New Order at the 3Arena.
Dublin, October 2023.
New Order (2023).
This time I talked my brother Andy and Shane into coming along. Two years after Heaton Park, I'd gone from a passing appreciation for some of their songs to a rabid fan of every tune.
Third trip home of the year, after Springsteen in May and Pulp in June, and the one with the most Guinness. A few pints in town, a walk down the Liffey over the Samuel Beckett Bridge as the light went, and into the 3Arena, with Confidence Man warming everyone up.
New Order live in a big room is a light show as much as a gig: lasers, smoke, the screens doing their thing. They saved the Joy Division songs for the encore, Atmosphere, Transmission and Love Will Tear Us Apart, and finished on that.
Three gigs, three flights, three very different Dublins: a stadium in the suburbs, a park by the sea, and an arena on the docks. Not bad for a year.
The setlist.
All 19 songs from the night, in the order they played them. Listen: Apple Music · Spotify
Setlist from setlist.fm. More from 2023: my songs of the year.
