In 1982, New Order appeared live at BBC Riverside to deliver a performance that marks a high point in electronic innovation at the dawn of an era. With their collective talents of incredible songcraft, the band mixed mood and emotion with repetitive synths with a similar flair for melancholy mastered by their previous incantation as Joy Division.
In the clip below, the band are a picture of composure; Sumner delivering the vocals with a purposeful restraint, Gillian Gilbert delicate keys float over Stephen Morris’ machine-like drumming, while Hooky’s ever-present bass bounces between. The tension between the playing creates a push and pull that only adds weight to the song title. Enjoy below.
New Order | “Temptation” [Live at BBC, 1982]
In 2015, Bernard Sumner confessed to Mojo that “Temptation” is probably his favourite New Order song, saying: “It’s got a spirituality to it. It’s really uplifting without actually getting a specific message across. It was interesting to see that you could do that while, at the time, being fairly abstract. I struggled with the literalness of my lyrics in the early days. I didn’t want to expose my inner feelings to the general public.”
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