Concert review: New Order, Vector Arena

Bernard Sumner from New Order. Photo / Richard Robinson

It was Ceremony - the part-Joy Division, part-New Order song - which got the kids jumping. The thing is, most of them would not have been born when the song came out in 1981 as New Order's first single.

It sure is a sign of an enduring band. And many of the older, initial adopters of the Manchester band - which carried on after Joy Division ended with the death of Ian Curtis - would have had a touch of nostalgia hearing Ceremony's galloping drums and clash of guitars.

But nostalgia can be awful. It can also be a let-down. And while front man Bernard Sumner's vocals were a bit dodgy, and songs like the usually powerful opener Crystal were forgettable, it's dance music where New Order are at their best.

Even Sumner knew that when he said early on: "Enough of that guitar rubbish ... Steve [Morris, drummer], start the drum machine."

And while Round & Round off Technique was left murdered on the dancefloor and in bad need of more deadly synth stabs, the groove picked up with the sing-a-long of Bizarre Love Triangle and True Faith, which was given a trippy acid-house workout.

And the dancing didn't stop.

New Order were last here in 2002 at the Big Day Out. This time round there is no founder and bass player Peter Hook.

But it is pretty much the classic line up of Sumner, Morris, and his wife and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, with Phil Cunningham on guitar and bass player Tom Chapman, in for Hook.

They run through most of the band's biggest songs.

The pioneering The Perfect Kiss from 1985 still sounds like the perfect coming-together of Joy Division menace with the beats of underground club culture, Temptation is thrilling, the dark galactic glitch of Blue Monday still sounds fresh, before Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart to end.

It was far from a blue Monday, then, because New Order reminded that they were the band that taught the sulky post-punk generation - and, it seems, legions of young new things - to dance with, er, joy.

REVIEW

Who: New Order.
Where: Vector Arena.