Peter Hook And The Light – Gig Review & Photo Gallery 2nd October @ Metro Theatre, Sydney NSW
Peter Hook and the Light
Metro Theatre, Sydney NSW
October 2nd, 2017
It’s a Monday night. The sun is setting on the public holiday reserved for the varying degrees of recovery needed from a weekend of sports finals and festivals. Yet neatly lined in an alley in Sydney are multitudes of over 40’s adorned with Joy division shirts, with their angsty preteen (who begged to go to their first concert) in tow.
Yes that’s right ladies and gentlemen, we have another anniversary tour!
Peter Hook And The Light promised a night of nostalgia filled with tracks from both New Order and Joy Division in classic anniversary tour fashion.
It’s worth noting that Hook did have a trusty lyric booklet by his mic, but you can’t fault the guy for it; it was a 31 track setlist and it’s been a while.
The moment the band walked out on stage to the opening drums of In A Lonely Place, the crowd became entranced. The effects of Hooks voice was comparable to that of a snake charmer; The audience didn’t exactly dance rather sway with wide eyes. This enchantment quickly faded however, as the boys moved into Lonesome Tonight, the crowd fell into what would be a fairly consistent head bob with the odd dancer here and there.
Hooks energy was at a pretty low level for most of the night with the exception of a few highlights of which the audience perked up simultaneously. It wasn’t clear which was the causality of the other but regardless, when it picked up… it was quite the experience.
One major highlight was the stellar Atrocity Exhibition; opening with the kind of spectacular drum piece that you feel in your bones, the crowd are dancing and shouting back every lyric and I swear I even saw Hook crack a smile. Appropriately this track built up quite nicely to absolute bangers Digital and Isolation, where the talent of the band was placed on display through unique guitar riffs and a drummer so impressive the older gentlemen beside me tapped me on the shoulder and exclaimed “I’ve been a drummer for 35 years and watching that guy makes me want to throw in the towel”.
Peaks of energy such as this, popped up every so often through the night; It was never able to keep a consistent pace though, most likely due to the 10 minute breaks that occurred every half hour or so.
Overall despite the lack of energy, Hook has rounded up a handful of very talented people in order to do justice to the legacy he’s upholding and it that regard he was wildly successful and after two and a half hours of classics, finishing off with the forever classic Love Will Tear Us Apart , The crowd really display exactly why Joy Division is one of the classics all these years later.
Review & Photo Gallery by Bree Vane. Find her on Facebook & Instagram. Please credit Wall of Sound and Bree Vane if you repost.
Peter Hook & The Light
