In what may be an unprecedented set of concerts, Peter Hook and The Light performed six New Order and Joy Division albums in their entirety, during four concerts across Southern California, on the week leading to the Thanksgiving holiday. The band began their weeklong odyssey with a concert Nov. 22 at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood.
This was the band’s third stop in recent years at the venue. Last year, innovative bass player Hook played a marathon concert at the historic Fonda Theatre. The grand old movie theater, built in the 1920s, offered the perfect Gothic backdrop to “Hooky” and his band The Light as they performed some of the most innovative music to come out of the 1980s.
It was a triumphant return for the band, who had played the venue two years before. In that monumental concert, the band played both of Joy Division’s original albums in their entirety. Hooky, who as the bass player for Joy Division created a whole new rhythm from the band’s punk roots, helped create an entirely new dance club sound in the 1980s.
After the legendary lead singer of Joy Division, Ian Curtis, committed suicide on the eve of the band’s first American tour, the surviving members of the band regrouped to form the hugely successful New Order. During the show in 2011, Moby and Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Farrell appeared as surprise guests to sing in tribute to the late Curtis.
During last year’s show, the band returned to play two more albums in their entirety, the first two albums recorded by New Order, Movement (1981) and Power, Corruption and Lies (1983). There were no surprise guests scheduled for that show, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t any surprises.
The mysterious opening act, Slaves of Venus, turned out to be none other than Peter Hook and The Light, but the surprise was that the band played only Joy Division songs in the opening set. While it remained a mystery to many in the crowd, those fans who knew the music were visibly ecstatic. Hooky, looking every bit the working-class hero, sported his trademark overgrown mohawk haircut, blue jeans, sneakers and a homemade T-shirt that said in stick letters, “I Hate You.” The irony was that the feisty bass player beamed smiles throughout the night at the adoring audience. The opening set of seven Joy Division gems lasted just under an hour.
After a short intermission, the band re-emerged in the exact same persona, but this time to tackle the original music of New Order. True to their word, the band played the first album in its entirety, to the sheer delight of many hard-core fans in the packed house, dancing in a trance-like euphoria. Much of the material had probably never been played live, either while Hooky was still with New Order, or by the band in their incantations without him since 2007.
After the presentation of the first album, the band left the stage while a remix of “Blue Monday” played over the PA system. “Blue Monday,” on New Order’s second album (U.S. release), was by some accounts the biggest selling (12 inch) single of all time, and continues to be a nightclub dance staple to this day. The brilliant remix, most likely, was engineered by Hooky, who himself has been an active dance club DJ for decades.
The band re-emerged to play the second album in its entirety, ending with the classic “Blue Monday,” which launched the audience into a dance frenzy. By this time, well more than three hours since the concert had begun, the crowd in the ornate old theater had swollen to capacity. The main floor was packed shoulder to shoulder with a diverse crowd of emphatic fans.
Fast forward to this year and Peter Hook and The Light played again at the Fonda Theatre. The show this time around included the singles and B-sides from New Order’s most prolific period, from August 1983 up to 1987. Then the band played “Confusion” and “True Faith,” with both Low Life and Brotherhood albums performed in full. The show included other tracks from what fans consider New Order’s greatest period, including “Thieves Like Us,” “Bizarre Love Triangle,” “The Perfect Kiss” and many more.
Then the band went on to play an unprecedented set of unique one off concerts across Southern California the same week. In addition to Nov. 22, where they performed both Low Life and Brotherhood at The Fonda Theatre, the band performed Movement and Power, Corruption and Lies at The Glasshouse in Pomona on Nov. 24 and then Low Life and Brotherhood again at The House of Blues in San Diego on Nov. 26. The Fonda and House of Blues shows featured an opening set of Joy Division songs by the band, while the Glasshouse show featured an opening set by El Ten Eleven, a great Southern Californian rock duo.
If that wasn’t enough diversity for the region, the band threw in one more showcase show, at the legendary Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip. For this Nov. 25 show, the band returned to Joy Division material, playing the Unknown Pleasures and Closer albums, again in their entirety. El Ten Eleven opened with an impressive 75-minute set that showcased the band’s immense talent.
Guitarist, bassist and composer Kristian Dunn and drummer Tim Fogarty formed El Ten Eleven in 2002 when they met in the Silver Lake community of Los Angeles. The duo have been compared in style to the mainstream darlings of indie blues rock band The Black Keys. But in substance, El Ten Eleven is a much more progressive band, with much of their post-rock music bordering on jazz fusion music.
While Fogarty plays rhythm on traditional drums as well as electronic percussion instruments, Dunn plays lead guitar and bass. Sometimes Dunn plays a six-string bass, which according to the mercurial musician, “was inspired by the urging of Hooky and his son for him to try it.” But what really sets Dunn apart as a masterful musician is his work on a double necked guitar and bass combination instrument. He actually plays lead guitar and bass at the same time on the instrument, and he does it brilliantly. The band often enters jam band territory, and no two live sets are exactly alike. When watching Dunn play, one can imagine an early Stanley Clarke and John McLaughlin playing together. But Dunn plays both parts.
After a short intermission, Peter Hook and The Light took the stage and proceeded to play Joy Division’s first album, Unknown Pleasures, in its entirety. Hooky first appeared wearing a nondescript gray sweatshirt, seemingly out of place in the sold-out steamy confines of the little club. It seemed to be some sort of an inside joke as he shed the garment after the first song and had the audience pass it back to his sound man. Hooky was left wearing a Danzig concert T-shirt. That would be a pair to see perform together.
The tightly packed multi-generational crowd packed tightly around the stage and responded emphatically to the intense performance by Hooky and his bandmates. Hooky stood stoically throughout much of the night, belting out lyrics in his trademark gruff voice, giving the material a much darker overtone than in previous incantations. But he would often break into a beaming smile while interacting with members of the crowd, letting them stroke his bass from time to time.
Occasionally he would break into a dance trance jam, feeding off of one of the other four crack musicians in the band. The group includes his son, Jack Bates, on bass. Having double bass players in the group allows Hooky to concentrate on vocals at key moments and at other times create an overpowering double rhythm that members of the audience close to the stage could viscerally feel. The other members of the group, Andy Poole on keyboards, Paul Kehoe on drums and David Potts on guitar, all performed magnificently with little fanfare throughout the night.
Another short intermission ensued, before the band returned to perform Joy Division’s second album, Closer. While the band played the album in its darker, more Goth rock like mode, they also managed to make the music their own transforming the sound with their cohesive emanations into a more modern jam band style. During the second set, Moby made a surprise appearance, channeling the spirit of Curtis with inspired vocals and frenzied dance steps.
The band left the stage for a third time before emerging for a five-song encore. They began with the classic “Atmosphere,” which Hooky dedicated to Michael H. Shamberg, who recently passed away. Shamberg was the founder of Factory New York, and New Order’s original video producer. “Atmosphere” was an appropriate tribute, in light of the fact that Hooky has proclaimed it “his favorite Joy Division song.”
The awesome rendition was followed by the return of Moby as lead singer on what was supposed to be one last song. But, at the urging of Hooky, Moby stayed on to sing a few more songs, having to refer to a song book on the floor for lyrics. It was awesome unscripted moment. The show ended with the gothic Joy Division anthem and most well known of their songs, “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Hooky pulled a beaming blonde girl from the crowd and enlisted her as a back-up singer.
Then, after 28 songs over 2½ hours, the epic show ended, making another glorious footnote in the history of The Roxy Theatre.
— L. Paul Mann is a Noozhawk contributing writer. The opinions expressed are his own.