Call me clueless but I never realised that what the world was waiting for was a live album by REVENGE, Peter Hook’s side project whilst the day job continued the interminable “shall we carry on or shan’t we” phase that seemed to last a decade and probably did in retrospect.
REVENGE came into life at the end of NEW ORDER’s 1989 ‘Technique’ tour and at the start of the implosion of Factory and The Hacienda but this live album captures them two years later at Manchester’s Cities in The Park festival; additional tracks are culled from a show in Kawasaki, Japan a few months later. The initial line-up comprised of Hooky, keyboardist Chris Jones and guitarist Dave Hicks but was later augmented by Ash on drums and David Potts on supplemental base, the latter going on to form MONACO with Hooky 5 years later.
Often frighteningly dated in a way that NEW ORDER never have been – at the beginning of ‘Slave’ I’m half-expecting the theme tune to Miami Vice to kick in - there is something disarmingly twee about the whole enterprise. Hooky always represented the more ‘rock’ tendencies of NEW ORDER with that bass guitar masquerading as a low-slung Colt 45. By this point he’d already cultivated the ‘biker roadie’ look with pony tail and leathers. So it’s odd to conclude that the REVENGE live experience somehow feels, well, slightly camp and rather lightweight. The presence of NEW ORDER looms large at virtually every turn but if you’re going to rip off someone it may as well be another one of your own bands. The manoeuvres are definitely aimed at an electro/rock crossover but the results somehow fall into something fruitier, like a slightly heavier Dead or Alive.
This is particularly true of the Cities In The Park set on which the digital remastering renders the overall sound tinny and thin and lacking sufficient bottom, ironic given the bass player’s pre-eminence. The band’s playing at first is patchy and there is a general lack of atmosphere, no doubt aggravated by them playing some graveyard slot as the crowd enjoys a post lunchtime drinking session siesta. They don’t really get into their stride until ‘Bleachman’ and ‘Cloud 9’ and it’s in fact on the cover of New Order’s ‘Dreams Never End’ (dedicated to the recently deceased Martin Hannett who’d produced the debut ‘Movement’ 10 years earlier) that they sound tight and purposeful.
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The ‘greatest hits’ supplement of the Japan set includes the singles ‘7 Reasons’ and ‘Pineapple Head’ and has better sound quality that allows all instruments to register more evenly in the mix. The set includes another successful cover, this time of The Stones’ ‘Citadel’ on which the bass playing is a treat, and a not so great version of The Velvet’s ‘White Light/White Heat’ on which Hooky comes across all “blokey” in a Status Quo kind of way.
Ultimately REVENGE never feels like anything more than a key member of NEW ORDER fulfilling his cravings for jamming and touring, generally trying to keep his hand in as the ‘gardening leave’ turns from months into years. Strictly for the archivists and completists.
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