New Order ★★★ Education Entertainment Recreation WARNER MUSIC UK. BR/CD/DVD/LP

Substantial, multi-format document of band’s only UK show of 2018.

“We’re having a fucking great time up here,” announces Bernard Sumner from Alexandra Palace’s stage, pretending everyone agrees with him bar drummer Stephen Morris. “No,” the singer reiterates, “it’s good fun.” His typically dry assessment is also accurate: recorded on November 9, 2018, this show is a buoyant, generous-spirited journey around New Order. Initially, Mike Christie’s film is unpretentious to a fault, bright footage of phone-wielding audience members and stark stage shots deadening any dazzle or mystique. Yet both band and film warm up fast, songs from 2015’s Music

Complete robust alongside Ultraviolence (“sounds a lot better now than it did in the old days”) or a sing-along Bizarre Love Triangle. After an early Disorder, they end with a Joy Division set-within-a-set, images of Ian Curtis looming behind Atmosphere, Decades and Love Will Tear Us Apart. Exceeding the title’s criteria – ambiguous “recreation” and all – it’s a solid monument to their past and present. Victoria Segal