Following on from this weekend’s monumental show at Jodrell Bank, Steve Aston caught up with New Order’s guitarist and all round top lad Phil Cunningham to get the low down on how the band found the gig and their future recording plans

GS: Hello Phil – how are you? 

PC: I’m really good ta, how are you mate? Has your hangover gone?!

GS: No! It’s still here man. I was ok Monday, yesterday it kicked in and today it’s in full force. I’ve got a burnt nose too.

PC: Haha! I fucking hate that mate. You know what, I’m actually ok. Sunday was so, so good. Everything fell into place. Normally after a gig like that I would get totally off it but it didn’t happen!

GS: It was quite certainly an amazing show and one that won’t be forgotten in a while. I think all that were there will agree. You’ve said how much you enjoyed it, what about the rest of the band? How was it for them?

PC: I think it was one of the best gigs I’ve ever done. It’s one of those where everything goes right. All the planets aligned, the weather was perfect and we played perfectly. It was one of those rare ones when everyone in the band was buzzing. Usually when you think you’ve had a gig like that you will find 4 out of the 5 are buzzing, but 1 will have had some technical faults or something.

GS: Brilliant. Glad you enjoyed it as much as the rest of us. How much planning had to go into getting the projections right?

PC: Steve played a massive part behind the scenes and worked his arse off getting it sorted. We’ve had the visuals behind us on the screen but this was great. The only thing is we couldn’t see it! I managed to see a bit at the end when we came off. The whole thing was recorded though so we will be able to watch it back depending on how it sounds.

GS: As a DVD release?

PC: Yeah, if it sounds alright

GS: The set list, as ever was brimming with quality. Personally I was made up to hear ‘World (the price of love)’ in there. Was there any other less well known tracks that you were considering putting in?

PC: Well we put in ‘I’ll Stay With You’ from Lost Sirens which we had only played a couple of times and the only other one we were thinking about was ‘Round & Round’. I think we probably should have played it. We get a lot of requests from Technique.

GS: I suppose it’s probably impossible to please everyone given the back catalogue you have though.

PC: True!

GS: You are off to America next week. How do you find touring these days? Your not the spring chickens you used to be anymore!  

PC: Haha! Luckily enough we don’t have it too hard in New Order! We’ve only got 7/8 dates over there. My mate Jack drums for Johnny Marr, who funnily enough has just walked in to the room, and we were over there our paths crossed. We had done a handful of gigs in 3 and a half weeks and they had done about 25! We were just swanning around whilst they were doing it like a proper band!

GS: From the outside it seems like a happy camp these days in New Order and things are nicely settled. Is that fair reflection?

PC: Yeah definatley all good. The plan after this is to get to America and then back into the studio and get writing.

GS: So no more in terms of live stuff on these shores? Sunday has left me gagging for more!

PC: I’m afraid not!

GS: And what about those recordings? How far are these along?

PC: We’ve made a start. We are going to do an EP. We can’t really do an album as we will disappear and we can’t keep people waiting forever! But we’ve made a start. We have Tom from The Chemical Brothers working on the recordings at the minute when we are away.

GS: That sounds top. Would you like to pick a New Order mini play list for the July Gigslutz radio show? Any three songs of your choice…

PC: Ok, I’ll have ‘I’ll Follow You’ from the Lost Sirens album, ‘Movement’ by The Whip and I’ll go for an oldie, ‘I Can See For Miles’ by The Who.

GS: Quality Choices. Thanks Phil, I’ll leave you and Jack to do whatever it is rock stars do on Wednesday mornings…

PC: Go for a walk in the country, then to the pub!

GS: Cheers Phil, as always a pleasure. All the best

PC: You too, thanks mate

New Orders ‘Live at Bestival 2012’ is released this week

@Gigslutz_steve