Arts and entertainment in all its forms can connect and inspire above all social and geographic boundaries over important global issues as the COVID-19 pandemic. This is particularly true with musicians who are also very important communicators of critical health prevention messages. Music is a very well know healer of trauma and an interpreter of cultural responses to any crises. And now, we have it all via the Internet, as the virtual version to hang on to. In music via the Internet, it is like with virtual sex, we might have been feeling particularly confident, or even sexy, but yet again ready for some intellectual stimulus as well.
Here is one of my favorite living room performances. Actually, my favorite home performance would be a garden performance for Salford Music Festival and November’s 2020 exclusive living room performance of Joy Division’s Dead Souls. Check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bjUYyePhyo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KeBceyFHi0
Peter Hook, leader and a founder of the UK legendary gothic/post-punk band Joy Division, and later on guitarist of an important UK band known as New Order, is one of the remarkable groups of the UK northern bands. Peter Hook now performing as the Peter Hook and The Light joins many other musicians who perform from home. Peter Hook and The Light is an English band, formed in May 2010 by bass guitarist/vocalist Peter Hook, formerly of the influential post-punk bands’ Joy Division and New Order. The band also features Hook’s son Jack Bates (bass), as well as Andy Poole (keyboards), and Paul Kehoe (drums), who both played with Hook as part of Monaco, one of Hook’s previous groups.
“To be honest with you, the first time I celebrated Joy Division around the 30th anniversary of Ian’s death in 2010, I was petrified. I had vocalists lined up and was going to play bass, then the keyboard terrorists turned up and did their thing. Then Rowetta bless her, she turned around and said to me ‘you’re going to have to do it’. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable in that role, but it’s given me a fantastic appreciation for his work. If anything, “ said Peter Hook. “I feel better about Joy Division than I ever have in my whole life. The reason we wrote ‘Dead Souls’ was because Ian wanted a song where he could judge the mood in the room, stand there and dig the music to see what the atmosphere was like.“
Joy Division was an atmospheric band in general. With them, it was never about the look or even about the genre but rather an exclusive atmosphere they were creating.