New Order and the Chemical Brothers
Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium, Oakland, CA
April 29, 2005

After zooming home to change clothes and give the dogs dinner, i then sped up to SF to meet Veronica and Gary, and the three of us then crossed the bay and headed to the Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium in Oakland for the evening's Chemical Brothers/New Order show. We had a crappy meal of hot dogs and nachos inside, then got down to the Chemmies amidst the numerous glowstick-wielding bozos. They were good, although i stand by my assessment that i could stay at home, play their cd, and watch a skipping DVD on 4x frame advance and have the same experience. After finding seats up in the balcony, we settled in for New Order's set. They opened with a good version of Joy Division's "She's Lost Control", commemorating Ian Curtis's death 25 years ago this May. Their set read like a greatest hits tracklist ... "Love Vigilantes", "Regret", "Bizarre Love Triangle", "True Faith", "Crystal", as well as their latest single "Krafty" from their newly-released album Waiting for the Sirens' Call. Sadly nothing from Technique. They also included two more Joy Division songs, the mandatory "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and the hypnotic "Transmission" (although Barney's smoother vocals and occasional yipe! can't match Ian's fervent delivery). The boys (with Gillian having left the band to care for her and Stephen's children, it's the three JD alums and former shitty Marion guitarist Phil Cunningham) closed with a rendition of the 1987 remix of "Blue Monday". A good evening, although Gary and i were in agreement that playing live is not New Order's forté. It beat sitting at home watching Friday night tv though.

login to submit comments