New Order-Cries And Whispers (Live 6-23-1983)

Playlist:    • New Order Live Billy Barty's "The Fantasy"...  

New Order
Live Billy Barty's Fullerton, California
June 23rd, 1983

A 16 year old John Darnielle, future frontman of the Mountain Goats, was at this show and said the following:
"Hi there! I was just thinking about a gig I attended a million years ago...
It was the 23/6/83 gig at Billy Barty's Roller Fantasy in Fullerton.
(The promoter, Goldenvoice, was trying to get people to call it "The Fantasy" but nobody was buying it...roller disco had been a big deal in southern California a few years before.)

A few things I remember:
The show was opened by Pompeii 99 and Saccharine Trust.
Pompeii 99 went on to become the musicians in the second incarnation of Christian Death.

During "Ceremony," at about the midway point, Peter Hook put down his bass and left the stage. At least I think it was Hooky. It might have been Bernard! Memory is sketchy after such a long time. At any rate, and you should be able to tell from the tape if you have it, one of them set down his instrument on a stand and left the stage, leaving the rest of the band to finish "Ceremony" by themselves.
I remember Morris and Gillian exchanging a sort of "what the hell?" look at this point.

The flyers and posters for the gig said PERFORMING THEIR HIT 'BLUE MONDAY' - it was a big number on KROQ at the time. To open the set with a half-done version of it seemed like a way of kissing off the public.

Despite all that I loved the show - the adversarial feel was somehow appropriate for the time, or for my age. I was sixteen. That's all I've got, and it isn't much, but I thought you might find it interesting."

Blue Monday
Leave Me Alone
The Village
Cries And Whispers
ICB
In A Lonely Place
Ultraviolence
Procession
Denial
Ceremony