Leadmill, Sheffield, Tuesday 29th May 2012.

Apparently, according to the NME, Peter Hook and his band The Light playing Unknown Pleasures in its entirety is a bit like The Smiths doing The Queen is dead without Moz. I have to say that even up to the first chord of set opener ‘Exercise One’ I’m equally sceptical. This could be really really awful or rather good. Given the way he’s been treated by his New Order colleagues it’s hard to begrudging his classic album gigs. But just how is this going to work?

A couple of songs into the set it becomes crystal clear that it does work and Hooky has got it spot on. In fact I’m blown away by the whole thing. Perhaps part of it is the fact that this is the first time many of these songs have been played live in Sheffield since Joy Division supported Buzzcocks at the Top Rank back in October 1979 in one of only two visits the band made to the Steel city. Mainly, though, it’s down to just how authentic Hooky and his band sound. The attention to detail is staggering. Close your eyes and it could be Joy Division playing. By way of an introduction Hook leads us in with a selection of the best pre-Unknown Pleasures tracks. ‘No Love Lost’ and ‘Leaders of men’ sound vastly superior to the versions on the band’s 1978 debut EP, An Ideal of Living while frantic ‘Glass’ and a staccato ‘Digital’ from A Factory EP show us just how quickly the Joy Division sound developed.

So onto Unknown Pleasures itself. From the swirling confusion of ‘Disorder’ to the bleak sonic sound-scapes of LP closer ‘I remember nothing’, Hook’s band interpretation of the album is astonishing. The songs sound closer to the album than when Joy Division played them live back in 1979 and 1980. This is in no small part due to the man sat behind a bank of keyboards and an Apple mac, making sure every last studio sound effect is correct and present.

It’s also down to the fact that Joy Division songs sound better sung by Peter Hook than by New Order and his ex-band mate Bernard Sumner. Hook’s low register and gravely voice sounds uncannily like Ian Curtis without being forced and works much better than Sumner’s high-end register vocals. Other highlights are an intense ‘Insight’ and emotionally charged versions of ‘Shadowplay’ and ‘New dawn fades’. Hook let’s the music do the talking and says very little between songs but is clearly enjoying himself. He (very wisely) goes for the sound and doesn’t try to ape Curtis’ stage moves (as if he could) ably supported by his four-piece band. One irony is that he spends less time playing his bass and more time singing. Another is that if Curtis had still been with us and on stage he wouldn’t have survived the strobe onslaught that accompanies some of the songs.

The first encore gives us another treat in the shape of the “best of” the Closer set and hence Joy Division classics like ‘Isolation’, ‘The Eternal’ and ‘Decades’. Hook observes “I didn’t think a gig could be hotter than the one in Glasgow, but it is here in Sheffield”. The crowd roars and (predictably) replies with chants of “Yorkshire, Yorkshire” to which the Salford-born bassist playfully retorts “But I’m not having any of that shit!”.

There’s still time for two more songs: ‘Transmission’ and ‘Love will tear us apart’. Ironically, the same two songs that a Hook-lite New Order have been encoring with. So going head-to-head, who does the best versions? Well, having seen New Order at the Apollo back in April, Peter Hook and The Light shade it. Put that in your pipe and smoke it NME!

Words & Photos: Denzil Watson