TRANSMISSION THE SOUND OF JOY DIVISION + THE VELVETS – PATTERNS, BRIGHTON 30.7.22
Exactly one year to the day, Transmission The Sound Of Joy Division make a welcome return to Patterns which is located at 10 Marine Parade, Brighton, BN2 1TL.
Their appearance here one year ago was certainly eventful as not only was it their first ever permanence in Brighton during their then 13 year history, but because of the pandemic, punters had patiently waited for a staggering 692 days (that’s 1 year, 10 months and 23 days) from the date that the concert was initially announced! It was also only their second ever performance in the whole of Sussex, having played Hastings back in 2010.
Last year, Transmission The Sound Of Joy Division performed no less than 21 tunes across two sets of material made famous by the original Manchester outfit. I know you’re wondering which ones, so here you go:
Setlist One: ‘Shadowplay’, ‘Isolation’, ‘A Means To An End’, ‘She’s Lost Control’, ‘24 Hours’, ‘Decades’, ‘Colony’, ‘New Dawn Fades’, ‘Atrocity Exhibition’ and ‘Heart And Soul’.
Setlist Two: ‘Dead Souls’, ‘Day Of The Lords’, ‘Disorder’, ‘Passover’, ‘The Eternal’, ‘Atmosphere’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Digital’, ‘Transmission’, ‘No Love Lost’ and ‘Interzone’.
This evening, however, courtesy of promoters Black Rabbit Productions they were joined by The Velvets, as the support act. So possibly some Joy Division songs might have to be dropped this time around, we shall see shortly.
The Velvets all male lineup this evening have only been together for a mere three or four months, so with that in mind, they are obviously very much a work in progress act. Their raison d’être is the dedication to reproducing the sound and atmosphere of a Velvet Underground gig from the 1960s.
The Velvet Underground are considered by many to be the most important and influential alternative rock band of all time. They were famously championed by Andy Warhol and arguably seriously underappreciated, perhaps until Punk came along.
Concentrating on what could be considered the classic halcyon period for the band and interspersing both Nico and Lou Reed vocals with the experimental nature of many of those early recordings, The Velvets concentrate on a “Live” sound and pay little attention to any attempt at visual similarities to the original members (barring the odd pair of shades!).
The Velvets quintet take to the Patterns stage at 7:34pm and perform a 41 minute set consisting of the eight Velvet Underground tunes that they have so far learned. We were promised many more next time around. ‘Sister Ray’ would be rather handy me thinks!
The format is vocals, Ibanez bass guitar, Gretsch guitar, drums, and another guitar to the rear. Both of this evening’s band’s will be using the same drum kit, which is the usual practice in this size of events. That’s not all that they have in common either. More about that later.
There were to be a handful of offerings from the famous 1967 banana artwork ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ album, with four of these (‘I’m Waiting For The Man’, ‘There She Goes Again’, ‘Femme Fatale’ and ‘Venus In Furs’) cropping up first. I wish that the vocals on ‘Femme Fatale’ were delivered by a female, but I guess Nico’s voice was quite deep anyway. Worse than this was the continual sound of what one could justifiably describe as a chicken being strangled during ‘Venus In Furs’. I couldn’t work out who or what was responsible for this, but the song would have been better without it.
‘Sweet Jane’ from the 1970 ‘Loaded’ album came and went and then it was the turn of ‘Pale Blue Eyes’, the only tune in the set selected from the 1969 ‘The Velvet Underground’ album. The drummer stood up for this one and only played the tiny cymbals, unlike the following number ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ which he gave the kit a good old thumping and his bandmates merrily twanged their guitars in unison. This was the highlight of their set for me.
They concluded with another from the ‘Loaded’ album, namely the Lou Reed penned ‘Rock & Roll’, which incidentally The Runaway’s did a decent cover of back in the day. The Velvets departed at 8:15pm and a mere quarter of an hour later, it would be the turn of the headliners.
The Velvets setlist:
‘I’m Waiting For The Man’ (originally found on the 1967 ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ album)
‘There She Goes Again’ (originally found on the 1967 ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ album)
‘Femme Fatale’ (originally found on the 1967 ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ album)
‘Venus In Furs’ (originally found on the 1967 ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ album)
‘Sweet Jane’ (originally found on the 1970 ‘Loaded’ album)
‘Pale Blue Eyes’ (originally found on the 1969 ‘The Velvet Underground’ album)
‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ (originally found on the 1967 ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ album)
‘Rock & Roll’ (originally found on the 1970 ‘Loaded’ album)
Find out more about The Velvets by visiting their Facebook page HERE.
Get out your long trench coats and close your eyes, it’s time for Transmission The Sound Of Joy Division to grace the neon tube backlit stage. The venue sure had filled up since the support only a few minutes earlier. I was very pleasantly surprised on spying the setlist on the floor in front of me, as the quartet consisting of Paul, Lynn, Rob and Chris were going to be entertaining us with a strong 20 tune set. That was merely one track less than last year. This was a result. The performance would be 81 minutes long, from 8:30pm to 9:51pm.
It was to be back to back performances for frontman Paul, as he had been almost hiding in the shadows at the back of the stage behind the keyboard as part of The Velvets quintet. Drummer Chris also resurfaced this time around as well.
Once again this year, I had been looking forward to this evening’s concert, as I have always loved the original Joy Division, since hearing many of their tracks on the John Peel Radio 1 show and on his Festive 50 rundowns. The band never actually played live anywhere in Sussex and fans cannot obviously see them live ever again. The nearest you can get is to witness the delights of New Order playing the occasional Joy Division track, as well as watching their former bassist Peter Hook, (and The Light) ply their wares as they run through various Joy Division and New Order numbers. Hooky’s last Brighton appearance was at the Concorde 2 on 7th April this year, when he performed a mammoth 31 track set – Read the article HERE.
Transmission The Sound Of Joy Division are indeed a tribute band, who have been plying their wares since their inaugural concert at the Manchester Academy on 8th February 2008. Clearly they are serious fans of the originals and must surely be decent enough to satisfy ‘the raincoat brigade’ of loyal fans.
So what inspired them?
It has amazingly been 43 years since the release of Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’ album, which hit an unsuspecting world on 15th June 1979. The cover artwork was certainly iconic and can still be seen on the high street to this very day. It was the inspiration of artist Peter Saville, who ‘borrowed’ the image of a data plot of signals from a radio pulsar. It was sadly the only Joy Division album released during lead singer Ian Curtis’s lifetime. It’s a classic album! As was the follow up ‘Closer’ which was released on 18th July 1980. This album too was adorned with a truly memorable cover, especially as Joy Division’s lead singer/songwriter Ian Curtis had passed away two months to the day earlier and the image had already been selected prior to his departure. A strange coincidence!
‘Closer’ is adorned with a photo taken of the Appiani family tomb, as seen in the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno in Italy. The subject matter was sculpted by Demetrio Paernio in 1910. It is a very moving piece indeed and one that has stayed with us via the album cover for 42 years now. Named ‘Album of the Year’ by the NME in 1980, ‘Closer’ is widely regarded as one of the finest releases from the Post-Punk period.
Back to tonight, and the quartet were all clad in dark clothing, whilst the stage was bathed in continuous blue neon backlit lighting with subtle pink spots raining down on the band. We could see everything, especially as we were camped right at the very front.
The band bear no resemblance to the original act members, but they work their way through the Joy Division numbers without any gimmicks. They let the music do all the talking, as the originals did. Paul was taking on the role of Ian Curtis’s bass-baritone vocals (and guitarwork) as well as Barney’s guitar parts, Lynn was performing Barney’s keyboard work, Rob was playing Hooky’s bass part, but it wasn’t slung as low as he has it and Chris was beavering away at being Stephen Morris.
Hat’s off to Paul for learning all of Curtis’s challenging lyrics. I noted that Paul was in fact left-handed like namesake McCartney, whereas Curtis was right-handed, but to be honest, I don’t really care as long as the music stays true.
People tend to forget that the Joy Division studio sound (especially the drums) was as much a product of Martin Hannett’s production and engineering skills as the quartet themselves. Thus tonight Chris had his work cut out on traditional and electronic drums. I found myself watching him quite a bit this evening and studying his rhythm patterns and I am gleefully reporting that the boy dun good!
When I wasn’t studying Chris’s stix, I was ogling Rob’s basswork on his Rickenbacker. People tend to forget how important Hooky’s bass was to the original sound. Although Rob’s bass wasn’t slung as low as Hooky’s, those four strings were music to my ears. Rob even offered up the very occasional backing vocals, such as on the hit ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.
Transmission The Sound Of Joy Division do sound like the originals most of the time, and the sound levels were nearly perfect as every instrument could clearly be defined except maybe the keyboards at times, especially on their second number ‘Isolation’, which had followed opener ‘Shadowplay’. This slight inconvenience was rectified by tune six ‘Insight’.
Tune three was one that they had not performed last year, that being ‘These Days’, which folks will know as being the B-side of the ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ hit single. ‘Decades’ was up next and followed by ‘New Dawn Fades’ which was rather good, especially the drumming, as it also was on ‘24 Hours’ which followed a couple of tracks later.
‘Ceremony’ – yes it was originally a Joy Division composition, despite being New Order’s first release – was greeted with a cheer and was the highlight thus far, with Rob taking over vocals for the first few lines. His distinctive high bass riff was a joy to behold.
‘Heart And Soul’ started with some fabulous rumbly synth playing from Lynn and this was followed by a great rendition of ‘She’s Lost Control’ with its excellent electronic drums percussion and twangy bass.
The punkish ‘Disorder’ and ‘Digital’ were both included in this evening’s set and were nice and tight, with ‘Disorder’ being followed by the timeless haunting melody of ‘Atmosphere’ (cue tambourine). Where can a Joy Division tribute act go from here then? Well, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ of course, which was our photographer’s pick of the night!
The band were stationary a majority of the time, thus there were no Curtis style “epilepsy dances” tonight and no super aggression vocals, eg “And we could daaaaaance” line from ‘Transmission’, which incidentally was epic! No wonder that’s the band name!
For the encore, starting with ‘No Love Lost’ and then into ‘Interzone’, the crowd burst out dancing! It was a fitting way to end a great night that finished at 9:51pm. Would I see them live again? YEP!
I reckon it would be an interesting experiment to blindfold an audience and have a face off between Transmission The Sound Of Joy Division and Peter Hook And The Light. I wonder who would get the best approvals? I suspect it would be extremely close!
Transmission The Sound Of Joy Division setlist:
‘Shadowplay’ (originally found on the 1979 ‘Unknown Pleasures’ album)
‘Isolation’ (originally found on the 1980 ‘Closer’ album)
‘These Days’ (originally found on ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ single)
‘Decades’ (originally found on the 1980 ‘Closer’ album)
‘New Dawn Fades’ (originally found on the 1979 ‘Unknown Pleasures’ album)
‘Insight’ (originally found on the 1979 ‘Unknown Pleasures’ album)
‘24 Hours’ (originally found on the 1980 ‘Closer’ album)
‘Day Of The Lords’ (originally found on the 1979 ‘Unknown Pleasures’ album)
‘Ceremony’ (originally found on 1981 ‘Still’ album)
‘Dead Souls’ (originally found on 1980 ‘Licht Und Blindheit’ single)
‘Heart And Soul’ (originally found on the 1980 ‘Closer’ album)
‘She’s Lost Control’ (originally found on the 1979 ‘Unknown Pleasures’ album)
‘A Means To An End’ (originally found on the 1980 ‘Closer’ album)
‘Disorder’ (originally found on the 1979 ‘Unknown Pleasures’ album)
‘Atmosphere’ (originally found on 1980 ‘Licht Und Blindheit’ single)
‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (originally found on ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ single)
‘Digital’ (originally found on 1981 ‘Still’ album)
‘Transmission’ (originally found on 1979 ‘Transmission’ single)
(encore)
‘No Love Lost’ (originally found on the 1978 ‘An Ideal for Living’ EP)
‘Interzone’ (originally found on the 1979 ‘Unknown Pleasures’ album)
If you didn’t make it down tonight or simply fancy another hearing of Transmission The Sound Of Joy Division and The Velvets, then you can head along to The Con Club in Lewes on 28th January 2023 and catch them both performing live there. Purchase your tickets for this new Black Rabbit Productions concert HERE.
Further details on Transmission The Sound Of Joy Division can be found HERE.
As a footnote, I would heartily congratulate vocalist Paul for his cool headedness this evening as he was continually touched (or hounded) by a worse for wear Latvian girl whilst endeavouring not to be phased whilst delivering his lines and playing his guitar. Immediately after the set concluded and the house lights went up, an Irish fellow next to me who had not visited Patterns before, enquired whether the venue actually has any security!
Can you imagine if it was on the other foot with a drunk guy continually stroking a girl’s arm whilst she’s trying to play her guitar! He would get thrown out wouldn’t he or worse! Maybe the new extremely aggravating and highly intrusive security measures that we had to endure on entry this evening, will be coming into play on the person’s next visit? I have been going to gigs for 15,970 days now and this is the very first time I have had to hand over my ID and have my face scanned! Is this a breach of our basic human rights? What’s the thinking behind it? Does anyone official know?
