enthusiasm that would put many-a-crowd half their age to shame. Hook and his band thoroughly capitalised on that energy and reciprocated by the bucket load.

He's not just a great performer, but an excellent singer, which doesn't rate a mention as often as it should. As audacious as it may be to say, there are moments when Hook's voice brings echoes of Ian Curtis' back to life. It would be difficult to imagine why he wasn't elected as Curtis' replacement in New Order, were it not so impractical for that band's full-time bassist to also have to double as the singer. But here, in The Light, with his son Jack handling the bulk of bass duties and allowing Hook to front the band and focus on melodic lead bass parts, there are points in the set when it's no great stretch to imagine what New Order might have sounded like with Curtis.

 

The constants on the tour are the two New Order album sets, whereas the opening Joy Division set and encores have varied most nights of the Aus/NZ tour. Being more of a Joy Division fan, I was mildly disappointed by a slightly shorter opening set for Wellington, but loved that they focused on songs like Atmosphere and Twenty Four Hours rather than the more predictable dancefloor hits.

The encores, which included soaring renditions of Temptation and True Faith, more than compensated for the shorter opening set and absence of obvious crowd-pleasers, climaxing with a triumphant Love Will Tear Us Apart, which hasn't been a regular on the tour - I think only Melbourne and Wellington so far. It felt as though the Wellington crowd had earned it.

An older friend commented that he'd had some reservations before coming along, about "the whole pimping out the back catalog thing". I've heard that sentiment more than a few times, and I get it; nothing wrong with a healthy dose of cynicism where questions of artistic integrity are concerned. At 40, I'm probably a youngster in the eyes of many friends who still remember when Joy Division were a current band; having only discovered a lot of seminal bands of that era retrospectively must of course give me a very different perspective on being able to see shows like this nowadays.

Notwithstanding, I think there are artists who've reached a point in their respective careers where they are more than entitled to earn a living from touring their own musical legacies, shared or otherwise. Where Peter Hook & The Light are concerned, the songs are delivered with a palpable sense of passion and sincerity - you just know that he loves what he's doing, which is one of the most enjoyable aspects of seeing the band.

Great show, fun night. Loved it.

Michel also stars in Disjecta Membra … (Bandcamp link here)