New Order plays The Fillmore Miami Beach this week
New Order’s music may not immediately conjure up images of sand and sun.
But as of this week, Miami Beach will officially be home to the Manchester stalwarts. On Tuesday, the band begin what is believed to be its first-ever multiday residency, at The Fillmore. The city will officially declare Wednesday “New Order Day.”
Speaking from Manchester, band co-founder Stephen Morris said the answer to why New Order chose Miami is quite simple.
“Miami picked us,” Morris says. The band’s history here stretches back to at least 1989, and the city has been a must-include destination for subsequent tours — especially in recent years. New Order’s most recent set of band photos was taken in the Wynwood Arts District, Morris notes. And when the band were given the keys to Miami Beach last year, the bond was cemented.
Morris agreed that working in a band like New Order is somewhat akin to how work is generally treated in Miami: You try to make it as non-work-like as possible. (Asked what to call their profession, frontman Bernard Sumner once famously once referred to the band as “bank robbers.”) And as many a tourist has realized, there are few places one would rather work from if given the chance than the Magic City.
Although the band has released a new album in each of the past four decades — and if you count predecessor Joy Division, five — its business model is now heavily dependent on touring. That said, the band has briefly stormed back into the public consciousness thanks to the trailer for the next chapter of the Wonder Woman series, “Wonder Woman 1984” which features what Morris calls a “big” version of the band’s epoch-defining “Blue Monday.”
While Morris admits the band used to take advantage of Miami’s party scene more heartily, there remains plenty for a band in New Order’s current age bracket to do. Favorite spots include Wynwood, as well as The Wolfsonian-FIU Museum.
So what can listeners expect from the residency? Night one will resemble New Order’s most recent release, a live album cut from the gig’s 2017 set during the Manchester International Festival. Morris expects Night two to be mostly greatest hits.
And as for Friday and Saturday, both of which, as of Jan. 8, had sold out?
“Expect surprises,” Morris says. Remaining tickets for New Order’s Four at The Fillmore can be found at www.newordermia.com.