photo credit: Craige Barker

Macclesfield was once the world’s biggest producer of silk. Hovis Bread makers started there. Now, it is home to one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca. The Times found Macclesfield to be “the most uncultured town in Britain,” whereas long established northern universities found it to be the fifth happiest district in the country.  Macclesfield has spawned some impressive musical talent, such as John Mayall and Noddy Holder, and footballers of the stature of Stoke City and England super tall star Peter Crouch. Last night I visited Macclesfield for the first time.

During May 1980, I was arrested and charged with importing a fifteen ton shipment of Colombia’s finest weed. There was an avalanche of publicity. I was rather obsessed with myself in those days – a proper dickhead – and read every newspaper I could get my hands on and kept the ones that made me look cool. Ian Curtis had just killed himself. That stopped me feeling sorry for myself. How can one compare doing a bit of time for dope with not wanting one’s next possible breath? Within a month, the posthumous “Love will tear us Apart” kept the world together.

photo credit: Craige Barker

Although I had never seen Joy Division live, I knew their music. We all knew punk wouldn’t last forever, but it exposed us 1960s plonkers for the idiots we were and sowed the seeds for music that will undoubtedly be around for longer than any of us. Rather unimaginatively, the genre was called simply “post punk.” I could not rid my mind of Ian’s untimely exit.

Readers will inevitably know the history of Joy Division and its progenies far better than I do. So I’ll keep it brief.

Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Terry Mason attended separately a Sex Pistols performance in Manchester. Immediately afterwards, Bernard bought a guitar, Terry bought a drum kit, Hooky bought a bass guitar, and they formed a band. Ian Curtis, who had lived his entire life in Macclesfield, was invited, without audition, to be the vocalist, while percussion and keyboard maestro Stephen Morris (also from Macclesfield) brought his formidable genius to the fledgling band, which eventually, after a few false starts, chose the name “Joy Division”

The members of Joy Division had made a pact: if any member left, they would change the name of the band. Eventually renaming themselves New Order, the band was reborn as a trio, who later recruited Stephen Morris’s girlfriend Gillian Gilbert (again from Macclesfield) as keyboardist and second guitarist.

The rain was stimulating, rather than dampening, the spirits, in Macclesfield when I arrived to attend Hooky’s (together with his carefully chosen band, The Light) rendition of all forty-six of Joy Division’s songs – a uniquely ambitious project. But I have had the privilege, not only of Hooky’s warm friendship, but also of his unshakeable professional commitment to deliver. Several people had warned me of how difficult he was to work with when we were about to tour together. I found him the easiest person conceivable. He should have been a dope smuggler. Whatever he says he will do, he will, particularly when there’s an audience, to whom he feels an unstoppable sense of duty to satisfy.

photo credit: Craige Barker

The first fifteen songs were completed with precisely the correct alchemic mix of love and anger The audience – several hundred paradigmatic representatives of at least four generations – were more than ready to hear the next thirty songs right then.

But then comes Rowetta, who can make anything better. There is no song she can’t improve, even to the deaf. (Looking like both Venus and Tina Turner obviously helps.) Her vocal range is phenomenal and the Joy Division energy tenaciously brings it all out. She injected excitement, love, modesty, and care. I was sad to see her leave the stage.

I suffer from terminal cancer, which means that after a few hours of any activity, or even merely witnessing it, I have to scarper and get unconscious. I had been talking to Karl “Fatneck” Power, delighted and highly amused by tales of his antics. He also had to scarper, but for very different reasons: he wanted to listen to his new act – The Backhanders. He offered me a lift to Manchester. On the way he played me one of the band’s tracks – an articulate song about the dangers and prevalence of grasses. The magic of Manchester is here to stay. God bless you, Ian.

You can order last night’s live concert from www.abbeyroad.com/live with all proceeds going to the two charities. The Epilepsy Society and the Churches Conservation Trust to restore Christ Church.

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