Last Wednesday Peter Hook and his nearly anonymous but capable backing band performed a complete set of Joy Division songs (including the full album “Unknown Pleasures”) at the 9:30 Club. This was one of the more unusual concerts of 2010; the music performed is over 30 years old and its original singer Ian Curtis has been dead nearly as long. Peter Hook was a co-founder and the bass player of Joy Division; so he has as much right to perform these songs as the other surviving members do; which they have been doing to a lesser extent in encores with their band Bad Lieutenant. But Hook was proposing an entire set performing basically as Joy Division. Who exactly would be singing these songs? And how the heck would they come close to matching Ian Curtis’ singular voice? Leading up to it, the whole prospect of this Peter Hook show felt audacious and just plain weird.

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