The Derby Hall Riot: Joy Division’s most manic concert?
When you think about the sort of bands that might have a riot break out at one of their shows, you tend to think of more raucous acts in the punk, hard rock and metal spheres as being the likely candidates. Joy Division are perhaps a little too dour and downbeat compared to their punk predecessors, and were a lot more rooted in emotional outpouring than they were in creating an antagonistic atmosphere for their fans, but on one occasion in 1980, things got significantly out of hand.
It’s well known that frontman Ian Curtis was a troubled character, having struggled with late-diagnosed epilepsy, depression, and a strained marriage throughout his time in the spotlight, and this triple-threat of obstacles often weighed the vocalist down. They took hold of not only his personal life, but his stage presence, which was characterised by his frenetic and jerky movements and a solemn look behind the eyes when he gazed out over the audience.
In April 1980, the band were booked to perform at Derby Hall in Bury, just down the road from where the band hailed from in Salford, and at the time, the band’s stock was rising significantly. They’d received plenty of accolades from the music press for their debut album, Unknown Pleasures, and the arrival of their second album was being hotly anticipated by critics and fans of the band alike.
However, Curtis’ worsening mental state was becoming an increasing concern for him, despite the fact that his bandmates and management weren’t always perceptive to his struggles. On April 7th, the night before the show, Curtis had attempted suicide by overdosing on barbiturates and spent the night in the hospital recovering. While most bands would choose to cancel a show given these circumstances, Joy Division proposed that the show would still go ahead as planned, although there would be some slight changes to the lineup.
Curtis was invited to perform some numbers with the band despite not being in a fit enough state to do so, but the gig commenced with Alan Hempsall of support band Crispy Ambulance on lead vocals. After three songs, Curtis took to the stage to perform two numbers, but it was clear that his illness was hampering his ability to perform, and fans weren’t content with what they were witnessing.
Another issue with the show was that the venue had drastically oversold the number of tickets, with 600 people piling into the 400-capacity venue to witness the fateful show, and the overcrowded room soon descended into chaos. While some directed their anger towards the band by hurling bottles in the direction of the stage, others in the audience took umbrage with this reaction, which led to a full-scale bust-up between audience members, at which point tour manager Terry Mason had to hold people back from spilling over onto stage and attacking the band.
In a retrospective interview with the Bury Times in 2020, 40 years on from the catastrophic show, Lindsay Reade, the then-wife of Joy Division manager Tony Wilson, said that it was a disaster from start to finish. “Ian was very subdued afterwards- I don’t think he spoke a word on the way home,” she told the publication. “Tony kept saying how great it was but Ian couldn’t see it. What he did see – he told me privately later – was the band continuing without him. He was very depressed for the entire time he stayed with us.”
Curtis would eventually take his own life a month later; an incident that the rest of the band and management still lament for not having noticed the warning signs of. While the band released one final album, Closer, two months after Curtis’ death, the band had always had a pact that should any member leave, they would change their name, and in New Order, the legacy of the group lives on.
