I finally got my hands on a copy of Live in Glasgow, the new live DVD from New Wave electronic godfathers New Order. As I continue to hammer away at my musical bucket list of bands from the 80s that I haven’t seen live yet, New Order sadly remain on the “haven’t seen” list, and will likely remain in that position for a good while, although I’ve got my fingers crossed.
Live in Glasgow proved to be a worthy substitute for the real New Order experience. With nearly four hours of live New Order spread across two discs, there’s a little bit of something for everyone on Live in Glasgow. Casual fans will enjoy the main concert portion of the set, which occupies the first DVD in the set. The 18 song set captures the present-day New Order live in concert in 2006 in support of Waiting For The Siren’s Call, their most recent album to date.
Filmed over two nights in Glasgow at the Carling Academy in October 2006, Live in Glasgow finds New Order in fine form with a setlist that includes a number of tracks from the new album, including the Grammy nominated title track. The new material is mixed well with hits (“Blue Monday,” “Temptation,” etc.) and a brilliant triple shot of Joy Division classics to close out the set.
Singer Bernard Sumner is in fine voice throughout, and it’s hard to believe that conflict between Sumner and bassist Peter Hook would cause New Order to implode as a functioning unit less than a year after these concerts were recorded for Live in Glasgow. The band are brilliantly connected throughout, and deliver a vibrantly energetic performance.
Video Streams:
Watch additional clips via Imeem
Imeem link
Diehard fans will likely skip straight to the bonus disc of Live in Glasgow, which is a great collection of nearly two hours of rare and unreleased footage from the band’s archives, personally selected by drummer Stephen Morris. The disc opens with six performances recorded at festivals in 1981, a short time after the demise of Joy Division, including three songs from the band’s first performance at the legendary Glastonbury Festival.
The video quality is consistently decent for most of the bonus material, although quality suffers a bit on occasion due to the rare source material – particularly the footage from the band’s 1989 Bay Area appearance at the Shoreline Amphitheater, which is likely sourced from in-house video. The transition from the Shoreline material to a 2006 headlining appearance is a bit jarring, as our heroes age nearly 20 years with the quick transition.
All you need to know:
New Order are one of the few bands in their genre that understood what it meant to deliver a “show” while so many of their contemporaries were completely sterile in the live setting, to the point that you probably could have just pressed play on a boombox on the stage, and would anyone have really noticed?
With new interview footage with all three principal members of New Order recorded exclusively for the DVD, Live in Glasgow is a great present-day bookend to the recent documentary and best-of releases by Joy Division. You can’t argue the value of this set – the bonus disc of additional live performances would be worth the price on its own merits, and with its inclusion here, what might have felt like a needless cash grab to the longtime New Order fans, instead feels like a thank you gift for the years of support.
Hopefully we haven’t seen New Order for the last time on a concert stage, but if Live in Glasgow proves to be the recorded swan song for New Order as a band, it will certainly leave things on a high note.
Live in Glasgow
Track Listing:
Disc 1
1. “Crystal”
2. “Turn”
3. “True Faith”
4. “Regret”
5. “Ceremony”
6. “Who’s Joe”
7. “These Days”
8. “Krafty”
9. “Waiting For The Sirens Call”
10. “Your Silent Face”
11. “Guilt Is A Useless Emotion”
12. “Bizarre Love Triangle”
13. “Temptation”
14. “Perfect Kiss”
15. “Blue Monday”
16. “Transmission” (Joy Division)
17. “Shadowplay” (Joy Division)
18. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (Joy Division)
Disc 2
Celebration 1981
1. “Ceremony”
2. “I.C.B.”
3. “Chosen Time”
Glastonbury 1981
4. “Senses”
5. “Procession”
6. “The Him”
Rome 1982
7. “Ultraviolence”
8. “Hurt”
Cork 1983
9. “Leave Me Alone”
10. “Everything’s Gone Green”
Rotterdam 1985
11. “Sunrise”
12. “As It Is When It Was”
13. “The Village”
14. “This Time Of Night”
Toronto 1985
15. “We All Stand”
16. “Age Of Consent”
17. “Temptation”
Shoreline, Bay Area 1989
18. “Dream Attack”
19. “1963”
Hyde Park, London, 2006
20. “Run Wild”
21. “She’s Lost Control” (Joy Division)
Relevant Links:
Purchase Live in Glasgow from Amazon
Purchase The Best of New Order from Amazon on CD
New Order premiere new DVD exclusively on Imeem