This is the way, step inside: understanding Joy Division

On the 30th of July 1980, three musicians - Peter Hook, Steven Morris and Bernard Sumner - took to the small stage of The Beach Club at Oozits Bar in Shudehill, Manchester. With what might be best described as ‘gallows humour’, Sumner introduced the band as being the last surviving members of Crawling Chaos (New Order Net 2018).1 Their short set consisted of five songs. It must have been a particularly difficult gig for the musicians to play, as just eleven week’s earlier their close friend and Joy Division band-mate Ian Curtis had committed suicide on the eve of their first tour of the United States. Curtis’s unexpected death marked the premature end of one of the most important and most influential post-punk bands. Joy Division was no more.