Peter Hook & the Light Bring New Order, Joy Division and Nostalgia to St. Pete
It had been probably about ten years since I had been to State Theater in St. Petersburg. I was friends with/had a crush on the merch girl for the industrial rock band Crossbreed and would tag along with her to their shows, many of which were at this venue. The last show I had been to, in fact, before I started writing for MFN, was an Animal Collective show at State Theatre back when I was still an undergrad studying for a minor in poetry over the summer of ’08 or ’09. I remember staying towards the sound booth with a beer trying to calm my nerves. Cramped-quarter venues like State Theatre had always been hard for me despite it being my most patronized venue. My anxiety and nascent agoraphobia would make it difficult for me to go to live shows.
Yet when I heard that Peter Hook & the Light would be concluding their Substance tour there some months ago, I jumped on it without reservation. Peter Hook, bassist and founding member of two of the most influential second-wave British invasion bands — Joy Division and New Order — is also a talented memoirist. Having put out books on his pivotal years in Joy Division as well as his experiences with running the notorious Haçienda night club in Manchester, this tour was in celebration of Hooky’s 2016 memoir on his time in New Order entitled Substance, so named after the band’s 1987 compilation album of the same name.
I had always been an inveterate Joy Division fan, and after the band’s reunion in the early 2000s fell for New Order as well (though I was somewhat resistant to them before that time due to my youthful commitment to the darker and more punk-rooted sound of Joy Division). There is of course some resistance to Peter Hook & the Light touring with the songs of these two iconoclastic bands, what with New Order having reformed since without him, but here is not about the internecine battles being fought out between competing factions. Here is for the pure exhilaration that Hooky had brought to his fans by giving them the opportunity to hear live deeply revered and coveted music.
Not that Hooky isn’t familiar with controversy. From his early years in Warsaw with the album An Ideal for Living portraying a Nazi drummer boy to the development into Joy Division and later New Order, both band names containing fascist overtones, Peter Hook has often found himself having to defend aesthetic choices. Many first-wave punk bands, with Malcolm McLaren footing the image, came under such attacks. Nazi iconography was rampant in the movement’s attempt to transgress boundaries. It is hard to imagine being able to get away with such antics today, with bands like Death in June regularly having antifa-like protests outside their shows. Even as early as when the punk aesthetic went mainstream in the late ’70s, many bands quickly had to dump such tactics due to attracting the wrong kind of crowd, such as The Vibrators’ fabled “Nazi Baby” at the 100 Club.
Going into State Theatre, though, this past Monday was a far cry from the gobbing, fighting, and beer-throwing crowds of second-wave punk. Rather than moshing and fist fights, the crowd was enthralled with the set — rooted and wide-eyed. The show kicked off with an hour-long New Order set, with the bass blasting off “Dreams Never End” and “Leave Me Alone” to begin the night. Whatever one may say of New Order, you cannot deny the sheer virtuosity of the bass lines fueled by Hooky’s iconic playing at the knees, which kept the riffs higher up on the fret board, creating his signature sound, which is fabled as having caused him to have one arm longer than the other.
With each progressing song up the hits list, the crowd grew more and more energized, with “Temptation” and “Blue Monday” back to back, stealing the crowd. Whenever I was able to peel my eyes away from the stage, it was to see hordes of fans with arms around each other smiling and singing along. The first act closed with “Bizarre Love Triangle” and “True Faith” with Hooky often shouting into the mic and playing into the crowd within this intimate setting. I recall Hooky at one point remarking in his memoirs that one should never allow the bassist to sing, but he did a wonderful job of capturing the mood of each song with his heartfelt accentuation.
There was a brief interlude between acts, and after about fifteen minutes the band got back on stage and resumed the show with another grueling hour-long performance of Joy Division songs. Given the intensity of playing and length of the show, it was full of energy and verve. At this point the crowd roared after every song as Hooky belted out the lyrics to the likes of “Warsaw” and “She’s Lost Control.” Here the crowd became much more energized and frenetic, seemingly bringing out their more nostalgic angst and often echoing the movements of Ian Curtis’ signature stationary yet full-throttled movements as they kept their eyes transfixed on the stage.
Hooky temporarily left the stage while the rest of the band jammed out to “Incubation.” “Atmosphere” was movingly dedicated to the memory of the late Ian Curtis, whose suicide ended the trajectory of Joy Division and gave birth to New Order. The night was closed to rapturous cheers for “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” The moment the opening riff started with the heart-melting bass line, the crowd uttered a collective sigh as they sung the lyrics over Hooky himself, at one point completely taking over the chorus as Hooky stepped back and gave deference to the sheer exuberance of the crowd with a smile on his face for racing hearts.
The orchestration of the night was masterfully done with seemingly less concern for the stamina of the band mates as it was bent towards thrilling the crowd with ever-greater intensity. With such an extensive discography, there were no throw-away songs. Despite this being the final show of their U.S. tour, the band was in full force, and Peter Hook never held back. This was a dream come true for me. Few bands have created such consistently original sound, and this has in large part been thanks to Peter Hook’s vision, which began back in ’76 at the Lesser Free Trade Hall when he saw the Sex Pistols for the first time with Bernard Sumner.
Even critics of the time, back when Joy Division came out as Stiff Kittens and then Warsaw, who wanted to disregard them as yet another scene cling-on, couldn’t help but marvel at what was being done. Given the longevity of his career, Peter Hook has arguably done as much for post-punk and new wave as the Buzzcocks had done for establishing Manchester as a powerhouse for punk, with New Order and the Haçienda being ground zero for the later “Madchester.” Hooky has left an extensive chronicle of the scene he helped to establish and as well as has had more than a few words to share on mental illness and substance abuse. His is a voice that spans decades of innovation, and one can only be but grateful that he has continued to share his vision with past and future fans to come.
