An Evening of Unknown Pleasures with Peter Hook

Last night, in Norwich, I got to spend an evening in the company of Peter Hook, Howard Marks and about 200 other guests! 😉

Upon entering the venue, the stage was set up with two armchairs surrounded by loads of memorabilia. On display were a selection of guitars, original artwork, posters, paintings, a couple of Hooky’s leather jackets and a couple of display cases with various bits of smaller things (see photos below). Hanging above the stage were two inflatable Factory balloons with the famous logo emblazoned on them.

We were invited to walk on stage and peruse all of this fascinating stuff first hand, take pictures and linger pretty much as long as we liked. Pretty unprecedented, totally appreciated and fantastically well observed by all those that attended.

The show itself opened with a short compilation of films, video clips and pictures, many of which were previously unseen. And then Howard Marks took to the stage, introducing himself in that awesome, deep Welsh baritone voice of his. Think what you like about this man, he has the same engaging qualities as his fellow countrymen Burton & Hopkins. And then Peter took to the stage, promptly sat down in front of his Trace Elliot stack and knocked out two numbers. The first, “Elegia“, an instrumental from the Low Life album by New Order and the second, the famous “never released” track, “The Happy One“, much loved by Hooky, Tony Wilson and fans alike….

And then, the two chaps sat down and started to chat. You’d think that there may have been some scripting or pre-rehearsed stuff at this point, but the conversation seemed pretty off the cuff, talking about Norwich and previous visits (Howard once stood here for MP in 1997 in both city constituencies!). And then it swiftly moved on to answering questions from the audience which we had submitted in writing earlier.

I shan’t bore you with all the details, but suffice to say, it was frank, honest and open discussion about Joy Division, New Order, Factory, The Hacienda, Manchester and Hooky’s contemporaries.

After a brief interval (much welcomed as the seats were bloody awful!) the guys returned to the stage, answering more questions, involving the audience much more and wrapping up with a final performance of “Dark Starr“, a track from the new FreeBass EP, “Two Worlds Collide” featuring Howard on vocals. A truly cracking piece!

And then it was over. Hooky then re-emerged to willingly oblige the very long queue of fans with autographs and photos, as did Howard.

A thoroughly enjoyable evening and I have to say that whilst many people say you should never meet your heroes, chatting with Peter after the show, he was so incredibly friendly, accommodating and genuine. Some people think that he speaks too much these days, that he trades of the past too much, but the impression O got of this man last night was that he really enjoys what he does and is genuinely grateful for everything that has happened to him. He openly admits how fortunate he has been and he is incredibly willing to give whatever he can back to the fans that have granted him this good fortune.

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