Almanac Music: Peter Hook and The Light at the Forum, Melbourne, Friday 18 November

 

 

 

Friday evening in the city. Warm day, sun’s out and for a moment it’s nearly summer. Crowds flock to the CBD and I make my way to the home of epic gigs, the Forum.

 

Tonight’s show sees many old rockers with plenty of flecks of grey hair queuing up early to catch the first set. There’s a full house with a mix of old and young fans and plenty of parents passing the Joy Division baton to their offspring. Is this more of a family event?

 

Peter Hook and the Light are playing Joy Division’s first two albums in order – Unknown Pleasures and Closer from go to whoa. They warm up the full house with a highlights package of six classic New Order songs. The atmospheric ‘Elegia’ is first as Hooky takes a seat. It’s going to be a long night.

 

The dance track of the millennium, ‘Blue Monday’, gets the crowd up and going. Hooky indicates, ‘I feel so extraordinary’ to introduce ‘True Faith’ then encouraging Melbourne with ‘Temptation’, voices ring out in full cry, “Up, down, turn around, Please don’t let me hit the ground, Tonight I think I’ll walk alone, I’ll find my soul as I go home”.

 

The sound is superb and with the sparse set the band recreates the feel of Joy Division on stage except for Ian Curtis’ frenetic dancing. We are given a snapshot peek of what it might have been like in the late 70s in bleak Manchester to see Joy Division perform music for that moment – undercurrents of discontent, melancholy and alienation.

 

We are experiencing a secular version of being in church as everyone pays rapt attention to the banter-free ‘pastor’. Worshippers’ iconic ‘Unknown Pleasures’ t-shirts are dotted around the audience. In the break between albums an energetic teenager confidently declares, “’Shadowplay’ and ‘She’s lost control’ – easily the best songs” – informed opinion from a New Order t-shirt wearer.

 

As we move into album two my feet get stickier as more beer is redistributed across the wooden dance floor. Hooky continues to raise his right arm skyward and later channelling Nick Cave, he roars, ‘I put my trust in you’. Getting absorbed in the final tracks of ‘Closer’, the sound soars around the room. ‘Decades’ starts slowly and builds with the distinctive sounds of the melodica to a sonic crescendo to end album two.

 

They return for an encore enquiring, ‘You’re still here?’ as they walk on stage. New Order’s ‘Ceremony’ gets a guernsey and a re-run after a mid-song early finish – a triumphant audience suggesting to go back to the start. Then with full gusto and full voice we ‘Dance, dance, dance to the radio’ – some even pogo through ‘Transmission’, which leaves only one way to finish the night. The anthem for modern disconnected times, ‘Love will tear us apart’ gets full audience participation and Hooky barely needs to sing.

 

A wonderful way to spend three hours, surrounded by devotees totally engaged in the music. And on my way to the tram stop, I think, maybe ‘I will find my soul as I go home’.

 

More from Mick Symons Here

 

 

Read more stories from Almanac Music  HERE

 

If you would like to receive the Almanac Music and Poetry newsletter we will add you to the list. Please email us: [email protected]

 

To return to the www.footyalmanac.com.au  home page click HERE

 

Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

Do you enjoy the Almanac concept?
And want to ensure it continues in its current form, and better? To help keep things ticking over please consider making your own contribution.

 

Become an Almanac (annual) member – CLICK HERE