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Monday 27 August 1979 concert review

Magazine: Melody Maker (UK)

Publication date: Saturday 8 September 1979

Reviewer: Jon Savage

LEIGH VALLEY FESTIVAL

ZOO met Factory half-way (between Liverpool and Manchester) and very few came Blame it on the site – hastily prepared fields a mile outside Leigh, surrounded by an East Lancs landscape of collieries, slag-heaps, bare hills sloping into dull 1930's estates and the inevitable Victorian mill. Inaccessibility and uncertain weather, plus inadequate promotion/media coverage, resulted in a turn-out (200) a tenth of the original estimate
Joy Division come into the dark like a late-night horror movie – scary but right. Sabotaged to an extent by poor sound – the interplay between instruments needs more careful preparation than the time allowed – they exorcised the increasing cold with cinematic, metallic blocks of noise
Songs from the album [= Unknown Pleasures] – Insight, She's lost control among others, the new single Transmission, and the unrecorded Colony, Dead souls (with a stunning chorus) and the final Sound of music. Two encores, and general dancing
Apply the truism: you should have been there