Virtual gallery: Peter Hook and the Light at the Republic

This past Wednesday night, English rock band Peter Hook and the Light played to a packed house at the Republic. Prior to his work with this particular group, Hook, a founding member of seminal post-punk band Joy Division, played the bass for this band. Following the 1980 death of Joy Division’s lead singer, Ian Curtis, the band reformed as the New Order; Hook then played bass with them until 2007. After his work with the New Order, Hook created his current act, Peter Hook and the Light, for which he functions as the lead vocalist and bassist.

On Peter Hook and the Light’s current tour, the band has been playing US cities Hook has not previously performed in, playing tracks from each The New Order and JOy Division’s albums. For their New Orleans performance, the band performed a special opening set of New Order tunes, which they then followed with music from followed by Joy Division albums Unknown Pleasures and Closer. The song set — split into four parts, three sets and an encore of three additional Joy Division tracks, which ended with one of Joy Division’s most covered and coveted tracks, “Love will Tear Us Apart” — consisted of a seven-song New Order blow out highlighted by the bookends of “Ceremony” and “True Faith,” the latter garnering one of the most energetic crowd reactions of the night.

The crowd at the Republic appeared to consist of a fairly even ratio of New Order fans and Joy Division fans; however, the band received a noticeably more enthusiastic response to their Joy Division tunes.

View an extended gallery here.