Article published originally on the Joy
Division.Org Fan Website, details of which were feature in the Movie 'Joy Division' of which the DVD came out in 2008. I was contacted by the production company in 2007 who were responsible for putting the film together, and was given a credit at the end of the movie.
My original article is on this link,
http://www.joydiv.org/c080480.htm
The timing at the time of posting was very spooky. I had just finished writing this piece+uploading the poster and materials, I had done for their gig in 1980 at The Derby Hall in Bury, when on the news it was announced Tony Wilson had died, my article included some details of my first meeting with him on that night (we did meet up a couple of times in the following years)
I designed the poster+ for the JD gig in Bury back in the early 80's while I was at college, and the story of how a near riot started when they only played 2 songs (with Ian Curtis) and then left the stage. This was later requested by the production company, and has in the following years been viewed on the net.
The pages are
http://www.joydiv.org/c080480.htm and the front page
http://www.joydiv.org the spooky bit is that the listing on the front page has both the news of Tony's death above my piece!
All materials shown on this posting connected with the event were design by me, and are covered by my Copyright.
Peter Godkin was on the Gigs organising committee. He designed the tickets and poster for the concert at The Derby Hall. Here's what he said when he contacted us in 2007:
"My name is Peter Godkin, and I was originally on the organising committee with Adrian Mealing, we started and ran Gigs, the weekly local venue for bands in Central Bury in the early 80's, I was responsible, for Publicity and Marketing at Gigs, while I was at college. My reason for getting in touch is that a friend of mine from that time who has been in touch again, sent me the url for your site and sent me the jpegs of the ticket, I designed, after I had mentioned that during a clear out of my parents loft, I found this original poster also designed of the JD gig at The Derby Hall back in 1980, and I wondered if you would like a copy for your site?
It is interesting to read the accounts from people who attended that night, most of which I recall happened that way, but in some cases, a few details are missing. I read Mark Burgess's account [see above] with interest, and I quote
"Here's how Mark Burgess (of The Chameleons) remembered the gig in an email to Nick Blakey in 2002: "It's funny actually amongst the many other things I'm doing presently, I'm working on a book about my life and experiences with the band and I've just got through drafting a part that relates to when Dave and I went to see Joy Division in 1980 and support that night was Sector 25 and A Certain Ratio; When JD came out Curtis was absent and his place was taken by the singer from Crispy Ambulance, who pretended to be Curtis for most of the set and seemed to have most of the kids there fooled, until finally he left the stage and Curtis came on to do two songs, the gig ended and there was absolute pandemonium."
As I said it is interesting to hear these accounts, I corresponded with both Mark and Dave a lot, when at the time they were with an earlier band 'The Clichés', and in fact we often chatted, I was designing record covers and posters for them, as they attended a lot of the Gigs in the early days, before they went off to form 'The Chameleons' However there was one thing Mark left out, which was we were stood together at the time, just as JD with Ian finished the second song and left the stage, yes some idiot did throw a pint pot at the stage, and the next thing I knew a roadie was beating the shit out of some guy near the front of the stage. I thought oh shit!
I immediately went to the side stage curtain and back to the side of the stage mainly to find out what had happened, to find Tony Wilson hiding under a table there, next thing I know he was shouting at me "To get the F**K out there and sort things out!' I shouted back "You have got to be kidding!" I vividly remember looking at the stage to see a hail of bottles, glasses and broken glass from the theatre/hall lights raining down on the stage, and thought NO F*****G WAY MATIE. I did hear Peter Hook shouting from the dressing room, and then Tony disappeared. I went back out beyond the curtain into the hall, to then come upon this surreal scene of Adrian, trying to calmly break up two blokes who were trying to tear each other apart, with everyone standing around looking on stunned.
For years I have always remembered that JD played just 2 numbers with Ian Curtis, and yes there was something strange going on with the line up before this. Right up to an hour before the gig, we were not sure if it would go ahead, as news had filtered through during the day, that Ian had been in hospital again, we thought it might get cancelled, but kept our fingers crossed. In addition we were only supposed to have 400 people in the hall, yet the final count put the number at nearly 600, as a lot of people somehow got in by the emergency exit, despite our best efforts.
Also Tony Wilson will never remember this but at the end of the night as we were still clearing up and people giving statements to the Police, I stopped one of our regulars Andy from decking him, after he came out with "They certainly don't know how to enjoy themselves up here in Bury" he thought he was being very funny. As a result we were closed down for a month by the Derby Halls Trustees, and after that ended up with a number of restrictions, it never really was the same again after that night".
I hope to have this article and a number of other articles published as part of my current book project...
