Which is an excuse to post this video of "Ceremony" live at the Ukrainian National Home on Second Avenue (between Ninth and St. Mark's) from Nov. 19 1981.
Our buddy Karate Boogaloo has a lot more about this show, including a review of it by Tim Sommer, a correspondent for the UK magazine Sounds:
"Standing around the Ukranian National Home on Manhattan's lower Second Avenue puts me in a sour mood. This is a prestigious gig in an odd venue, and the audience, like the hall, is truly pretentious in it's self-conscious unpretentiousness. The place is full of the cream of New York's pseudo-Continentals, the transparent and ridiculous '80's would-be bohemians with their long dark coats, scarves and faces. Unfortunately, very much the crowd you would expect for New Order. The evening's whole mood has been strongly anti-rock, so it's refreshing and pleasantly surprising when New Order's set begins brightly, with real strength and power."
Heh. Pseudo-Continentals!
See the rest of the post, including a video of the entire show, over at Stupefaction.
Tim Sommer went on to host a nightly alternative rock program on MTV that I used to watch all the time, and he was in a band I remember liking called Hugo Largo. He's a producer these days, I think.
ReplyDeleteGreat lines in the review ....
ReplyDelete"The place is full of the cream of New York's pseudo-Continentals, the transparent and ridiculous '80's would-be bohemians with their long dark coats, scarves and faces"
When my parents moved us out of the city into the 'burbs in 1989, I was a 17 year old hip-hop kid. The first two tapes the white kids gave me were Depeche Mode "Music for the Masses" and New Order "Substance" I loved 'em both.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to go to the show!
This is an incredible video, and really cool that it was at the Ukrainian Hall... does anyone have any more info of shows that happened at this venue?
ReplyDeletePhish last played Ukrainian National Home on 1989-12-15, which was 1326 show(s) ago.
ReplyDelete0.06% of Phish performances took place there.
Ukrainian National Home appears in our data on the following 1 date(s):
1989
1989-12-15 (Phish, Ukrainian National Home, New York, NY)You can view Phish stats for Ukrainian National Home.
I believe Blue Traveler guested at this show . Also this was the location for several David Mancuso LOFT parties in the 90s
Wow, nice clip. Made me want to listen to more New Order and that's not always the case.
ReplyDeletethey are SO NERVOUS. The song is almost twice as fast as it should be. BS fuckis up lines all over the place. Still somehow the soul is there. I missed this show, but saw Magazine and others around the same time.
ReplyDeleteTim Sommer was a very serious angry young man, no doubt. I remember a lot of people looking too cool, but there was such a feeling of something important going on back then that we really should forgive them. Still, I prefer the more egalitarian approach these days in the small NYC venues. No more velvet ropes at least.
Hey, nice one EV. Thanks for the linkage. Don't forget, Eugene Merinov has some photos from that show as well at www.eugenemerinov.com. I just bought a pair of tix for the Friday night Roseland show. Expensive!
ReplyDeletep.s. Phish???!!! Blech!
That whole show is available on the DVD called "3 16". It's OOP I think but easily found.
ReplyDeleteDamian –
ReplyDeleteI saw Johnny Thunders there around 1982 or ’83. Both the posters and tickets had showtime as “Midnight sharp.” Thunders and his guys, I suppose, had a reputation for being chronically late, and it seemed that the people running this particular venue – far more a reception hall than rock club – had laid down the law: Midnight, no later.
Well, the band hit the stage around quarter to two. The crowd didn’t seem to mind. And man, when Johnny Thunders was on his game, he was one of the best. When he kicked into the Contours’ “Do You Love Me,” it was sensational.
This was one of the very first gigs that New Order had as...New Order, after Ian Curtis's death. They were still trying to find their own voice and didn't know whether to continue as Joy Division, i.e. Ian Curtis's influence of spacey, more melancholic sound, and atmospheric sound, or just evolve their own voice/sound, which they did eventually. Hence, the more upbeat version of this. As for the effing up of the lyrics, no one knew the original lyrics: Sumners himself didn't know them; he had to turn-up the vocals of Curtis singing them on a demo by Joy Division to listen to the lyrics to no avail.
ReplyDeleteI prefer the Ukrainian Hall (didn't see them then, too young) kind of venues -- more intimate as opposed to the impersonal nature of the bigger arenas -- but good for the band, bad for the true fan.
As for the concert, I guess there's no chance of Hook re-joining, after he performed the whole 'Unknown Pleasures' 2 yrs ago at Webster Hall without New Order and with his band The Light. Gillian Gilbert is still a looker, nonetheless.
Missed out on the Roseland tix, (maybe Tim will sell his). May have to see them in Europe or Canada. Will have to start eating instant ramen noodles and PB&J's to save up.
tl;dr #shutupesquared
Thanks esquared.... I had a memory that Hooky's Joy Division tour was a disaster ... I'd better check that ... you saw that New Order is playing Friday the19th now too?
ReplyDeleteHook's gig at Webster Hall was a known unpleasure.
ReplyDeleteDidn't get tix for the Friday Oct. 19th gig either. But haysus, $14.50 for fees alone?!, that's how much I used to pay for concert tickets. I miss the days of camping out and lining-up at a box office for concert tickets. Ticketmaster killed that unknown pleasure of doing so.