For the first time ever, Joy Division are releasing an official collection of live concert recordings.
Due out September 25th, Eternal (Live) was organized over several years, and features recordings culled from 16 live performances. That includes audio sourced directly from a collection of broadcast recordings, soundboard recordings, and audience-recorded recordings/cassettes. The entire collection was then mastered in full at the famed Abbey Road Studios.
Eternal features two previously unreleased shows: the famed Hope & Anchor pub (which is likely Joy Division’s London debut from December 27th, 1978) and Acklam Hall (where, on May 17th, 1979 show, Joy Division shared a bill with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark). There’s also three previously unheard recordings: The Factory, Lyceum (they co-headlined with Killing Joke on February 29th, 1980), and Moonlight Club (which may have been released in part on the two-CD set Factory By The Moonlight).
And if all of that weren’t enough rarities, there’s also the band’s final 1980 performance at the High Hall Birmingham, where they performed the iconic “Ceremony” for the first and only time ever.
Related Video
Ahead of the official release, Joy Division have shared a sneak peek with “Transmission (Les Bains Douches, Paris).” The mastering manages to clean up the song to just the right degree without mitigating that immersive warmth that makes you believe you’re right there in Paris in the early ’80s. Check it out below.
Eternal lands a couple months before Joy Division and New Order are to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year. The induction ceremony will take place on November 14th in Los Angeles.
In other Joy Division news, the band’s late frontman Ian Curtis is the focus of a brand new gallery at New York City’s Voltz Clarke Gallery. Running today (June 25th) through July 22nd, “Ian Curtis: Insight” features a collection of the singer’s artifacts held by the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester as part of the British Pop Archive.