Review by moist of the recent Manchester Cathedral gig by Peter Hook and the Light:

Two church visits in one day! One a funeral, one a celebration - both chances to remember old friends.

Unlike The Light's earlier Joy Division Reduxes, this one was never going to be easy - charting the transition between the first two New Order albums: Movement to PC&L, Curtis to Sumner, live to 'sequence'.

But Hooky's band manage to pull it off again with a vocal strength that belies the obvious range difference twixt Sumner and Hook, a stunning guitar prowess that was never there in the original live event, a subtle interplay between the duelling basses (funny - I seem to remember nowt but complaints from Hooky the producer/engineer when faced with two bass players!) and the overall confidence of a well-toured, bedded-in backline.

Perhaps it was time, place and occasion (or old age) but I found myself revisiting not the studio recordings of these classic albums but all those live occasions related to them: gigs attended - Squat, Comanche, Ritz, Brum; tapes collected - Tiffany's, Utrecht (or was it Amsterdam); videos watched - Glastonbury 81, BBC 84; Sessions heard - Peel 81 & 2.

Then I realised what was missing then and is present in abundance now: Enthusiasm. From everyone. Finally.

Labels: Bernard_Sumner, events, gigs, New_Order, Peter_Hook, review, The_Light

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