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Dance-rock icons reinvigorated

New Order puts Maui on its tour map

Britain’s iconic dance-rock pioneers New Order perform at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Castle Theater. Tickets are $49, $59, $89, $125, with a limited number of $150 Gold Circle seats (plus applicable fees). To purchase tickets or for more information, visit the box office, call 242-7469 or go online to www.mauiarts.org. Nick Wilson photo

With original members lead vocalist Bernard Sumner, drummer Stephen Morris and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, along with guitarist Phil Cunningham and bassist Tom Chapman, Britain’s iconic dance-rock pioneers New Order have embarked on a rare U.S. tour only playing five Mainland dates before coming to the Castle Theater at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center in Kahului on Oct. 3, and then heading on to Honolulu’s Blaisdell Arena on Oct. 5.

In late August, the band played a show in Toronto.

“Sorry it’s taken us so long to come back.” Sumner told the packed crowd.

“New Order spent a good portion of the night instilling a thumping club vibe into the air,” noted Canada’s Exclaim website.

Even in its homeland, the enigmatic band will only play one gig this year, on Nov. 9, before heading off on a Latin and South American tour to Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Mexico.

Nils Rosenblad leads 40 musicians during “ZepMaui IX,” a tribute to Led Zepplin, at the MACC. Shooting Stars Maui photo

Since forming in Manchester, England in the late 1970s, New Order became an international phenomenon releasing a string of popular songs including “Bizarre Love Triangle,” “The Perfect Kiss,” “Blue Monday,” “Round & Round,” “True Faith” and “Spooky” that packed dance floors around the world.

As the UK’s influential music paper NME noted: “New Order are one of the great singles bands of all time.”

The seeds of New Order were sown after Sumner and former bassist Peter Hook attended a Sex Pistols concert. The resulting band, Joy Division, was fronted by lead singer Ian Curtis. After Curtis committed suicide on the eve of the band’s first American tour, the musicians carried on, changing their name and direction.

Born out of tragedy, the newly renamed New Order went on to become one of the most critically acclaimed and influential British bands of the 1980s.

The release of the band’s brilliant club classic “Blue Monday” in 1983 brought them international attention. The best selling 12-inch single of all time was included in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most extraordinary songs, and the L.A. Weekly hailed it as one of the most famous and widely imitated grooves in pop music history.

Supposedly composed under the influence of LSD, the band took the song’s name from an illustration in Kurt Vonnegut’s book, “Breakfast of Champions.” Over the years, it’s been sampled by Rihanna, Kylie Minogue and M.I.A.

In an interview with The Guardian, keyboardist Gilbert described the song’s complex genesis.

“In 1983, before computers came along, it wasn’t easy to do electronic bass lines and rhythms. So Bernard Sumner started building these gadgets called sequencers. Next, we thought it would be good to create a song that was completely electronic. It was my job to program the entire song from beginning to end, which had to be done manually, by inputting every note. We couldn’t believe it when it became the biggest-selling 12-inch of all time.”

Designed by artist Peter Saville, the die-cut floppy disc-inspired cover sleeve for “Blue Monday” cost more to produce than the single sold for.

Included in Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s, New Order’s follow up, the synth-pop classic “Power, Corruption & Lies,” increased their popularity. As one reviewer noted, it was resplendent with, “some of the group’s giddiest music.”

Then came “Low-Life,” which was hailed at the time as New Order’s first really great album. Featuring the hit, “The Perfect Kiss,” AllMusic noted it was, “the point where the band’s fusion of rock and electronics became seamless.”

“We started to write more electronic songs, ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, for example,” Sumner wrote in his autobiography, “Chapter and Verse.” “People seemed to latch on to it, and things really began to take off. America was a great barometer for this. Where at first we’d be playing to 400 people, we started pulling in 15 hundred, then 2,000, and every time we’d go back the crowds would just go up and up, until we were playing to 20 or 30 thousand people.”

By the time of 1989’s “Technique,” which was partly recorded on the party island of Ibiza, the band had gone full-Balearic rave. Reaching No. 1 in the UK, Melody Maker praised it as “a rare and ravishing triumph.” Spin magazine later claimed it, “represented the perfect synthesis of the band’s abilities as a punk-influenced rock band and as synth-pop pioneers.”

Sumner has reported the type of dance music the record featured was, “ahead of its time.” It was viewed as helping usher in British club culture and house music, the era of the superstar DJ and the dominance of the electronic dance music sound.

After a fallow period and the loss of bassist Peter Hook, the band emerged as strong as ever in 2015 with the album “Music Complete.”

NME praised the recording, and “found the band completely reinvigorated, toeing the line between carving out a mature sound but still being up for a mad one. ‘Tuttifrutti’ may well be one of their finest dance moments, while ‘People on the Highline’ and ‘Plastic’ are speckled with acid-house goodness.”

Reviewing one of their live shows in 2015, The Guardian proclaimed: “When New Order delve into the electro alchemy of their peerless back catalogue, they are untouchable. Just when it was needed, they delivered a profoundly life-affirming evening.”

A recording that captured one of these shows was released last year as “NOMC15.”

“We didn’t join a group to be famous or successful,” Sumner told The Telegraph. “Those were by-products. We joined a group so we could enjoy ourselves. We didn’t have a career plan. We just had success as a by-product of us having a good time.”

*****

It’s going to be the biggest Led Zeppelin bash ever presented on Maui when close to 40 musicians assemble for ZepMaui IX, paying tribute to the rock gods at 7 p.m. Saturday in the MACC’s Yokouchi Pavilion & Courtyard.

Traditionally held at Mulligans on the Blue in Wailea, the MACC move will allow more Zep fans to enjoy the event and more musicians to participate.

“We had made the show leaner and meaner at Mulligans because of limitations, whereas at the MACC we’re up to 38 musicians this year,” says show Musical Director/Guitarist Nils Rosenblad, who first saw Led Zeppelin when he was 15. “This time we have one bass player, Tim Hackbarth from the Gina Martinelli Band, and one drummer, Kai Katchadourian. Compared to last year, there are 18 more non-drummer and bass player positions.”

Drawing from a wealth of Zep classics, around 15 vocalists will belt them out, while 15 lead guitarists will take on Jimmy Page’s iconic riffs.

“I come up with the songs we’re going to do, and because it’s all guitar candy, we went out looking for singers,” he says. “We’re pushing hard to get new people, and we have a lot of new faces. We’ll do as much of their best material as possible — 28 songs.”

Formed 50 years ago in the summer of 1968, before Page settled on Robert Plant as the band’s lead singer, he had approached Steve Marriott of the Small Faces and American singer Terry Reid. It was Reid who suggested Plant.

The guitarist was subsequently mightily impressed hearing the young Plant singing cover songs, including Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love,” at a small venue.

Initially known as the New Yardbirds, they adopted their name after a joke by Who drummer Keith Moon about how they would go over like a lead balloon.

When Zeppelin released their debut album, Rolling Stone dismissed it as “a waste of considerable talent on unworthy material,” while Plant was described, “as foppish as Rod Stewart, but nowhere near so exciting.” It has sold millions of copies.

In a recent interview, Robert Plant reported he wished they were more known for “Kashmir” than the iconic “Stairway to Heaven.”

” ‘Kashmir’ is amazing, but ‘Stairway’ is perfect,” says Rosenblad. “When the drums come in, John Bonham established himself as the greatest rock drummer ever.”

* ZepMaui IX will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday in the MACC’s Yokouchi Pavilion & Courtyard. Gates open at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $45 and $69 (VIP) in advance, and $55 and $89 (VIP) day of show. Under age 18 tickets are $20 (no day of show increase). This is an all-ages event. VIP tickets include side-stage viewing with dedicated VIP bars. A variety of tables and chairs will be available for use by VIP purchasers. VIP attendees must be aged 21 and older. A portion of proceeds will benefit the Willie K Cancer Fund.

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