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  • Full Frame
  Languages
  • English: Linear PCM Stereo
  Subtitles
    English, German
  Extras
  • Animated menus

New Order - 3 16

Warner Vision/Warner Vision . R4 . COLOR . 132 mins . M15+ . PAL

  Feature
Contract

And now for a quick spot of musical history for the uninitiated...

In 1976 three young Manchester lads, Ian Curtis, Peter Hook and Bernard Dicken (as he was known that week), witnessed the majestic live assault of the Sex Pistols in their hometown. This in itself was inspiration enough for them to form a band. Roping in a drummer they soon christened themselves Warsaw (after the Bowie song Warzsawa), lost the drummer, found one Stephen Morris to replace him, and changed their name to Joy Division. Taking the incredibly un-punk route of combining synthesizers with guitars, and having a bass player who thought he was a lead-guitarist (so he played his instrument accordingly), they soon garnered much attention with their haunting lyrics and rather majestic musical creations, not to mention Ian's tortured and contorted stage presence (he was in fact afflicted with epilepsy). In May 1980, on the eve of an American tour and only a month after the release of what is now rightfully regarded by anybody with a clue as one of THE most classic songs of all time, Love Will Tear Us Apart, Ian hanged himself in his kitchen.

Joy Division was no more, however the three surviving members decided to continue, and soon re-birthed themselves as New Order. Stephen's girlfriend Gillian Gilbert was recruited for keyboard and extra guitar duties, and the incredibly bleak, and virtually unlistenable Movement album was recorded, and eventually released on the local label Factory - a suitably 'different' bedfellow, the kind of company who had catalogue numbers for most everything, from a director's dental work to their office cat. Essentially a rather difficult to digest aural synonym for austerity, Movement's existence was still necessary, both to exorcise ghosts and as a steppingstone to the band finding themselves musically. Still, none could have predicted the sheer brilliance they would unleash within a couple of years...

For along comes a little dance number they called Blue Monday. Most everybody knows it, even if not by name. Instantly recognisable from its BLAT BLAT BLATTATATTATAT BLAT BLAT BLAT introduction and synth-choral majesty, and born as simply a way to test their new drum machine, it was released to the sort of acclaim that had reviewers poring over Thesauri in search of the perfect strings of superlatives, and went on to become the world's highest selling 12 inch single ever - the fact that they refused to release the almost eight-minute long masterpiece on 7 inch single admittedly helping just a tad. This obstreperousness carried onto their Power, Corruption and Lies album which was released soon after, bearing no track listing on the packaging at all it actually didn’t include the single that everybody was buying it for. Giant stickers were soon slapped on the stock stating, "This record does NOT contain Blue Monday', which was probably the only such case of anti-marketing the record industry has ever known. Soon after they were courted by, and signed to, the incredibly credible Quincy Jones-owned Qwest label in the US and teamed up with renowned DJ Arthur Baker, proving that white folk could do the dance music thang perfectly brilliantly, thankyouverymuch - so much so that they are oft quoted as a huge influence by most any dance act you could name. A slew of classic singles and albums ensued, but I'm going on way too much so I'll put a cork in it for now. Suffice to say that to define the musical big scheme of things, the '50s had Elvis, the '60s The Beatles, the '70s David Bowie, and the '80s New Order.

However, on with the show - and what a delightfully curious, and typically New Order, show this DVD presents. Featuring essentially two live sets, each clocking in at around 55 minutes long, one hails from the band's embryonic days back in 1981, and one from their back-together-again days in 1998. The contrast is mind numbing. 1981 displays a painfully shy Barney who obviously couldn’t hold a note to save his life, a Peter Hook more akin to a Lego-man accountant than the rock god he later morphed into, Gillian in Siouxsie Sioux with BIG Robert Smith hair mode looking more like an escapee from the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer than a musician and Stephen Morris looking, umm, like he always has - more like a bus conductor than a phenomenal human drum machine. He may be rather anonymous, but he holds this strangely compelling cacophony together - just when it appears that none of the members have any clue where the others are heading, or even what key they’re playing in, and that they aren’t even sure when the songs are supposed to end. Nary a word is spoken to the audience here as they plummet through much of Movement, and a handful of their earliest singles, including a lyrically different prototype of the majestic Temptation, which is a nice inclusion for comparison's sake, as it pops up later on in the Reading set.

Aaah, the Reading set. Almost twenty years on, and it's hard to believe that this is the same band. They're all kind of paunchy, Barney can actually sing (even if he does need an autocue - tsk tsk), Hooky is in full-on rock pig mode, with his six string bass slung so low that Satan has to duck and weave to avoid getting clonked on the head, Gillian is all motherly and Stephen is looking like - well, a bus conductor, still. And what's this? They’re interacting with the audience! Barney's even moving, breaking into a jig one minute and giving this disc the illusion that it's the Bernard Sumner Workout Program the next. Pretty much a severely edited greatest hits set, we even get treated to the live virgin World in Motion (the English World Cup squad's 1990 anthem) complete with an appearance by Keith Allen, as well as dance floor staples Bizarre Love Triangle (the kosher BLT) and Blue Monday. The superb Brotherhood opener Paradise is an utter treat, although much of the audience appears clueless as to what it is - philistines! After steadfastly refusing to play any Joy Division songs since that fateful day in 1980, they even drag out three of them. Atmosphere demands singling out as it is still so utterly moving that I can’t hear it without the tears welling up. It isn’t so much that it is sad, more that it is one of those rare slices of sheer beauty that can move somebody in a way that few musicians can ever manage, no matter how hard they try. And that is an inherent part of New Order's success - they seemingly didn’t try - it is one of those perfect marriages where four rather disparate elements come together to create something of sheer beauty that alone they couldn’t muster. Much like with The Smiths or The Pixies, the many spin-off bands the members toyed with through the '90s - Revenge, Monaco, Electronic and the Other Two - are proof of this, as they never quite managed to cut it.

Rounding out this package is a 25-minute or so interview, preceded by footage of the band performing for the Commonwealth Games Manchester 2002 bid, soundtracked by a slightly remixed version of the link between all sections, Temptation. The interview is really a fans only affair, showing a sense of humour within the band that many would have doubted the existence of - they aren’t a bunch of po-faced ever-so-serious types after all! This features blipverts from many promotional video clips, making me pine more for the release of a collection of such on lovely shiny little disc, and even footage of their late manager Rob Gretton - RIP. More info is scattered throughout the rest of this review...

For those hankering for a track listing, here t'is...

New York, November 18th 1981

Chosen Time (somebody oopsed majorly with this, as all the packaging and menus seem to think it's another Movement track, ICB), Dreams Never End, Everything's Gone Green, Truth, Senses, Procession, Ceremony, Denial, Temptation

Reading Festival, August 30th, 1998

Regret, Touched by the Hand of God, Isolation, Atmosphere, Heart and Soul, Paradise, Bizarre Love Triangle, True Faith, Temptation, Blue Monday, World in Motion

  Video
Contract

The entirety of 3 16 is presented full frame, which is hardly surprising when you consider the origins of its contents; a home video, a television special and a handheld home video camera respectively.

To say that I was shocked on first clapping my eyes upon the New York Taras Shevchenko footage would be an understatement akin to observing that the universe is very, very big. With hazy memories of a dodgy-at-best VHS videotape from days gone by, seeing such utter pristinity would have had me floored, save for the fact that I was snugly ensconced upon my ever-faithful couch. Being from 1981 I expected a video travesty, however my expectations were just plain wrong mister! This truly looks fantastic, really the only glitches I can point out - mainly some weird wavy effects in certain shots - appear to be due to the camera used at the time, rather than any inherent fault in the transfer. The colour, black levels, most everything in fact is simply rendered beautifully. Hands up whoever gave this video the absolutely wondrous pampering it has received, I wish to buy you a drink or three.

The Reading footage also fares quite wonderfully, which is not too surprising considering it only dates back to 1998. Live stuff in the dark can be a nightmare to film, especially when in a bloody great field in the middle of whatever the English equivalent of Woop Woop is, yet this looks fab. There's a bit of washout occasionally, once again this is no inherent fault in the transfer, it's just simple science, you point a camera at a rather huge stage light and...

Finally we come to the interview footage. It's shot on teensy home video cameras, and it certainly shows. Video purists would have conniption fits on seeing this, it's so shaky at times that it looks much as if Lars Von Trier directed it on an extremely off-day, however in the oft-shambolic New Order scheme of things it is all rather apt. Colour jumps about (although not as much as the cameraman, who seems to be in the midst of his own personal earthquake) and is so far from reference quality it's beyond being ridiculous. If you are looking for visual perfection though I cannot help but wonder why you'd even think to look around these here parts.

There is a layer change early in the New York set - around the 15-minute mark. It occurs between songs and isn’t too disruptive.

  Audio
Contract

Agh - how can you be disappointed and completely blown away in equal portions?

(Amy plonks on her nerd-bonnet) The entire disc is encoded in luvverly 48khz linear PCM stereo, which is a higher bit-rate than even CD. (Amy removes the nerd-bonnet 'cos it hurts her little bonce).

Whilst the live sound is phenomenal, especially the magic that has been bestowed upon the twenty-year old New York footage soundtrack, sadly it isn’t without its flaws. There are occasional glitches such as a bit of hum (in the 1981 set), touches of distortion and dropouts, however they appear to be inherent perils from the live recording process, rather than any lapses on behalf of the boffins responsible for this remastering. The Reading sound suffers occasionally too, which is quite a shame - however we do get authenticity, as this is likely more how it sounded straight from the speakers, but minus the field full of twats and twatettes jumping up and down all around you screaming the words in some sort of football hooligan dialect understood only by card-carrying Barmy Army members. So DVD-wise it's a big thumbs up musically, but one or two sound guys who were there on the day deserve a mild bitch slapping.

As for the interview section, well... The little surprise remixed update of Temptation (although cutting it to around four minutes is akin to severing the statue of David's willy) sounds nigh on perfect, but then we head into the interview proper. Once again considering the equipment used it is serviceable, and let's face it any fan won’t give a flying fudgsicle how crap it sounds, as getting an interview with the rather shy and reclusive to say the least band is ample reward in itself. Dialogue pops all around the place, for example at one point it's like Hooky is crouching in the deepest recesses of your left speaker, then all of a sudden he's dead central again. Again, this is a feature included for the fans, I think I'm safe in saying that more casual observers would most likely be more than content with the musical bits of the disc.

  Extras
Contract

There's not a lot to get excited over here, as is the case with most music DVDs. The animated menus are quite beautifully Peter Saville-ish (the guy who has designed ALL of the packaging throughout the band's career), and each menu and sub-menu has its own portion of looped song. You can bring up subtitles in English or German for the interview section, which to be honest can be quite handy when dealing with thick Manc accents such as these, although many liberties were taken as to what the band were actually saying by those responsible for them. This applies to the English ones at least, for my knowledge of German stretches to "Volkswagen" and "Autobahn" and not particularly far beyond. They are at least nicely legible.

There is also a little four-page booklet included within the package, which is a nice extra touch, giving more detail about those responsible for the features contained on the disc, locations, etc.

I'll just note here that I'm classing the interview as part of the feature package (they do include it as part of the running time), and not as an extra feature - so please take that into account when you look at the 'Extras' rating and possibly think that I'm being a stingy cow.

  Overall  
Contract

Personally this is the greatest music DVD I have yet come across - sheer little shiny disc heaven. At over two hours it offers exceptional value for money, and in showing New Order live from two entirely different eras gives an incredible insight into so many facets of how a band evolves with the passing of time - something I daresay not too many of their contemporaries would be champing at the bit to expose so readily. Visually and sonically it is top notch, save for the few unavoidable glitches I have mentioned in the relevant sections above.

OK, so anybody who hasn’t realised that when it comes to New Order I'm a drooling fan-gal by now must be living in a fairyland. This is the band that has been the musical constant in my life, supplying THE soundtrack to so many of the absolutely joyous highs, as well as the utterly despairing lows. Regardless of my unashamed personal bias, they indeed are one of the most important bands to emerge in the last twenty years, a fact acknowledged by so many of their peers, and also as evidenced by probably the best musical documentary series ever produced, the superlative BBC-made Dancing in the Street (which I await on DVD with lovingly open arms), as they devoted almost an entire episode to the band. I implore anybody who considers themselves a true fan of music that has been of any influence to check out this disc, or indeed anybody who doubts that something generally classed as "dance music" can have heart, soul and incredible substance (to those in the know, no pun intended). I can’t imagine it disappointing unless you're a cloth-eared dolt.

Oh, for those of you who have been wondering, the Factory office cat's name was FAC 191...


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      And I quote...
    "To define the musical big scheme of things, the '50s had Elvis, the '60s The Beatles, the '70s David Bowie and the '80s New Order... "
    - Amy Flower
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Pioneer DV-535
    • TV:
          Sony 68cm
    • Speakers:
          Home Built
    • Surrounds:
          No Name
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard RCA
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
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