So New Order played the Lokerse Feesten festival two days before they're supposed to appear in the Olympics closing ceremony, and I decided to go check them out.
Lokerse Feesten is organized in the city centre, and though I'm not going to criticize the festival as a whole of being 'non-cosy', the festival terrain definitely is.
Seeing as I don't rush during the weekends unless I have to, I missed The Charlatans, but no worries there. Got there in time to catch the gig by Royksopp, the played a nice set with a lot of hits, and some extra beats thrown in to get the people dancing. Bringing along the almighty Robyn to sing 'The girl and the robot' was a pleasant surprise.
New Order were supposed to start at fifteen past eleven, but some technical issues and issues with the backdrop gave them a fifteen minute delay.
Finally walking on to the stage Bernard adressed the crowd with "Cheers" and a - possibly sarcastic - "We hope you're going to have as much fun as we are".
First song was a three minute version of the instrumental Elegia.
Following up with Crystal, it became apparent immediately that Bernard's voice was having an off-day. He would continuously struggle with it throughout the set.
Next up, excellent single Regret from the 1993 'Republic' album.
Continuing to focus on more guitar-oriented tracks in the first half of the set, their track Ceremony from the very early days. For this track only, keyboard player Gillian switched to guitar.
Next up, the opening track from the 'Power, Corruption and Lies' album, Age of consent.
Rather unfortunately, the band then deemed it necessary to play the first Joy Division cover song. The industrial-like vibe didn't help Isolation much, and Bernard messing up the lyrics wasn't much help either.
Soldiering on with some of the post year 2K singles under the New Order moniker, Krafty and Here to stay.
After that, just before the set was about to collapse completely under they weight of too many mid-tempo, guitar-dominated tracks, time for a more synth-orientated trio, of which I managed to capture some video material (see below).
Bizarre love triangle is one of my favourite tracks, they didn't play the standard single version and not the extended dance remix one, bummer! Bernard called it "a track you might know", but in my recollection, it wasn't that big of a hit here in Belgium. He sang this track without holding on to his guitar, and his voice suddenly had some more power.
586 is the track on the 'Power, Corruption and Lies' where you think your cd or record player is failing because of the weird intro. I was happy to see an album track in the setlist.
The perfect kiss is another one of my all-time favourite New Order singles (no music video has ever had more band members giving awkward looks into the camera as the one for this track by Jonathan Demme), so one of the highlights of the set for me.
Continuing with the hit single madness, they tried to do something original with True faith by omitting the pulsating bassline, which was obviously the wrong decision.
Next up, the obligatory Blue Monday, in which Bernard walked off the stage periodically, only to appear when he had to perform vocals.
Last track of the regular setlist, Temptation, a song that appeared on the Trainspotting soundtrack.
The encore consisted of a rendition of Love will tear us apart (second Joy Division) that seemed ready for the Night of the Proms. No drive, no punch, no kick...pretty terrible.
Overall conclusions:
- despite this review being rather critical, I did enjoy the set and the only real downside was Bernard's voice not being up to par. From what I've read, the lack of enthousiasm in the band's onstage composure is something that has historically been part of the band's image.
- heard and saw a lot of people from The Netherlands, Germany, people speaking French, and even some Brits.
- I've heard comments about these shows about the bass being too loud in the present, but in Lokeren, the sound mix was balanced enough.
- not unhappy with the setlist, but instead of the stale Joy Division covers, I'd prefer to see them play some of their better album tracks ('Your silent face', 'Love vigilantes', 'This time of night', 'Face up') or crazy singles ('Fine Time'). But I guess this is their festival set, not going to argue with that.
Setlist: Elegia/Crystal/Regret/Ceremony/Age of consent/Isolation/Krafty/Here to stay/Bizarre love triangle/586/The perfect kiss/True faith/Blue monday/Temptation/(encore)Love will tear us apart
Here are my videos: Thanks for reading!
