NO: 02 APR 1984 Volkshaus - Zurich, Switzerland

 

(Fractured/Image playlist)

Setlist

586, Ceremony, Ultraviolence, Sooner Than You Think, ICB, Denial, Procession, Age Of Consent, Temptation, Confusion

The source for this writeup is a tape from my archives. I had assumed this was taken from an FM broadcast, but I suspect that at least my version is a very good audience tape  (Ed. note: nope, it's the FM)

Sound (except for the first track) is excellent. Hooky's bass has a similar strange sound that it would during the '85 Australasian tour.  My tape also has an interview with the band (probably in either France or Switzerland) done in '84 at the end of side A.

Stephen Smith adds:

"I've been cleaning up my own cassette of this one and it seems to have a couple of differences to your own. My cassette is from the late 80's and was copied from a friend (who picked up a lot of New Order/Joy Division live stuff as well, sadly, he disposed of them a while back, I kept all of mine). So, there is a little bit more hiss than would have been on his original cassette. I have cleaned the tracks a little but only slightly as I didn't want to start impinging on the music itself. My cassette doesn.t have any interview on it."

5-8-6

This version is cut at the beginning and has a right-channel dropout until nearly the end of the song (4:13). Some editions of this gig don't even include this track. Stephen's does include all of it, but there's a cut at about 0:41 in, where it continues is where most of the other versions start.

Weird scream at 2:20, audible in the right channel.

Stephen Smith:

"Track starts with radio announcers voice, for about 6 seconds or so, tinkering strains of the 586 piano part can be heard in the background. Recording volume is quieter at the beginning until around the 40 second mark, then it kicks in fully. No right channel drop out on my cassette except for a tiny glitch at the 3.30 mark. I transferred the undamaged channel here but changed it back, it didn.t really improve it to any great degree and I prefer not to go overboard on these tapes."

Ceremony

A bit of amp buzz right at the start.

Fans call out for Warsaw and say stuff in their native tongue.

Ultraviolence

BS: "It's just called Ultraviolence."

Additional lyrics appear in this version;

"Who saw the darkness? I felt the devil. He was so close by...I ran for the sky
His eyes were dark and brown.
He looked at me like a torn (?)"

[Thanks to the aforementioned Stephen Smith for the correction to the above. He couldn't make out the last part either.]

A very loud voice yells out:

"Thank you, thank you, thank you! Blue Monday."

BS: "Thanks very much everybody, it's really nice of you to come and see us."

More calls for BM.

Same voice calls, "C'mon lads, give us Blue Monday!". Somebody replies to him, "Shut yer mouth."

BS: "Slight technical problem there."

Barney plays some notes on his guitar and such.

PH: "It's the adverts from the radio."

Sooner Than You Think

Is titled 'Meaning Of Life' on my tape.

This is the live debut of this track. Sequencer patterns are different for this one, obviously. Lyrics mention the "thousand lines away" bit, and the chorus is "You know we love you" repeated a few times.

He also sings:

"Switzerland is a wonderful country, it's full of mountain and leaves and flowers. We...someone...(summer?), like it does in England, the girls in...so much prettier. But unfortunately, everyone in Basel are cunts."

Scan of programme

[Thanks to Stephen for filling in some of the blanks]

ICB

Also has buzzing in the right channel. Other copies don't have this defect.

The group then shoot right into Denial.

Procession

BS: "We know what we'll do, don't worry. (in a high-pitched voice) Procession".

Another additional lyric.

lyric: "Your life is your own, my life doesn't involve you, boy."

Age Of Consent

BS: "Right, sort the fucking triggers out, somebody."

There's a bit of noise at about 3:05.

BS: "Oh great, fucking back to you..."

Somebody yells out "just play more guitar", and you can hear Bernard drop the mic.

(edit in tape)

Temptation

BS: "This next song's called Temptation. It's a story about, eh... a long lost love."

Confusion

This is the last song in the set. Performance is somewhat a shambles.

New Order OTD 1984: Volkshaus, Zürich - broadcast on DMS3-FM radio.  "Everything went wrong ... The audience got really pissed off, booing us, throwing things and doing Nazi salutes. ... I’ll never forget it cost nine pounds for a bowl of cornflakes!" - Peter Hook, Substance book

(via Joy Division Central Twitter)

Versions

FM #1 - DRS3 broadcast 

Several variants of the FM recording exist.  The one on YouTube uses the end-all and be-all that surfaced on DIME in 2010, the others can be tossed.

Most of the older versions have the start of 586 (the first track) cut but recently a version with it (from StSm) has turned up with 5-8-6 complete, but with the sound very warbly, like the source tape had been damaged, with the part after the cut being where the other versions start. StSm's copy looks to have been run through Dolby C, sadly. fki's has FM static or a glitch at 3:54 of AoC, but is otherwise the best quality sourced so far. No known lineages, or other variants (like audience recordings) have yet surfaced. "  More recently, received a version from a taper whose initials go by H.V., and although the very intro of Temptation is missing the show is otherwise complete.