Various mini reports of early 2014, by Nick the Bookman "...anyway my dear, remember that website. http://www.thealieninterview.com The site has film footage of a possible grey alien in custody at Area 51. Judge for yourself the veracity. Me, I believe. The DVD available at HMV has enough information that dovetails with other books and references I've got."
"Thanks, I'm getting some coffee now and I'll check it out, right now". Oh, hello readers. Hadn't realised you were there. So, I guess this means I've started this rag-tag story already? OK. The above "my dear" is Heather, a veteran or senior Air Stewardess with United Airlines. Used to live on Lamma, possibly about the same time as Beth and Tiffany, at the turn of the Millennium, and is returning for a brief stay with a friend, Richard Lawless. We got chatting about this and that. The missing Malaysian 370 flight. The
National Enquirer and its recent exposes on the fucked up farce that is the sham marriage of the Obamas. And somehow, a segue into aliens as depicted above. But now, it's time to jump forward a few hours to 31/3/2014 and A Joy Division Celebration from Peter Hook and The Light. At Star Hall, KITEC.
It's the same Hall where recent best supporting actor Jared Leto played a storming gig with his band 30 Seconds To Mars a few years ago. It's a good Hall. A horseshoe Minstrel's Gallery upper balcony and big floor below. I remember Jared telling security to let everyone upstairs come downstairs to make the show more fun. The Security sort of shrugging and mouthing Oh, Fuck, but letting us in. At one point, late in the show, Jared had about 80 fans on stage singing and dancing. Nary a whiff of trouble. He even took the time to sing directly to one young local lass who was filming him. Treated her like his very own MTV cameraman. Gave her an exclusive video. Shannon, his brother, was/is in the band. Drummer I think. Ferocious sound and the stage fans going gonzo-happy- bonkers. Controlled chaos and a very pleasant, happy outcome. What a pro. He seems to be a genuine good guy as evinced by his Oscar speech. And the longest haired winner since Daniel Day-Lewis for
"My Left Foot". D D-L was growing his hair out for his starring role in
"Last Of The Mohicans".
Anyway, The Light. I've arrived at KITEC about 1945. The show is meant to start at 2000. See Barry and Scottish Neal(?)/Neil(?). There's Lisa and Liz and Adrian. Keith from The Sleeves. Marcus and Jane from Pak Kok And sundry others, whose names I can't find scrawled in my notes. There are long queues which is irritating. Why not let people in when they're there. Instead of 10 minutes after the show is supposed to start. Why isn't there a Joy Division present to give oral and manual relief to increasingly vexed punters? The
original Joy Division, I mean. The Nazi sexstormtroopers.
"Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS". Hello, Salon Kitty. C'mon. Open the
fucking doors.
Rant! Roar! Grumble! Sorry, it's just that my knees ache after 3 days of more or less nonstop rugby misbehaviour and I just wanna sit down while the girls just wanna have fun.
Inside, I've got a seat, front row of the balcony looking down on stage right. From the band's perspective. There's a big crowd downstairs. In front of the mixing desk. I'm chatting to a nice Chinese guy about how he heard of the show. I tell jim this is the 4th time I've seen Peter Hook in HK. I'm the only one who can make this claim. I say, I first saw him when he was in New Order and they...
"...played at Canto Disco about 1984(?). I was there. I still have my ticket".
"A pleasure to meet you sir. You're the first Chinese person I've met who was at that show. I was up front, in front of Gillian on keyboards, and Jane Hutcheon, daughter of former SCMP Editor, Robin Hutcheon was sitting on my shoulders". Jane (who may not thank me for this remembrance as she's now a well respected TV journalist/author who covers the China beat) was my colleague at RTHK. The gentleman says his name is C.K. and says we also shared the Boomtown Rats Concert in 1982 and The Roger Waters
"Dark Side Of The Moon Tour", earlier this Millennium. Later in the show, I ask him to take a photo of me pointing at the band on the stage below. He graciously obliges and I've promised that he gets full photo credit. (Lamma Gung, he has sent the photo to me. You can get it off my email). C.K. It was a great pleasure to meet you and I hope you liked the show as much as I did.
The band started playing about 2055(ish) and do a two-hour(ish) set, The first half is dedicated to JD's first release
"Unknown Pleasures". The quintet are Peter Hook on occasional bass, gruff vocals, and lots of gurning and leg posing. His son Jake fills in on extra bass duties. Then there is the absolutely brilliant drummer with a blonde cowlick and shaved scalp. I think he's Paul (Leadfoot) Kehoe. Ex-Monaco, one of Hooky's earlier bands. Andy Poole, the keyboards man, is also ex-Monaco. Nat Watson is the underplaying, but deadly guitarist. Ex/Haven and Freebass. I got that information from Hooky's book about how not to run the Hacienda. Brilliant read by the way. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to catch up with you as I would loved to have got it signed. Of course, If Hooky has made band changes since then, I haven't a clue who the others are. And his Mancunian/Salford accent is a little hard to hear and tough to decipher.
The first ten songs or so are from the first LP. Fine mix of atmospherics, stunning drumming, powerhouse poses and Peter playing an ocarina(?)/melodeon at one point. Moving into ye olde gothe territory of Richie Blackmore and dark/folk. Then a quick break while Kraftwerk's
"Trans-Europe Express" plays. The second portion of the set is dedicated to parts of the second release,
"Closer". The only songs I know are
"She's Lost Control". "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and
"Ceremony". The tempo is more urgent and most people I spoke to agreed that this was the better part of the show.
Listening to
"She's Lost Control" and
"Love Will Tear Us Apart" makes me see these songs as unintended future comments on Michelle Obama who's charmless sham of a marriage is basically swirling round and round and down, down and down the toilet bowl. The world became aware of trouble when The Prez took the selfie with the Danish Premier at Nelson Mandela's funeral last December. She was fuming, fit to explode at the right hand side of the photo. When I say the world, I guess I must excuse the network correspondents of ABC, CBS and NBC. Probably Fox as well, though I refuse to have my brain removed to understand their foul gibberish and warped world view. The above White House correspondents seem unaware or are useless at their jobs or are more shameless suckees than the original Joy Division. Or maybe the
Enquirer should never get credit for breaking any stories. The
NE is the equivalent of
Private Eye which is the most courageous/funny and downright depressing British magazine. Fleets ahead of the Street of Shame in breaking and printing stories.
Anyway, Michelle apparently has a US$15 million book deal to dish ALL the dirt. The Secret Service (SS ho ho!) has told her of some of his dalliances. She won't leave until after 2016. Take the kids and he can go fuck himself. Meanwhile, she's a rampaging, trumpeting rogue jumbo elephant of a First Lady scorned. Travelling to Spain, on safari in South Africa and most recently to China without him. And all of it on the taxpayer's dime. To the tune of some US$60 million so far and rising. Jesus, this scumbag couple are starting to make The Great Dubyahoo (#43 - his immediate predecessor and source of all his problems when he came to power - seem like a goddamn statesman).
Granted Obama had The Inbox From Hell waiting for him. Two wars, the banking crisis and a House and Senate who should basically be sold off for spare parts. But he's fucked it up royally. Gave the bankers their money. Put the foxes back in charge of the fiscal henhouse. Pioneered the concept of "Changeless Change". Big thanks to the above rant to Mitch Feierstein and his coruscating non-fiction book
Planet Ponzi. The Must Read book on the financial crisis. It came out in 2012 and it is scary, scary, scary. Only even more so now. Did you realise that Gush and Bore spent about US$130 million between them to win/lose the 2000 election. That figure rose to just south of US$2
Billion in 2012.
Who is Obama's puppet master? He couldn't do more damage to his country and the world if he was the puppet of Evil Intergalactic Overlords who want Earth demolished. Meanwhile, back to thealieninterview DVD. In it, "Victor" the anonymous figure who "found" the alien footage (which has yet to be conclusively proved or debunked) has warned that the End Of Days is fast approaching. Don't make long term plans past 2028, folks. The latest Global Warming warning has just been released. How much will be done this time? My guess. Goose egg. Bupkiss. Zilch. Nada. Zip. Ka-blam. Ka-boom. The super-wealthy 0.1%, who basically own us all, don't seem to care.
Anyway, it was a great fucking show, Peter exited stage right twice to walk the little alleyway in front of the fans. He posed with a newspaper for a selfie and the crowd in the back. Both times, he walked right under me. The second time he got lifted by the crowd and lost his tee-shirt. No trouble. He was "fucking pleased' to play in HK. It was great to see him too. On the way out, I bump into Canadian Neil who I last saw after the Rugby Seven's finished on 30/3/2014. I was at the fan zone in Central. Good place to watch it. Good vibes. Hi, Ollie and his son Gus and Kieron and his family and Simon (ex-Louise) who were there as well. Good seats. Big screen with commentary. Free booze (if you brought it in yourself). England did well to make their first final since 2006, knocking out Fiji 17-7. My notes say
"Fiji are out! Fuck, New Zealand will win the final now". And so it proved. A game too far for England and a 7-26 loss. Japan beat Russia and Italy to claim core status. They're the first Asian team to achieve this feat. HK choked in their only match against Italy, losing 12-0. Hard luck boys. The rain pelted down in the last 3 minutes of the Cup Final This led to a chaotic scramble for cover and wet walk to the ferry home.
Which is where I met Neil. Told him about the Light show on 31/3/2014. And he got his ticket. Also a final big hi to John who came up to me as I was leaving and said he saw me scribbling notes at Clockenflap and wanted to say hi. I gave him the soundcloud address for some of my CD mixes:
https://soundcloud.com/jimbrockman/nick-the-book-man-vs-dj-nipperBig thanks to Jim for posting them and I'm looking forward to this weekend's DJ extravaganza up at Open Space. There's probably a lot more I could add to this story, but this will have to suffice for now... ntb
Nick emailed Peter Hook and even got a reply!"Don't be a doom merchant nick! We have to think positively! Or we are doomed;)
CLOSER is a tough album to play and listen to live and kicks brain more than ass. The rest is easy!
I spoke to a few people that saw us in 81? At Canton Disco was weird ....but very enjoyable.
I love Hong Kong! TAKE CARE HOOKY"Photos by Chi Keung (CK) Au. mentioned in the story above:
A Joy Division Celebration from Peter Hook and The Light @ Star Hall, KITEC, 31/3/2014.
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