More Happy Monday than Blue Monday

New Order? In Blackpool? Virtually on my doorstep? It’s a no-brainer. I’m there. Especially as it’s an early birthday present from the missus. It had to be done, as it was going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity, bearing in mind the last time New Order visited the town was 24 years ago when I was still at school (30th August 1982 at somewhere called “The Venue”, trainspotters). That night, the setlist looked liked this:

Procession, Ceremony, 586, Truth, We All Stand, Hurt, Everything's Gone Green, Age Of Consent, Ultraviolence. Only one of these songs made it to the setlist in 2006…

Strange tour really this. There’s no new product to promote, but it’s being promoted as the “Singles Collection Tour”, yet they’re not playing many of the singles, and they’re performing at least half of the tracks from their 2005 album, which they didn’t bother to promote with a tour at the time. Very New Order.

Due to not leaving the house until after eight, and pre-gig drinkies in Gillespies, we missed the support Section 25, old mates of the band from the Factory days, but as they’ve been playing the Fylde recently no doubt the chance to see them will occur again at some point. It was a surprise to see the Ballroom rammed full – it wasn’t this busy for Radiohead earlier in the year. So at 9.05, New Order came on stage and slammed straight into new fave "Crystal", followed by crowd pleasers “Regret” & “Ceremony”, with singalongs a plenty. The legendary Empress acoustics didn’t do the band any favours really, making much of Barney’s between song banter inaudible, though he did apologise for his voice as he had tonsillitis – sounded okay to me.

The set was a good mixture of tracks from “Waiting For The Sirens’ Call”, NO regulars like “Bizarre Love Triangle” and Joy Division songs such as the rarely played “24 Hours” and “These Days”. Not much different from what they’ve been playing for the last few years, but a fine selection all the same. The set got into top gear with a tremendous version of “Temptation” which saw Celia & I grooving away like it was our own personal indie-disco. “The Perfect Kiss” has been a much-missed song from their setlists over the last few years, and it was good to see that they’d re-introduced it, complete with a perfect segue into the inevitable “Blue Monday”, complete with Barney‘s bad dancing.

Due to the call of nature and a trip to the bar, I missed the first song of the encore “Turn”, (which is no bad thing) but made it back for the JD classics “Shadowplay” and their increasingly pubrockish version of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (“Come on!!”).

And that was it. They were gone. Probably as good as they’ve ever been, over those 90 minutes New Order proved that they still had what it takes to make Blackpool rock.

Setlist: Crystal, Regret, Who's Joe, Ceremony, Waiting For The Sirens' Call, These Days, Twenty Four Hours, Krafty, Your Silent Face, Guilt Is A Useless Emotion, Bizarre Love Triangle, Temptation, The Perfect Kiss, Blue Monday, Turn, Shadowplay, Love Will Tear Us Apart