Refractured Box

As Joy Division live performances go, the neurotic drama of Ian Curtis's blood and thunder baritone, Peter Hook's guttural bass and Bernard Sumner's slashing razorblade guitar never sounded more harrowing; "New Dawn Fades" sounds like the shifting of the earth's tectonic plates, "Disorder" twitches with paroxysmal panic and the nightmare time-travel of "Wilderness" is akin to experiencing the Bloody Assizes in your own living room.

While pretty much the same thing can be said for the Paris set, the Preston show capturing the band in provincial obscurity only days before they decamped to London to record their seminal finale "Closer" is a frustrating myth-deleting shambles. It veers between dark brilliance (the rattling disco jerk of "Incubation" and "Heart and Soul"), technical tragedy ("The Eternal", unrecognisable from the subsequent studio masterpiece, is practically an improvised instrumental) and unintentional farce. "Everything's fooking bust so we're playing everything through the bass amp" pleads Bernard Sumner.

"I think everything's falling apart" shudders Ian Curtis, with eerie prescience. "Anyone 'ere from Burnley?" enquires an anonymous female voice over the PA, only a few numbers into the set, "cos the coach is going in five minutes". It would never have happened at a Genesis concert. --Kevin Maidment