Hooky’s Light show features some classic New Order tunes

AN EVENING with Peter Hook & The Light will see the legendary musician performing the albums ‘Technique’ and ‘Republic’ by New Order with an opening set of Joy Division classics.

Having successfully toured the albums from Hooky's previous bands for over eight years, Peter Hook & The Light have now reached the late Eighties and early Nineties albums of New Order that they will perform at the Academy Dublin on Friday, September 13.

‘Technique’, New Order's fifth studio album, chronicles the impact of acid house on the band, marking the clearest statement of the rock and dance influences which were shaping their output.

Released in January 1989, just after the band’s infamous G-Mex gig and aftershow downstairs at The Hacienda in December the previous year, it became New Order's first album to go to number one in the UK. It was also hugely successful in the United States where the influence of Quincy Jones' Qwest label regularly got the band's singles to the top of the American dance charts.

‘Technique’ was driven by the classic acid house single ‘Fine Time’ which rivals ‘Blue Monday’ as probably the most openly dance orientated record the group ever produced.

Other tracks on the LP ‘Round And Round’, ‘Mr Disco’ and ‘Vanishing Point’ also reflect the dance sensibilities then fusing their way into New Order's sound. Yet like on its predecessor, ‘Brotherhood, these are balanced by the vocal led, more rock leaning ‘All The Way’, ‘Guilty Partner’ and ‘Run’.

Legendarily recorded in Ibiza in 1988, Technique has often been observed to capture the sound of that summer and the heady period back then both on the island and in the UK and of course, Manchester. As is widely known, the band didn't actually do much work in Ibiza, a jaunt that Factory label boss Tony Wilson once told Peter Hook "was the most expensive holiday you've ever been on".

The band returned to the UK to finish the LP at Bath's Real World Studios later in 1988, itself the scene of another legendary New Order party when recording was completed.

‘Technique’ epitomised its time and the culture surrounding it and generated ecstatic reviews.