by Peter Hook
‘His mum got the blood out by washing it
in a bath of salt water’
With the American tour due to begin on 21 May at Hurrah nightclub in New York, Joy Division next embarked on a busy schedule of UK dates partly aimed at raising funds, including a Factory mini-residency at the Moonlight Club in Hampstead, as well as a prestigious support slot for the Stranglers at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park.
Prior to this gig, however, the Stranglers’ frontman Hugh Cornwell was sent to Pentonville Prison for possession of heroin, cocaine and cannabis, and the show was instead reconfigured as ‘The Stranglers & Friends’ with other well-known artists (Toyah, Hazel O’Connor, Robert Smith and Richard Jobson among them) filling in for Cornwell.
The night would also prove eventful for Joy Division, who were scheduled to perform there before returning to the Moonlight in Hampstead for the last night of the Factory residency. On stage at the Rainbow, Ian had a fit triggered by strobe lights and collapsed into the drum kit but recovered enough to play the Moonlight just over an hour later. He then had another fit during that set – though the performance was still rated a triumph by the NME’s Neil Norman, who wrote: ‘Unlike the Fall, who make me want to go out and kick a cat, Joy Division convince me I could spit in the face of God.’
Though the pressure was evidently becoming intolerable, and Ian spoke of opening a bookshop with Annik and even, according to Genesis P-Orridge, hatched plans with him to form a breakaway group, Ian nevertheless insisted to his band mates that they continue with the schedule.
It got chaotic now. Really, really busy. First off we had this label residency at the Moonlight Club in Hampstead, loads of Factory bands playing over three nights: Section 25, Crawling Chaos, John Dowie, A Certain Ratio, Kevin Hewick, Blurt, Durutti Column, X-O-Dus and the Royal Family.
And us. Being the biggest, it fell to us to attract the punters. Factory were apparently nervous that the other bands wouldn’t be enough of a draw but I found that hard to believe, because the venue was tiny.
Anyway, we’d stayed down in London after recording Closer, and went on to do the first two nights of the Hampstead gig, the second and third of April, which went well – as in we turned up, played, did good gigs. One of the nights was attended by this A&R guy from Polydor called the Captain, who’s a bit of a legend in the industry. He’s a very tall, broad guy with a military bearing, hence the name, but a nice bloke. I’ve since met him many times over the years. He looks after U2 now, and was a big help in their career, but before all that he came to see us, which Ian was dead excited about.
‘Oh God, Hooky,’ he was going, ‘there’s an A&R man from Polydor here. He’s called the Captain. He’s great. Come and meet him – we might get some free drinks.’
Great. Free drinks. Well up for that. So after the set the band and Rob went to meet the Captain and discovered, firstly, that he was dead posh – ‘Hello. How are you, Peter?’ – like that; and secondly that he was going to get a round of drinks in: ‘Now, what can I get everybody?’
We were like, ‘Fucking great,’ and really took the piss, ordering triple vodkas and orange and two beers – each. But he just looked amused, said, ‘Fine, fine,’ went to the bar, ordered the drinks and handed them out.
‘Tuck in, everybody, tuck in. It’s all you chaps deserve after such an excellent gig.’
Then he turned to the barmaid. ‘How much is that, my good woman?’
‘Eight pound fifty, darling,’ she said.
The Captain reached into his jacket and pulled out a chequebook. At which point the barmaid looked absolutely incredulous, as though he was offering to pay with a huge purple marrow, and said to him, ‘We don’t take cheques, darling.’
So the Captain turned to us, looking suitably embarrassed and said, ‘I’m terribly sorry about this, but can anybody lend me eight pounds fifty to pay for the drinks?’
I think it was Ian who lent him the money to get the round in and the guy made a cheque out to him for the round of drinks, then slunk off as soon as he could.
Then came the gig at the Rainbow, where the Stranglers’ crew behaved like complete bastards. Before the doors opened I was on stage ogling Jean-Jacques Burnel’s set-up, which was split into high/mid/bass, like a proper PA. Oh, it was great. He had a really huge rig and I had a really small, cheap set-up in comparison. I was jealous. The problem was their crew wouldn’t let us move any of it so we could sound-check. That day the Stranglers’ crew were swanning about as if they owned the place because there were all these ‘pop stars’ hanging around, like Toyah and what have you. It was as though it had suddenly become this huge event or something. They were recording it to release as an album, too, which didn’t help.
All day the crew were just rude, to be honest. Because Jean-Jacques Burnel was one of my heroes I’d been really, really, looking forward to that Rainbow gig, so for them to treat us so badly was gutting and I held a grudge about it for a long time. Same with Rob.
It was at that gig, in fact, that we swore to ourselves that we’d make sure we never treated a support band the way the Stranglers had treated us, and thus a policy was born – one that arguably got out of hand in the Haçienda years, when visiting bands were treated like royalty. I used to moan and whinge about it at the time, but Rob would always remind me of that Stranglers gig.
He’d say, ‘Treat your bands how you want to be treated.’ And he was absolutely right.
The crew problem went right across the board, including the lighting guys. At most gigs Rob would position himself in the lighting booth so that if the technician went to the strobes he was there to sort it out straight away. We’d always know about it on stage because the lights would kick in then stop almost immediately, and you could just imagine Rob pushing his glasses up his nose and telling the technician to kill them or else. But that night we didn’t even get a sound-check so there was no way Rob was going to get in the lighting booth. Sure enough, during ‘Atrocity Exhibition’ the guy went to the strobes.
They were blasting away and not stopping like normal, and I thought, Uh oh, and no doubt so did Barney and Steve, and the next thing you know Ian’s dancing had fallen out of time and suddenly he’d lost it; his legs went, he stumbled back and into the kit and the lighting guy realized something was wrong and brought the lights down just as Twinny and Terry dashed on and me and Barney took off our guitars and went to help Ian, who was fitting in the drums.
We carried him off, got him to a room backstage and stayed with him for a while until he’d recovered. He was going, ‘Thanks, lads. Sorry, lads. I’m all right now. Let’s get over to the Moonlight, eh?’
We were telling him, ‘No, mate, no you’re not fucking going on again tonight. They can manage without us.’
Tony was down to see us that night but bollocks to that – even Rob was adamant that Ian needed to rest. But Ian insisted. You know why? Because he was a man of his word, simple as that. He wasn’t a wimp. You put Ian on a battlefield and he’d be the guy still fighting with his arms hanging off. He said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. A couple of Aspirin, no problem. Let’s go.’
Definitely his own worst enemy. So we went to perform at the Moonlight, and of course things didn’t get any better. We were as good as our word. We played. But Ian collapsed again. He was really, really tired by this point, almost weary. But instead of resting, which of course he should have done, we went to Malvern the very next night, did a storming gig with Section 25, drove home that night and dropped Ian off. The next day, I got a phone call from Rob to tell me that Ian had tried to kill himself.
It was on Easter Sunday that Ian took an overdose of phenobarbitone at home in Macclesfield. It’s been suggested that after taking the pills he had second thoughts, fearing the possibility of brain or liver damage rather than death, or that his attempt was a cry for help. Whatever his reasons, he alerted Deborah and was immediately taken to hospital in Macclesfield and had his stomach pumped.
The following day
, Easter Monday, Tony Wilson, Alan Erasmus and Rob Gretton took Debbie to visit Ian in hospital. There it was suggested that Ian stay with Tony and his wife, Lindsay Reade, at their cottage in Charlesworth in order to ease Ian’s marital pressure. It was agreed that the stay would begin the following day, Tuesday 8 April.
Meanwhile, Rob Gretton had decided that the next day’s gig, at Bury Town Hall, was to go ahead as planned, only without Ian. Alan Hempsall of Crispy Ambulance, a big Joy Division fan, was asked to stand in and duly began learning lyrics. When he turned up on the night, however, he was surprised to find Ian Curtis at the venue. Gretton had apparently visited Ian in hospital and persuaded him to perform – for at least one or two songs . . .
We should have cancelled of course. I mean, looking back now, you start to see the gigs we should have got rid of. That Stranglers support at the Rainbow, for one, and that one at Bury Town Hall for another. But we decided to go ahead with it for whatever reason. Whether we needed the money for the American tour or would have been penalized financially for pulling out, I don’t know, but we went ahead with them.
I hate to say this, but in an awful sort of way it was quite exciting, really, to consider being able to play a gig without worrying about Ian for once. Because, after the initial shock of him trying to top himself, you felt like, Right, okay, that’s a fucking scary thing, but at least he didn’t go through with it. He pulled back in time. He changed his mind. He chose not to die. He wants to live.
So you felt that he’d turned a corner somehow. He’d had a go at the suicide thing, decided he didn’t like it and that would be that. Plus, to sound very, very callous for a moment, it was nice to think of playing a gig without the fear of one of the band collapsing on stage. We could actually enjoy the music for once. Yeah, that does sound callous. Maybe I should take that out.
It was a lovely venue, actually, Bury. There was a large, ornate chandelier that hung above the stage, and a covered grand piano that had been pushed up to the stage. Of course they’re kidney-shaped, aren’t they, those pianos, so muggins here stepped on to it, thinking it was part of the stage, and shot straight through to the floor and nearly killed myself, which was my only brush with death for the day – or so I thought at the time.
So anyway, Minny Pops played their set, then Section 25 came on, did most of their set and finished with ‘Girls Don’t Count’, which was the song that Ian and Rob had produced and was supposed to be released as a single but hadn’t yet come out – delayed because of the sleeve, I think. So they were playing that, and me, Barney and Steve went on stage to join them, along with Alan from Crispy Ambulance and Simon Topping from A Certain Ratio, who would be singing the Joy Division songs.
Maybe the idea was to try to dazzle the crowd with the amazing array of Factory talent on stage so they’d be so bowled over they wouldn’t notice that Ian wasn’t there – I don’t know. What I do know is that the crowd were getting more and more rowdy.
Now, the venue was sold out and was at capacity: 400. But earlier, after the sound-check, the bands and Rob had gone for a bite to eat and returned to find a bunch of kids hanging around outside the venue. They’d caught sight of Rob and started hassling him to get in, and for some strange reason he took pity on them and put them all on the guest list.
Little did he know that these kids were a right bunch of troublemakers, and immediately on entering the gig had gone to the fire escapes to let in all their mates – loads of them – which swelled the numbers inside to around 600. The mood, as they say, started getting ugly.
What didn’t help matters was Ian coming on to sing ‘Decades’ and ‘The Eternal’, but with nothing like his normal spark, which sort of brought the evening down, to be honest. It eludes me, actually, the point of him coming on, because it definitely made matters worse. I mean, up until then it was going all right. I dare say there were plenty in who didn’t even realize Ian wasn’t on stage. Of course the true fans knew, but then they weren’t the ones most likely to cause trouble. When Ian went off again the crowd became even more restless and we played ‘Sister Ray’ then left, just as it started to get rowdy.
Really rowdy. Most of the bands were backstage when it all kicked off. I found out later that Larry from Section 25 had got caught out there and had to hide behind the curtains. But the rest of us were in a dressing room at the side of the stage, kept separate from the main venue by a huge drape that ran down one side. So we didn’t see one of the idiots throw a pint pot that shattered in the chandelier above the stage, showering the stage with broken glass. We didn’t see Rob dive into the crowd to try to lamp the idiot who’d thrown the pint pot. Didn’t see Twinny dive in after him and get set upon by a bunch of thugs who started kicking the hell out of him. Or Terry grab a microphone stand and jump off stage to help them.
Twinny went down, his head smashed open and bleeding badly, and they would have kicked the shit out of him if Terry hadn’t smacked a couple of them with the mic stand, which at least gave Twinny the chance to pull himself to his feet and fight back, still bleeding badly.
The thing was: he had my shirt on, the fucker. That afternoon he’d asked if he could borrow it and, even though it was my favourite (after the blue one, of course), I’d let him have it because he promised me he was going to be dead careful with it, and absolutely not get a battering from a load of thugs and bleed all over it.
Later on his mum got the blood out by washing it in a bath of salt water. The salt lifts the blood out, she told me later, and she was absolutely right because the shirt was fine. Little tip for you there.
So anyway, it was all kicking off out in the venue, a proper riot. These guys weren’t messing about. Twinny was badly hurt and they were coming back for second helpings, Terry swinging his mic stand around his head trying to keep the crowd off him. He was that scared he actually pissed himself, but luckily he hadn’t borrowed my trousers.
Backstage the first we knew of it was when Tony Wilson came bursting into the dressing room, screaming like a girl: ‘Oh fuck, it’s all gone off. Everyone’s getting beaten up.’
Hysterical, he was. Imagine the suave, intellectual Tony Wilson you’ve seen on telly. Now imagine the opposite and that was how he was.
Next thing, the door opened again. With it open all we could hear was the sound of shouting and glasses smashing from out in the venue: the sound of it all really going off. Then Rob was standing there, out of breath, in complete disarray, saying one word: ‘Fuck.’
I was straight out of my seat, ‘What the fuck’s going on?’
‘It’s a fucking riot, mate,’ he said. ‘They’re going fucking apeshit out there. Terry, Twinny and Dave are out there. We’ve got to help them, mate, come on . . .’
He opened the door, we poked our heads out and straight away there was a hail of bottles. I’m not kidding, it was like a fucking mortar attack – all these bottles shattering around us. Rob darted out and I grabbed two empty bottles of Pils off the dressing-room table, shoved one at Alan Hempsall, and shouted, ‘Come on, let’s get out there.’
Alan Hempsall stood there like I was trying to hand him a dog turd. Wouldn’t take the bottle. I looked from him to the rest of them.
‘Come on, then.’
They all stared at me. The rest of Joy Division, Tony, Lindsay, Iris, all of Minny Pops, A Certain Ratio and Section 25, all of them at the back of the dressing room and staring at me, wide-eyed and shitless.
Well, fuck ‘em, I thought, and turned to follow Rob when all of a sudden I was being grabbed from behind, held back, arms going around my waist, someone else grabbing on to my arm.
Tony was holding me, Lindsay was holding me, Iris was holding me; Paul from Section 25, too. One of them had long nails and really hurt me but that was my fault for struggling, I suppose, because I was going mental and the bastards wouldn’t let me out; they ended up pinning me down and sitting on me in the dressing room. I was shouting that we could have them if we all stuck together, how we should be out there helping
our mates and all that. Calling them all the names under the sun.
They were right, though. I’d have been toast if I’d got out there. A member of the band? The bastards would have kicked seven shades of shit out of me. So I can say that now: they basically saved my life. But at the time all the thanks they got was me struggling and swearing at them and calling them rotten. But save my bacon they did. They held on to me until at last the trouble had ended. Then, like survivors emerging from a nuclear shelter, we ventured outside.
The place was trashed. Twinny had a massive gash in his head, blood all over him. Terry was in a terrible state; they all were.
Ian had disappeared, though, and I found him in a stairwell with his head in his hands, and one of our lot (she shall remain nameless) screaming at him: ‘This is all your fault. This is all your fault.’
I was going, ‘Will you get the fuck out?’ I gave this dick a shove out the way and said, ‘Are you all right, Ian?’
He was just like, ‘Yeah, I’m all right, Hooky, I’m all right. Just leave me for a minute; I’ll be okay.’
Ian wasn’t much of a fighter, especially when he was sober. He was obviously really shocked and shook up. Tony came to have a word and I left them to it, went out to see the others who were in the process of calling an ambulance for Twinny. Lindsay ended up taking him to the hospital, telling him on the way that she had stockings and suspenders on, even showing him them at the traffic lights. He just said, ‘Under the circumstances, Lindsay, I’m not really interested!’ When they got to A&E who else should be there, getting stitched up, but the two lads Terry had battered with the mic stand. Nice one, Terry.
After the Bury gig Ian went to stay with Tony and Lindsay, where he spent a few days listening to records and smoking dope. Debbie attended the next Joy Division concert at the Factory II on 11 April but during the course of the evening learned more about Ian’s relationship with Annik – specifically their living arrangements during the Closer sessions. After the concert the couple argued and Ian returned to Charlesworth. However, he left at some point during the weekend and stayed either with Bernard or his parents, missing Natalie’s birthday on 16 April. He returned home briefly then departed for Derby, where Joy Division were playing at the Ajanta Theatre on Saturday 19 April.
