The bard celebrates two other fine practitioners of the art, and laments a lost brewer
Peter Hook and the Light
SWG3, Glasgow/Touring
IT'S a gig of two halves. A performance, in full, of two New Order albums – 1989’s Technique and Republic from 1993 – sandwiched between an opening set of early Joy Division material and a storming finale of New Order’s greatest hits.
Belligerent front man Peter Hook, leading and conducting the band throughout, is no slouch with the vocals either — he does snarling defiance with apparent ease — while most of the bass guitar duties are skilfully despatched by Hook’s son Jack Bates, complemented with a fine performance by Dave Potts on guitar.
Opening with the half dozen Joy Division songs, all pre-Unknown Pleasures, sets a very high bar early on. Leaders of Men and Transmission are clear stand-outs but, to be fair, the material from the two albums that then follows is, with a few honourable exceptions, pleasant but inferior.
SUSAN DARLINGTON swoons in the presence of a magnetic frontman
New releases by Porridge Radio, The Cribs, and Bjorn Meyer
WILL STONE in entertained, and some, by the Irishman Shobsy and the Dutch/Kiwi combo My Baby
Fiery words from the Bard in Blackpool and Edinburgh, and Evidence Based Punk Rock from The Protest Family


