It's only taken them 25 years, but New Order have finally got this gig thing licked. All you need, it would appear, is a singles set, a few rehearsals to shed that hit-or-miss tag, and an approach to stagecraft presumably inspired by a careful study of pantomime. Here are the showmen, anyone?
"It didn't bloody rain for the Queen," moans Bernard Sumner, contrasting HM's golden jubilee with his band's silver (Concorde even provides a coincidental flypast). In point of fact, it doesn't actually rain for New Order either, though the thousands who've arrived early for an undercard featuring the likes of Air and Echo & The Bunnymen are drenched by torrential afternoon downpours. Things underfoot are decidedly messy - as anyone trusting enough of the English summer to wear sandals can attest - but by the time Sumner and co arrive on stage a little after 8, north London is smiling beneath clear blue skies.
Barney doesn't let that minor detail stop him, though. Dancing on the spot when he's not playing guitar, he hams it up throughout, and as he introduces 'Confusion' his entire band leave the stage after he complains that this is his one chance to star. Boom, and, indeed, boom.
New Order are now happy to not only acknowledge but to celebrate their incarnation as Joy Division, and a great deal of the relaxed and playful spirit of their performance probably stems from this. For a band who have consistently cultivated an aura of mystique, the aimiable blokeishness of much of the set is both unexpected and reassuring. There's something slightly askew about Sumner's aping of Ian Curtis' chin-in-chest vocal during 'She's Lost Control', but the thorough going-over they give to 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' shows that their attitude to these songs, so special to so many, is rightly respectful without being over-reverential.
Just as soon as it's warming up, though, the set comes to an abrupt end. And while an encore isn't long in arriving, there's a palpable sense of people feeling somewhat short-changed. Still, the Joy Division obscurity 'Digital' - with guest vocals from Barney's '24 Hour Party People' double, John Sim - followed by a spectral 'Blue Monday' both go a long way to alleviating those concerns. And, while 'Your Silent Face' is the last song, the curtain is really brought down by an inevitable, euphoric 'World In Motion', New Order's feel for the appropriate mood outweighing any artistic preciousness. There are birthday parties where 25,000 people chanting "Ing-ur-land" would be, at best, inappropriate - but this isn't one of them.
