As you probably know if you've seen my other stuff on this site, I am a big fan of the band New Order. You also may know that I like to collect physical media, especially CDs, featuring the music of my favorite artists. It goes without saying that I own some New Order stuff. Back around the time I started this website, I decided to spend some money and picked up the Depeche Mode Condemnation maxi single (in great condition) and the New Order 316 DVD from Ebay. They both came in a couple of weeks and I enjoyed them a lot. I'm not going to go into detail about the DM single, because this page is about the New Order DVD.
The video was a great purchase for what it is. I paid about ten dollars for the renowned Taras Shevchenko gig in New York 1981, New Order's headlining gig at the Reading Festival of 1998, and a half-hour interview from 2000 full of their dry humor and Manc wit (and accents too; the subtitles were a big help). New York was a great show, where they played a setlist largely consisting of tracks from their very underrated debut Movement from the same year. Ceremony and an early version of Temptation were noteworthy tracks. Also noteworthy was Truth, in which Bernard took his guitar which he did not play during the song and raked the strings against the corner of a guitar amp to create a very "avant garde" scraping sound.
I feel like it goes without saying that the real highlight of the video was the festival show though. New Order hadn't been together in 5 years, since their last headlining show at Reading 1993 (they also played in it 1989) during the short Republic "tour". Their manager, the now-deceased Rob Gretton, suggested that they reconvene and play a few shows, one of which being Reading. They're older here, but it's clear that they're still great performers. I've always believed that New Order are not a crappy live band despite common sentiment. The set mixes many New Order hits with Joy Division classics, performing Isolation, Atmosphere (my new favorite after first hearing it on this video), and Heart and Soul. They play a killer version of Touched by the Hand of God after an epic rendition of Regret, with Bernard's overdriven guitar present front and center in both, intertwining well with Hooky's signature lead bass. In True Faith the lyrics are changed in the second verse, and Sumner dryly replaces the words with "Now that we've grown up together, they're all taking drugs with me". And for the first time, the band played the legendary and anthemic World in Motion, inviting cowriter Keith Allen (who was reportedly "simulating pleasuring himself" prior to his performance) up to the stage to perform the rap in lieu of footballer John Barnes to close out the festival. It was an epic performance and one I have enjoyed twice since initially watching it.
For one reason or another I was looking up random facts on the Internet, and at some point I looked on the website Setlist.fm for gigs that I knew about or something. If you don't know, that website is a compilation of setlists from probably millions of concerts over the years and publishes them for the public. I ended up viewing the set for the Reading 1998 performance when I discovered something odd. Rather than 11 songs listed like on the DVD, there were 14. Looking through the set, I observed three tracks that were not present on the video: Ceremony, Confusion, and Love Will Tear Us Apart. Upon further research, I found video evidence that NO did actually play these three songs at the festival!
Okay, what is going on here? You do NOT leave Ceremony and Love Will Tear Us Apart off of a video where New Order performed them in the same concert. And yet some random song from 1986 called Paradise gets on there (it's a good song but just not on the same level)! Also I don't dislike Confusion, it's kind of the same deal as Paradise. Seriously, what the hell? Those are Joy Division's two best songs along with Atmosphere (yes I count Ceremony as a JD song, New Order just performed it and didn't do much for the composition... well besides 3 out 4 of the same members writing it and all), and they were deliberately left off. Okay, I know we don't know that for certain, but think about it. Surely there was not a shortage of tangible materials to record the songs. That's not likely at all. I've developed two main theories for why they were left off, but I would like to say this first. I heard or read somewhere that the performance of Confusion was a "train wreck", I've not reviewed Ceremony and LWTUA but perhaps they fared similarly? I doubt it though.
My first theory as to why these songs were left out has to do with the discontinued Recycle project. This is kind of a niche/obscure thing, even among the New Order fandom, as it is tied to a specific era of the band, so I will do my best to explain it even though I didn't live through the times unfortunately. In the late 90s Rob Gretton had the idea for a project eventually dubbed Recycle. It was meant to be a massive, comprehensive re release of every New Order song ever made. I think this was meant to include remixes and b sides as well. It was going to be a colossal undertaking, and it was estimated to be a 20 disc set. This is a HUGE amount of music, especially when you consider that a CD typically can hold 18 or so songs on it. However, when Rob died in 1999, the idea was nixed by New Order's then-label London Records, as the practicalities of actually manufacturing large amounts of this set were a lot. Eventually a kind of Recycle was released in 2002 called Retro, encompassing 4 discs. That's still a substantial (see what I did there?) amount of material, but it was pitiful when compared to 20 CDs. We never did get the official version of Recycle, though many fan compilations exist and circulated throughout the early 2000s internet (if only I could have been there...). I believe that perhaps these songs were being held out for release with Recycle. I read on a fan website called worldinmotion.net that t shirts for Recycle were being sold at New Order's 1998 shows, which isn't substantial evidence as it was the zeitgist of the time. However, my idea is backed up a bit more by speculation (wow that's some evidence) by renowned Recycle website thebrainfever.com that one of the many discs would include live tracks. While Ceremony, Confusion, or LWTUA are not mentioned, this is not an official track listing, so why couldn't they be?
My other and way less credible theory also happens to be far simpler. Christians regardless of denomination will certainly be familiar with the often - referenced Bible verse John 3:16, which is integral to the Christian faith. One could absolutely say that it is essential to the Bible and Christianity as a whole. Perhaps they saw the total amount of Joy Division songs (4) and New Order songs (18) total and thought that it was pretty close to 3 and 16, and wanted it to be a kind of "video essentials" collection mainly for New Order. So they trimmed the fat. However, as I write this, it seems unlikely, as Ceremony and Love Will Tear Us Apart are absolutely essential for both bands. Why take them off of the DVD tracklist when Paradise or Heart and Soul were left on? Also, the next video release in the New Order timeline was titled New Order 511, which is one long performance of their concert at Finsbury Park during their 2001-2002 Get Ready tour. I'm not super religious but I don't recall any astronomically important verses that are 5:11. This continuation suggests that my theory is wrong. New Order also have practically no religious connotations at all, none that I've heard anyways. At this point I'm really just proving myself wrong, but it was a thought, and I just decided to say it.
That's about all I've got for this one. There's not much to talk about really, but it was just on my mind. Thanks for reading this far if you didn't skip, if you like this site feel free to sign my guestbook, I'd love to get a message and I will certainly reply. Anyways, until next time.