Here we go again, another tale in the neworder history book! All this started with ATR phoning Al a few weeks back to tell him he’d just heard it announced on Radio 1 that New Order were gonna be playing a John Peel tribute in London. Cue mad texting and phone calls from Al to all the usual suspects, unfortunately yours truly forgot to turn his phone on that morning so I didnae receive news till an hour or so later, which led to me doing my usual panic like fuck routine! News was filtering through that Al, Dave, DoN, ATR, Gordy, Ness and more of the Vikings were all snapping up four tickets each, so I got straight on the phone to Lorraine who secured four for the Corby Order.











As usual I take the back seat and leave everything to everyone else, let’s face it, I am a useless bastard. Anyways, the day of the gig Ness posts on the site that New Order ain’t gonna be taking stage till 10.25 and they were only scheduled for 20 minutes, thus meaning there was not a hope of the Corby Order seeing the set if we wanted to catch the last train home. Fuck! So after some more banging of the head off the nearest wall I phone John & Lorraine to tell them of the news, thankfully in the end Lorraine agreed to drive, though I think it’s safe to say she was well pissed off cos she know couldnae enjoy a swally with the rest of us. So that was the train tickets thrown in the bin and us setting off for London.



On the way down, I received a text from Niely to give him a shout when we got to Finchley, so we met up with him about 4 and thank fuck we did cos we had to change trains at Campden, which we weren’t told about when we got our tickets! We got into Waterloo and no longer had we got off the train than Niely disappeared, so we headed for a taxi to take us straight to the pub……and Niely’s only gone and beat us there! The first friendly face that came straight over was me Bruv DoN, then an unknown drunken guy grabs me and says “I owe you a beer” with me looking dazed till I worked out from his accent it was Mario, who had flown over from Holland especially to see the show. Top man. Then me ole mate G was over, Grahame had come doon frae Glasgee fer the show.











Once we got the beers in and had a chance to look around it was just like every other neworder piss up! The only thing about these meet ups is you never have the time to chat away with everyone properly, this will be the excuse for spending every last minute in the pub before the Order take to the stage (wherever we are!) The Corby Order stayed in the best place, which was right next to the bar of course, and all the usual suspects were all around us. Alex was quick off the mark collaring me to have a go of his famous sweepstake, I think I ended up with The Perfect Kiss and Tammy drew out Regret, Nick King came over and gave me the 3 Waiting For The Sirens’ Call singles & Slipcase, plus a 5 track promo he bought on Ebay, top man! He was stood with Jarvo, Gina G, Wolfram, Mad Darren from Wales, Alex The Red, John & Christine, Iain & Bunny, Jeanette, Helen, Gordy & G, then there was Clive and his cousin, DoN, Hibster, Ness and Uncle Liam who was sat with Barney Army & Sugarcane, we also had Tim, Jim Reilly and Phil from Digital as well as Warren, Will & Iain (and his missus) from Re:Order.











The beers were getting sunk unbelievably quick and it wasn’t long before we heard reports of our first casualty, poor ole Mario had drunk himself into a coma and decided to go for a kip just outside the front of the pub, I am sure Uncle Liam said he was gonna get a picture! A few of us checked, but Mario said he’d be alright if we just left him for a bit. Then there were quite a few people arriving a bit later, Dave Legge and Neil that we were with in Barca (and Hyde Park) then we had the pantomime baddie, Craig aka Digitalwaters, who wanted to be known as a spotter and not a Viking, but to be fair he was a sound lad and stood drinking with the Corby Order for quite a while and once he got to get to know our humour, he happily joined in.











I had to thank Tim with a beer as well for sorting me out with Dylan stuff for my dad who was 50 on the Friday and not much after that I was at the bar yapping away when I heard a Scottish accent, it turned out to be Paul who has also just started posting on the site, he was down with his mate Matty, who unfortunately is a Motherwell fan, other than that he seemed a sound lad. I also met up with Chris Nash for the first time, he was with his missus and sat with Paul & Matty. Chris is another tall bugger, it must be something they put in the water down here!











Who else was late? Johnny Giles I seem to recall, I think he made some excuse up about working, and if memory serves he did this at Hyde Park, rumours are going around he’s a tight arse, I believe Al started that one and I think it was Al who introduced me to Mr & Mrs Milky as well. Then there was Colin T all the way down from Aberdeen, another top lad who stood with us for ages, Col sorted me out with tickets for T in the Park, so he earned a beer for that. I can’t remember whether Vinnie was a late arrival or not, cos I didnae catch up with him till later on, Vinnie would go on and steal a back page pass the sneaky get! I also recall telling Warren and Will that the Corby Order were hoping to make it to Derby in December for their show, I am useless at keeping things quiet, you see, the idea was to turn up and surprise them! There were also a few people I didnae get to meet that were with Jarvo, JG and ATR, but we did meet Al’s wee sis who was with her husband who happened to be even more unfortunate than Matty cos he was a Dundee Utd fan!











The hours passed by too quickly and as they did there were quite clearly several chants of New Or-Dah. Special mention of the day has to go to Jarvo though, he got specially designed Viking badges with John Peel RIP and even did the PC&L colour code on them, not only did he hand them out to all and sundry, he refused everyone’s attempts at getting him a beer! Fookin brilliant Al! It was about 9.15 when we decided to leave, there were a few people who wanted to see the Super Furries. So we all headed down to the venue, apparently Al headed in for the furries, noticed Delia Smith on stage and buggered off to the bar again. Hibster also had grief whilst going in, he spent the early part of the SFA Set arguing with a lad from the box office over his seats, turned out Hibster was wrong.











I can remember not wanting to see the Super Furry Animals, I think the same applied with Uncly John cos we didnae go in, we stood at the bar, much to the annoyance of our other halfs (cos me and John were a bit pished) We were joined at various stages by the G Man who was quite clearly as drunk as us. And Colin who took a cracking picture of me and my wallet at the bar, cos Rocket Mick wanted to see proof it existed! I also remember nearly being thrown out before the gig started, cos no matter how many times this security guard told me not to smoke, within minutes I’d be lighting up again, after the third warning Helen came over and apologized for me and grabbed me outside so we could smoke there, thus saving me being booted out. Cheers Helen! It wasn’t long after that we took to our seats and the shouts for the band had begun, a couple of us thought about joining the rest of the Vikings down the front but security grabbed a couple of people back.

Funnily enough we were in the same row as Liam and Colin, Clive and his cousin were one row below us but because of the noise as The Order took to the stage they couldnae hear us. Feargal Sharkey sorted New Order out with a cracking introduction then Barney told everyone that we were in for a Joy Division only set! We went fookin mental. Rocket Mick had sent me a text earlier in the evening to tell us Hooky had said this on the radio. Within the opening bars of the first song (Transmission) we could see the rest of the Vikings head to the front of the stage. Jammy gets! The place was rocking and to be honest I was just trying to take it all in, New Order doing a Joy Division only set as a tribute for John Peel! Our row were all on their feet singing and dancing away, we then got a storming She’s Lost Control, but next was even better. Shadowplay. Fuck me, that was mental – I just looked at Uncly John and we both started jumping up and down saying something like Fucking Hell! Shadowplay had never been played by the Order at a gig before, so we knew it was something special, especially when you consider there were only 900 people at the gig! I hope the great man was enjoying the show from up the stairs – cos we certainly were!











Love Will Tear Us Apart then got everyone off their arses, even the non New Order fans clearly enjoyed this, at least, all the people around us did. Then we got Atmosphere, the whole set was for JP, but this was his favourite song and was more apt than ever, Hooky had also put “God has a DJ” onto the amps for the set. A very emotional 4 minutes it was. We thought that was it, we were ready to go home happy enough, when we heard Hooky say “Let’s do this one for Ian lads” it was only Warsaw! A proper Joy Division punk song and again a song that Peel had played in the earliest days of Joy Division, we could see the Vikings down the front going mental – it was when that kicked in me and John were gutted we weren’t at the front! But how could we complain? I remember wishing the Rocket was with us – so while the song was on I phoned him and held it aloft, hoping he’d be able to hear it, unfortunately, after speaking to him the other day, all he heard was white noise.











On the plus side we were just treated to a storming set by our heroes and I’m sure JP would have approved. All the talk as we filtered out was about the two songs that we’d never heard the band play before, this more than made up for the fact that the last tube was cancelled and we had to get a taxi back to Finchley! Me and John also met Feargal Sharkey on the way out, I asked him if he was a Tim, but I was that drunk I can’t remember his answer. C’est la vie!



As usual the craic with meeting up with everyone was just fookin amazing, you couldnae wish to meet a nicer bunch of lads n lassies and it’s always great meeting up with new faces at these kind of things as well to share yer stories with. I hope Warren & Will remember that they are guestlisting the Corby Order for the Re:Order show in Derby, I will get the beers in lads. Cheers to everyone who came along and made the day what it was and another special mention to Lorraine for staying sober and driving us to London and ma missus for putting up with another drunken performance and letting me sleep on her all the way home. There endeth another ShugZV production……until the next set of gigs.



New Or-Dah!