New Order.
Heaton Park, Manchester. September 2021.
New Order (Heaton Park, 2021).
Me and Anita. As it finally looked like we were making it out of Covid restrictions, I was dying to get a gig booked. New Order were one of those seminal bands I'd needed to tick off the list for a long time, so when their home-town gig was announced it was a no-brainer. I was doing a couple of nights a week in Manchester for work at the time anyway. The Specials came along later for the night before, so it became a double header.
It was their first Manchester gig in four years, with Hot Chip and Working Men's Club in support. Plastic was dedicated to Denise Johnson, and they finished with three Joy Division songs.
I went with a passing appreciation for some of their songs and left a rabid fan of every tune. Two years later I talked Andy and Shane into going again, at the 3Arena in Dublin.
The setlist.
All 19 songs from the night, in the order they played them. Listen: Apple Music · Spotify
Setlist from setlist.fm. More from 2021: my songs of the year.
On stage.
New Order later the same year: O2 Arena, London, November 2021. Photo: Ardfern, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, resized.
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