Peter Hook & The Light are heading to France in spring 2027. They’ll be performing Joy Division’s two studio albums, ‘Unknown Pleasures’ and ‘Closer’, live in full. The twelve-date tour opens at the Casino de Paris on 29 March and winds through Roubaix, Besançon, Strasbourg, Lyon, Marseille and the south-west before closing at Mythos in Rennes on 14 April. Look out for my coverage of the Strasbourg date.

It’s a show Backseat Mafia readers will know well. Hooky brought the same ‘Joy Division: A Celebration’ set to Australia and New Zealand in 2022 (our announcement here). He has since returned with New Order’s ‘Get Ready’ in full, most recently at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre in July (gallery here) and across the UK. The appetite for these records clearly hasn’t waned, and nor has Hooky’s appetite for playing them.

When I spoke to him on the eve of that 2022 tour, he was clear that the project was never about imitating Joy Division live. The band in the room, he said, had been closer to a punk group. It was Martin Hannett who captured another version of Joy Division on record and, in Hooky’s words, gave it eternal life. Playing the albums as recorded is his way of thanking Hannett. That means the samples, the atmospherics and even the scratch from the run-out groove of his own vinyl copy.

The idea came from Bobby Gillespie, who once said his favourite ‘Screamadelica’ songs were the ones Primal Scream never played live. Hooky recognised the same thing in Joy Division. The full-album format also forces him to tackle songs the band avoided, chief among them ‘I Remember Nothing’. “Being pushed to doing something difficult is the greatest thing,” he told me, adding that he felt he’d improved as both a musician and a vocalist as a result.

Because Joy Division kept their singles off the albums, these shows also come with a built-in finale. ‘Transmission’, ‘Ceremony’ and ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ all arrive after the albums have done their work. Hooky described it as a thank-you to the audience: they let him indulge himself, and he returns the favour.

More than a decade and a half after that first night in Manchester in May 2010, and four decades on from ‘Closer’, it’s a reminder that creativity does not have a use-by date.

Peter Hook & The Light – Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’ and ‘Closer’ Live: French Tour 2027

29/03 – Casino de Paris, Paris
30/03 – La Condition Publique, Roubaix
01/04 – La Rodia, Besançon
02/04 – La Laiterie, Strasbourg
04/04 – Le Transbordeur, Lyon
05/04 – Espace Julien, Marseille
07/04 – Le Bikini, Toulouse
08/04 – Atabal, Biarritz
10/04 – Krakatoa, Mérignac
11/04 – La Coopérative de Mai, Clermont-Ferrand
13/04 – Le 106, Rouen
14/04 – Mythos, Rennes

Tickets and further information: peterhookandthelight.live

Feature Photograph: Jess Hutton

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