Report: Peter Hook Does Unknown Pleasures in DC

Nevermind the Killers, here's the real killer: erstwhile Joy Division bassist Hook brings his band to the States - the 9:30 Club, in Washington, DC, December 8 -  to perform the classic debut album in its entirety.

By Logan K. Young

People die; bands break up. But in the end, the songs remain.

And in the case of Peter Hook's DC rendering of Joy Division's 1979 debut Unknown Pleasures, for the most part anyways, the songs remain the same.

He's certainly caught flack for it though.

Casting the first stone was Hook's old Freebass bandmate, ex-Stone Roses bass player Gary "Mani" Mounfield. Claiming that Hook's wallet, "stuffed with Ian Curtis blood money," would soon be "visible from space," Mani decried that the erstwhile New Order bassist was simply "dragging his mate's cadaver ‘round the world." Perhaps there is something a tad unseemly about hearing a dead man's songs sung by another at 25 bucks a head. But in a world where PiL plays late night talk shows and Steve Ignorant reforms Crass without Penny Rimbaud, it seems silly to demand discretion of nostalgia.

Whatever your motives, if you are going to re-tackle a post-punk warhorse like Unknown Pleasures, your approach should indeed be beyond reproach. After all, it's not just critics that wince at the classic-band-x plays classic-album-y schtick. The fans do too. Thus, ahead of the reason even, there has to be a regimen for the reminiscence. And might we have some context to go along with our meal, as well? To wit, that's where Peter Hook and his nimble backing band, The Light, succeeded the most.

After all, Unknown Pleasures is barely 40 minutes long.

After a short film about Factory Records literally set the stage, Hook and The Light launched not into Unknown Pleasures' lead-off track, "Disorder," but instead "No Love Lost" -- the second cut from Joy Division's debut proper, the four-song EP An Ideal for Living. "Leaders of Men," the next song on the 1978 seven-inch, followed, and for a moment, it appeared that Hook, his 21-year-old bassist son Jack, guitarist Nat Wason, keyboard player Andy Poole and Monaco drummer Paul Kehoe were going to give us all of that record as well. It wasn't to be as "Glass" and "Digital" came next, the latter all the more poignant as it was the last song Joy Division performed before Ian Curtis finished up Herzog's Stroszek, put on Iggy Pop's The Idiot and hanged himself in the kitchen at 23.

And with that, Peter Hook's Unknown Pleasures began in earnest. With nary a break nor banter, he played it straight through. "Disorder," still one of the most auspicious first tracks on any album, was impeccable. Furthermore, the opening guitar riff on "Day of the Lords" was so spot-on, with the lights out, you'd swear it really was Bernard Sumner. And while Martin Hannett's coldly electronic toms were conspicuously absent on "Insight," Hook's son kept the low end so solid and refined that it almost ceased to matter.

But then again, Jack kind of has to. Hook has Curtis' hulking baritone down to a Mancunian science, but alas, he cannot pat his head and rub his belly at the same time. He's more than keen to get a song like "She's Lost Control" going, but when it comes time to roar, he himself gets lost in a wilderness of frets and thumb rings. It's a shame, too, as Hook's sliding, melodic style was just as integral to Joy Division's overall sound as anything Ian Curtis ever bellowed.      

Side two, or "Inside" as it's labeled on the vinyl, fared equally as well with the ensemble. In fact, the band's stunning offering of "Shadowplay" reminded us just how badly The Killers' version ruined the closing credits of the 2007 Curtis biopic Control. Anticipating an encore, Hook hung up his bass and walked off stage before The Light could actually finish the album closer, "I Remember Nothing." He returned moments later, and with a hearty "3-5-0-1-2-5 Go!" christened said encore with a scorching version of the early Joy Division number "Warsaw." That energy and verve never faltered during "Transmission," and after a brief word from Hook about how great is was to be back in the States, as if out of obligation, Nat Wason lit into the opening chords of "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Despite it's ubiquity and covers good (The Cure), bad (Swans) and just plain fugly (Fall Out Boy), that song is still quite capable of moving a mid-week 9:30 Club to something that looked a lot like tears. 

Back then, the ten songs on Unknown Pleasures were some of the most desperate and destitute ever put to tape. Touching from a distance of more than 30 years however, amazingly enough, it's as if they've somehow transcended the toil that beget them. Yes, of course, there are still vestiges of isolation and regret, still trace amounts of sorrow and suffering. And yet, as the crowd made clear, these tunes are anthems now. And in the hands of Peter Hook at least, where before they only sounded pain, there's a new-found optimism and fortitude. Some will call that hope, while others will hear solace.

And a lucky few may even say its joy.

[Photo Credit: Logan K. Young]