REVOLVER: BRIAN BOYDon music: Like Queen without Freddie Mercury, U2 without The Edge or Sooty without Sweep.
That is Peter Hook’s appraisal of the New Order line-up headlining Sunday night’s Forbidden Fruit Festival at Kilmainham. The ex-Joy Division/ New Order bassist is none too happy that “the other three” (Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert) didn’t even bother telling him they were reforming last year with a new bass player (Tom Chapman).
Thus another legendary Manchester band have been reduced to name-calling and hair-pulling. While The Stone Roses managed to “work through their issues” after 15 or so years of loathing each other, The Smiths are still turning down multi-million offers to reform due to interpersonal relationships being on the “extremely fraught” side.
For a group who have accomplished so much and been through so much (including, you know, changing the direction of popular music a few times), it’s sad to see New Order heading inexorably towards the High Court as squabbles continue over who owns what and who is allowed to use which name.
Usually in the music world, if you throw money or drink at a feud it soon abates. But New Order vs Peter Hook has become a very- angry-soap-opera-meets-tacky-reality-TV show.
“New Order deciding to tour without me? It makes me all the more determined to fuck New Order over in any possible way I can,” says Hook. The bassist is now accusing his replacement of miming to his old New Order bass lines while playing live.
“I’ve watched the so-called New Order playing in Auckland, and Tom Chapman is miming along to my bass on tape,” claims Hook. “He’s got his fingers on the low (strings) and you can hear my high bass in the background. So he’s miming. I do think that miming to my bass is pretty much the ultimate insult – there I am lurking in the background like a ghost.”
When the rest of New Order reformed last year, they declined to comment on the reasons Hook wasn’t invited to the party. When Revolver spoke to Stephen Morris last week, the drummer said of the Hook accusations: “It’s all a bit daft in the greater scheme of things. Band members squabbling in the press is just so petty, and it’s something the rest of us just try and rise above. The reunion shows have been going great – and that’s all that matters to us.”
The band did, though, feel they had to make an official statement about Hook’s “miming” accusations.
“New Order are not using any of Mr Hook’s bass playing in our live performances. Tom (Chapman) recorded his high bass part and it’s relayed as part of the backing track. When Mr Hook was part of New Order he tracked the parts that couldn’t be played live because they coincided with other parts. We are simply doing the same with our new bass player.”
When you refer to an ex-band mate as “Mr”, you know things are beyond repair. It’s a great tragedy for this totemic group. It’s one thing for a once-great band to decline artistically and begin releasing self-indulgent rubbish. It’s quite another for a once-great band to descend to this level of spite and malice.
There will be no new New Order material (they’ve always been clear on that point) – and they say this current run of gigs will be their last ever.
Reviews of previous shows this year point to a band who are still as potent and dynamic on stage as they always were. If you have tickets for Sunday night, enjoy and celebrate an iconic band. Ironically, given the title of the best known Joy Division song, hate has torn them apart.
* Kanye West is to build his own entertainment park, a sort of hip-hop Disneyland for adults.
* An 8-14 kids’ version of The Voice is being planned for later this year.
bboyd@irishtimes.com
