I’ve had more Moby in my life in the past two weeks than I seemingly have in years. It started with a trip to the musician’s Destroyed photo show at the Kopeikin Gallery in Culver City. A collection of large format audience shots taken from the stage, each print captured the sweaty, ecstatic and sometimes confused (or perhaps just high) expressions of concert goers under a kaleidoscope of lighting. The almost fish eye effect to each photo gave the prints a surreal aesthetic. As we carefully studied each giant print, my friend and I developed a very fun game called, “Where is this audience from?” As usual, the Americans seemed to be the easiest to spot.
Moby, part deux came courtesy of Peter Hook’s show at the El Rey. Performing with his band Peter Hook and the Light, the former Joy Division and New Order bassist tackled the entire Unknown Pleasures album with aplomb. Joy Division are truly one of the rare holy grails in music, a band everyone tries to sound like but few can truly do justice to. I’ll be honest, my expectations going into the show weren’t exactly high and thankfully, they were far exceeded.
Hook roared through favorites like “She’s Lost Control” and “Shadowplay” with ferocious determination. When he brought Moby out on stage to tackle guest vocals on a number of tracks, my brief bit of hesitation was met with surprise when an eerily Ian Curtis-like voice barreled out of the bespectacled musician. Someone standing behind me turned to their friend and quipped, “Moby’s a great Ian Curtis cover artist… who knew?”
As the evening wore on, Hook pulled out additional catalog classics like “Transmission” before ending with “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” To be quite honest, I often listen to so many of their other cuts that I had forgotten about their most popular track. As the opening chords of “Love…” began, the audience turned into a sea of flailing arms. It truly seemed like an immense sense of joy had enveloped the whole room. This is a generation who never got to see Curtis perform these seminal tracks live yet, for one night, were able to gloriously relive the magic.
Peter Hook and the Light photos: Michi Tsunoda
