And, on the back of another superfluous but stupendous Greatest Hits album, New Order, or Joy Division, or whoever they are, return for another in their series of erratic shows, with a two-show tour. And is it embarassing 80’s disco hasbeens and Fat Dad’s yelling “COME ON” whilst wearing brown shoes? And is it some of the most retro, yet futuristic, music of all time? And is it another expensive gig on a wet Thursday in Brixton?

It is all of those things, and much more and less. Four men playing music both warm and cool, in the small space where technology sets us free, where we lose ourselves – or find ourselves – in smoke and lights and drum machines and Roland sequencers. Being annoited into the hallowed climbes of the UK Music Hall Of Fame next week for some form of longevity would long have been seen as some kind of conformity, a game that they never played. But if any of us had a choice, we wouldn’t want to play the game of life.

But people and times change. Everybody plays the game – the question is, on whose terms. And New Order have always done it their own way. And often to their detriment. Even now, they’re likely to not turn up to a Magazine Award ceremony if the Magazine gives their latest album a bad review. That’s on their own terms.

By rights, old, fat dads playing old, dated disco should be just embarassing. And sometimes it is. (“LOVE WILL - COME ON!!!!!!!! TEAR US APART!!!!!”, for example, leaves the taste of disappointment in one’s mouth, and sours the delicate beauty of the song).  And most times, it is a sublime, beautiful history lesson in a moshpit. From a vicious, spiky “Ceremony”, to the final claustrophobic chords of “She’s Lost Control”, via some of the best songs with the most irrelevant titles ever recorded, New Order shine with playful irreverence. The evening veered from a passionate, powerful treatise in the power of obtuse rock music, to an irresistable disco designed for nostalgic dads and reverential youth, both aware that they were witnessing a stubborn legend and a pop group that should, by rights, trample their shallow chart competitors like the dwarves that they are.

Songs about everything and nothing shimmer into view for a few short minutes, evaporate, and are replaced by something equally important, that is to say, like all pop music, both the most important thing in the world, and also completely and utterly disposable. And it’s only afterwards, that you suddenly remember that they didn’t play “Everything’s Gone Green”, “Confusion”, “Thieves Like Us”, “The Perfect Kiss”, “Touched By The Hand Of God”, “Fine Time”, “Round & Round”, “1963”, “World”, “Ruined In A Day”, “60mph”, “Here To Stay”, and about 80 other songs that should be Number 1 Hits In Heaven forever. Every song, from the epic “Temptation” and the bittersweet “Regret”, seems, for its brief life, possibly the most important song of all time, saying everything about everything. Even during the encore, when they perform “Warsaw” – Joy Division’s debut single – for only the second time in twenty eight years, and sound like Green Day with brains and brawn (instead of shit tattoos, comedy haircuts, and cartoon punk clothes), they still show their teeth : made of heart, soul, and substance.

So New Order then. Both washed up old farts, Old men, and yet still, at heart, children, playing with pop music and making the world a little better for having them in it.

Oh, and yes, they were brilliant. Some people are legendary for good reason. If only every band had their vision and ambition : never content, always asking, searching, lok for questions unformed, and wondering when the disco opens. How cool is coldness? Very.

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