I went to see "Peter Hook presents Unknown Pleasures" Tuesday night. It was kind of an odd experience. There was no opening band, but there was a 30 minute video that they played on the stage screen before the show started, which was basically an odd little mish-mash of clips about Joy Division and New Order; there was no real narrative thread, and really no particular cohesion at all aside from the fact that they mostly featured Hooky.
After the video finished, he and his band ("Light", apparently) came on stage and started playing with no introduction or fanfare of any kind. Hooky's currently sporting a bit of extra weight & a short mohawk, and is looking every bit his age (at least), but that didn't really matter to me. At the first notes of the first song I was super excited, of course, for the same reason that I decided to go to the show in the first place: I've never heard a Joy Division song played live in person, and this was likely as close as I was going to get to seeing any modicum of the band itself.
The show itself was very hit and miss.
First, bad stuff: Hooky's voice isn't bad, but it's entirely unremarkable. For most of the concert - that is, for the entire actual performance of the album - he looked more like he was doing a job rather than actually being involved in the music. There was no audience interaction between songs, and I felt no connection to the performance. Hooky was never meant to be a front man. I was also a bit put off by the fact that he had a lyrics book out; granted Ian's lyrics are often very involved and don't lend themselves to memorization (I don't remember all the words to many of my favorite JD songs), but he's supposed to be a professional musician, for fuck's sake. During "She's Lost Control" he even came in four measures early on the second verse. The rest of the band pretty much did their best to be invisible, which is fine under the circumstances, and were adequately talented to play the music, though that honestly isn't really saying much since Joy Division barely knew how to play their instruments when these songs were written. So all in all, I was kind of disappointed by the end of the set.
Now good stuff: The audience was great, with the exception of the usual couple of assholes and weirdos. Everyone seemed to be big fans, and were extremely enthusiastic, which pretty much salvaged the show from the lack of passion on stage during the main set. That did change during the encores, however. As compared to the rest of the show, Hooky seemed to have a blast playing most of the songs in the encores, which were all Joy Division songs from other albums/sources. He finally seemed to be having a good time, and it changed the whole vibe of the concert. In particular, they ended with a freaking awesome version of Ceremony, which was a great way to end the show.
Now uncategorizable/personal stuff: I have to say, I felt a little uncomfortable watching Peter Hook sing these songs. I have a very personal relationship with Joy Division songs - and in particular with Ian's lyrics - and it felt a little bit offensive to see someone besides Ian singing them. I know that if anyone could be considered to have the "right" to sing JD now that Ian's gone it would be the surviving members of the band, but it still didn't feel right. I particularly felt that way about the songs with lyrics that were obviously intensely personal and/or autobiographical, like "I Remember Nothing" and (obviously) "Love Will Tear Us Apart". I hated hearing Hooky perform "Atmosphere" for the same reason I was happy that Anton Corbijn decided to end
Control with the original version of that song - it just isn't "Atmosphere" with anyone else singing it. Ironically, I remember reading an article about that movie where Hooky said the same thing.
Overall, I had a good time, and I would go again if I had the chance, but it wasn't exactly the experience I was hoping for.
The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English by Henry Hitchings
