"Gruff, no-nonsense renditions of classics": Peter Hook & The Light at Foundry
On your average night, the Foundry would be filled with students singing
and dancing along to cheesy pop hits, but Saturday night was a
completely different occasion.
Packed with an older
but no less enthusiastic audience, the venue saw Peter Hook and The
Light take to the stage to pay tribute to the work of two of the most
seminal British bands of the 70s and 80s: Joy Division and
New Order.
The show starts with
Hooky and his band running through a mini set of New Order’s
classics works, including ‘True Faith’ and ‘Blue Monday’,
beginning the night with some feel-good anthems to sing along to
before an interval which will lead into a change of mood.
This is not a night
for New Order – this a night to celebrate Joy Division. Beginning with
‘Disorder’, the opening track from their influential 1979 debut
Unknown Pleasures, the tone is well established. As the night
continues, the set rachets up the claustrophobia
and existential dread that grew within Joy Division’s work with
tracks like ‘Atrocity Exhibition’, ‘Isolation’ and ‘A Means
to an End’.
After a third
interval, the band come back for an encore consisting of ‘Dead
Souls’ and a return to New Order with ‘Ceremony’, before
wrapping up with ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. The crowd are more
than happy to join in, the timeless refrain echoing around the packed
venue.
Vocally, Hook remained on the sidelines in both Joy Division and New Order. But compared to Ian Curtis’ dark baritone and Bernard Sumner’s understated yet engaging vocals, his gruff, no-nonsense rendition of these classics unlock a whole new way of experiencing them. And at 67 years of age, Hooky shows no signs of slowing down.
