"I think everything's falling apart!"

Joy Division live @ The Warehouse, Preston, UK28th February 1980

Courtesy of Graham Duff

May 2017 remastered

Track list:

01. Incubation
02. Wilderness
03. Twenty Four Hours
04. The Eternal
05. Heart and Soul
06. Shadowplay
07. Transmission
08. Disorder
09. Warsaw
10. Colony
11. Interzone
12. She's Lost Control

Duration: 00:50:42
Quality: 9+/10
Sources: "Shadowplay" CD bootleg / Master reel or 1st copy

JoyDiv's comment:
Ian, most unusually, was very talkative on stage - primarily to fill in the time while order was restored by the roadies (they had some PA problems due to interference with the beer pump!!). Despite the problems, or because of them, the tape of this concert is probably one of the most interesting bootlegs.

Wallflower's comment:
Joy Division's equipment infamously failed them during this show. It's evident during "Twenty-Four Hours" that the bass amp is shorting out. It then goes completely dead during "The Eternal". Distracted, Ian only sings the first verse of the song before it crawls to a slow stop. Bernard suggests to the band that they play "Heart and Soul," since they can do it without the bass. The band play a sloppy, guitar-less version of the song before the momentum of the gig stops completely dead for like two whole minutes as the band can attempt to fix their equipment. You can hear a lot of talking in the background. Rob Gretton and several of the venue hands sound like headless chickens running around. Apparently they were trying to play everything through the bass amp, but the band eventually get the other amps back on, so there's no need. Hilariously, a woman announces through Ian's microphone: "Anyone from Burnley, the coach is going in five minutes." What a fiasco. FINALLY, when the equipment turns back on, Ian, in a rare moment of interaction with the audience, asks for any requests. The resounding answer is "Shadowplay". From then on, the gig continues as normal.

Ignoring the aspects of the gig that make it infamous, the performance itself is all over the place. The setlist is very nice, combining the punkier songs of old and the synth songs of new. "Incubation" is debuted at this gig - one of only three live versions! We get unique versions of "The Eternal" and "Heart and Soul". After the equipment fails, the band clearly becomes frazzled - there are many mistakes on "Disorder," "Transmission," and "Interzone" especially. The ironic thing is that this recording comes from the soundboard and is definitely one of the best sound quality live recordings Joy Division ever had.

Great show, overall...the songs are still there, which is the most important thing.

Here's a decoding of what happened after "Heart and Soul" here:

Ian: I think everything's falling apart.
Someone #1: …if you don't put my book!
Bernard Sumner: Alright, lads! So Hooky's absent through the bass amp. It's not working. Hey, 'Arry! Everything's fucking bust so we're playing everything through the bass amp. Hooky!
Audience member #1: Yay!
Someone #2: Bass. Bass amp. Bass amp. Fucking...fucking have it.
Bernard Sumner: Hang on a minute, we've got it back on again...
Audience member #2: For fuck's sake...
Someone #2: Yeah.
Audience member #2: What a fucking prick!
Woman: Anyone from Burnley, the coach is going in five minutes.
Ian: Q.
Rob Gretton: What's going on? Fucking Christ, what's going on?
Peter: Hold on!
Ian: Hold on!
Rob Gretton: Yeah, but what's going on?
Someone #3: Shadowplay.
Ian: Any requests?
General Audience: SHADOWPLAY! Disorder, Colony!
Ian: Shadowplay.
General Audience: Disorder!
Someone #4: There's no way to fix it!
Rob Gretton: Hooky, Hooky, Hooky! What's happening?
Peter Hook: We don't know!
Rob Gretton: Come to your mic.

*Bass to Shadowplay comes in, audience cheers

Enjoy!

More info about concert: Joy Division Central

Download:

Mega (~310 Mb)

WeTransfer (~310 Mb / Will be deleted on 5 June, 2017)

Do not redistribute in MP3 or any other lossy format

Never sell for monetary gain (and do not redistribute to people who might!)

PS
Dear guest, if you have any of JD's master-tapes or rare bootlegs - please(!) write a comment.

Cheers.

Duncan's tapes

Joy Division live @
Futurama One Festival, Queen's Hall, Leeds - 8th September 1979
& Winter Gardens, Bournemouth - 2nd November 1979

Photo by Kevin Cummins @ Futurama

May 2017 remastered

Track list (Futurama):

01. I Remember Nothing
02. Wilderness
03. Transmission
04. Colony
05. Disorder
06. Insight
07. Shadowplay
08. She's Lost Control
09. Atrocity Exhibition
10. Dead Souls

Duration: 00:42:41
Quality: 8/10
Source: "All Gods Angels Beware" CD bootleg

Duncan's comment:
"A month or so after Ian's death when I first meet Rob Gretton at Rough Trade in London, with six of my Joy Division master tapes, it was the Futurama tape that he wanterd to hear first. He put on I Remember Nothing and I said he should fast forward to Wilderness as he'd be able to assess the tape better. He just smiled and said "I can tell fine with this track". He handed me a copy of Licht Und Blindheit -Sordide Sentimental and about 6 of those flexi freebies. Rob was a really nice bloke."

More info about concert: Joy Division Central


Track list (Winter Gardens):

01. I Remember Nothing
02. Love Will Tear Us Apart
03. Interzone
04. Colony
05. Insight
06. These Days
07. Digital
08. Transmission
09. Atrocity Exhibition

Duration: 00:38:46
Quality: 8/10
Source: "Winter Gardens" CD bootleg

Duncan's comment:
"Ian behaved a little differently during Atrocity Exhibition. Usually he would dance really wildly during the guitar/drums climax of this song. But this time he walked to the front of the stage and stared out at the audience completely still for about 15 seconds until a roadie came onstage and helped him offstage to hospital suffering dehydration and exhaustion. Joy Division were pulling in fans at these gigs even though they were support to the headlining Buzzcocks."

More info about concert: Joy Division Central

Download:

WeTransfer (~430 Mb / Will be deleted on 14 May, 2017)

Futurama: Mega (~220 Mb) 

Winter Gardens: Mega (~210 Mb)

Do not redistribute in MP3 or any other lossy format

Never sell for monetary gain (and do not redistribute to people who might!)

PS
Dear guest, if you have any of JD's master-tapes or rare bootlegs - please(!) write a comment.

Cheers.

The Warsaw Demo

"The Warsaw Demo". Recorded @ Pennine Sound Studios, Oldham, UK - 18th of July 1977

Photo by Kevin Cummins

Spring 2017 remastered

Track list:

01. Inside the Line
02. Gutz
03. At a Later Date
04. The Kill
05. You're No Good For Me

Duration: 13:07

Source: "From The Centre Of The City" 3" CD bootleg

Notes:

- the band was still known as "Warsaw"
- Steve Brotherdale on drums
- "At A Later Date" will evolve into "She's Lost Control" in a few months

More info about session: Joy Division Central

Download:

Mega (~76 Mb)

Do not redistribute in MP3 or any other lossy format

Never sell for monetary gain (and do not redistribute to people who might!)

PS

Dear guest, if you have any of JD's master-tapes or rare bootlegs - please(!) write a comment.

Cheers,

Fage.

Then Love... Love Will Tear Us Apart... Again...

Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart

18th or 28th of April 1980 / Promo Video

Hi there! 

How we know... all JD collectors have problems with sources, I think. Some of the better versions of recordings are guarded as if they were not concert tapes or just videos but state secrets! 
That's why I did this post..........

Photo by Anton Corbijn @ LWTUA Video Session

The idea to rework the "Love Will Tear Us Apart" video came to me in August 2013, when the channel "Joy Division" first came onto YouTube. Initially, I was shocked by how badly Rhino hadhandled the video. Seriously, it looks like they only had a VHS of HATYM just uploaded it onto YouTube without any reworking, you know. Just look at this:

What could they do? 
As we know (correct me if I'm wrong), the clip was shot on 16mm film. In today's "digital" format, it's resolution exceeds the 2K video format (yep, it's actually slightly better than Full HD). For comparison: VHS is equivalent to about half of a DVD (360i instead of 576i). So, if they could scan it frame-by-frame in the 'restoring' liquid, they could have achieved incredible results! Take a look at this restored film:

And that's only 8mm! Just imagine what the 16mm would look like. 

What did I do? 
Not so much, to be honest. If in 2013 I thought that the problem was an imperfect software, I now realize that the problem is in the source. All official releases are poor. When I got, in my opinion, the best DVD source (2009, "Rage: In Love"), I realized that I couldn't improve the quality too much, but I could try to fix the colors. So I focused on this; I tried to add more details to it. I worked on audio too, of course, trying to synchronize audio with video. 

I planned to post it on the 28th of April or, maybe, on the 18th of May, but couldn't wait that long. 

Let me introduce ... 
Color-corrected, upscaled to Full HD, coming from the best possible DVD source, the most famous song of Joy Division - "Love Will Tear Us Apart." 
Enjoy! 

Note: I could not upload the video onto YouTube, because it violates their copyright rules, so I used another video hosting site. I hope that you will not have any problems with this.