New Order at the NEC, Birmingham, Sunday, March 26th, 1989
Gig Review by Christine Layfield

I was at a New Order concert when they were playing their British tour and it was truly amazing. I've never seen so many people. I was about in the middle of the audience and everyone on the stage looked about two centimetres tall!

The support band were the Happy Mondays, who were pretty good. Then, we waited three-quarters of an hour while they changed the equipment and lighting. The lights went down and we all got ready for the performance. New Order came out onto the stage and started doing their stuff. I couldn't see very much, but it didn't really matter.

First, they did some tracks from their recent album “Technique”, during which there was a beautiful laser light show, which formed the complete audio-visual experience. After that they did some oldies and most people were jumping up and down, putting their fists into the air. Several thousand fans doing this simultaneously is a pretty amazing sight. They did my old fave, “Bizarre Love Triangle”, which swept us all away.

They made us wait ages for an encore, but after much clapping, stamping, and shouting, they came back and did a few more songs. They were on for about one and a half hours in all.

I've always liked New Order, but at that concert they were brilliant. Some bands let technology take over. For example acid house, but New Order have moved with the times, and still use their guitars, and have some delicious melodies. Anyway, it was truly spectacular and I didn't want to go home!

This review was first published in Peace & Freedom, No. 6, Vol. 2, Summer 1989