Peter Hook stands front and center on the Showbox stage, shouting out the lyrics of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” as the audience sings along. He points at the crowd, almost blessing them as he delivers the grim chorus from Joy Division’s biggest hit in a commanding monotone.
This was the only way the two-hour set from Peter Hook & the Light could end. Banished in 2007 from New Order, Joy Division’s wildly successful successor, Hook is living that song.
As part of New Order, Hooky anchored the band’s infectious meld of punk and electronica with bold melodies made all the more urgent coming from his low-slung bass guitar. The English foursome churned out a string of underground hits in the ‘80s, with Hook’s strident bass lines cutting through the flurry of dance beats and synth hooks, complementing vocalist Bernard Sumner’s pretty voice.
New Order’s inspiring story of rebirth after the tragic end of Joy Division has been tarnished in recent years by the band’s firing of Hook and the legal battles still dragging on between the two parties. For fans, it’s always upsetting when the parents argue.
But there is a silver lining. New Order continues to tour, with the dapper Sumner fronting the stern masters of syncopation at venues including Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena. The Light, which includes Hook’s son Jack Bates on bass and a guitarist, David Potts, who can take vocals when actual singing is required, plays in smaller venues, performing New Order and Joy Division albums in their entirety.
New Order, which put out a record minus Hook in 2015, plays credibly if without some of the fierceness he brought. Hook and the Light started in 2010, playing Joy Division’s first album “Unknown Pleasures” in its entirety at the Factory Club in Manchester, where it all started in the late ‘70s.
A tribute to Ian Curtis – Joy Division’s front man until he committed suicide on stage in 1980 – the 2010 gig was a big success, and the Light has been performing various Joy Division and New Order albums in their entirety ever since.
Hook’s 2024 tour features “Substance” – both New Order’s greatest hits collection from 1987 and Joy Division’s 1988 collection of singles and unreleased material. Wednesday’s show at the Showbox in downtown Seattle was vastly entertaining while not showing true faith to New Order’s sound.
Playing “Perfect Kiss,” “Bizarre Love Triangle” and “Thieves Like Us” among many ‘80s dance hall staples, Hook and the Light offered a cornucopia of known pleasures that had the crowd shimmying hard. The band is tight, and delivered all the swirl und drang with authority. Hooky, however, has the range of a late-era Bob Dylan or Lou Reed, and even with Potts’ help, the choruses rarely shimmered with Sumner’s keening tenderness.
The second set was Joy Division, and that was more of a celebration. Hook has said in interviews that he’s a little more comfortable playing Joy Division, and it feels that way. In his T-shirt and cargo shorts, he’s still a punker, able to match Curtis’s fragile rancor and almost robotic baritone.
Joy Division’s songs too are compelling in a whole different way, with sharp edges and cadences speeding up and slowing down. The attitude swings from a sneer to a séance. “Dance, dance, dance to the radio,” Hook commands.
So, if you go see the Light, know that you’ll really get to see two towering post-punk combos in one, joy doubled.
