Gillian Gilbert will not tour with New Order in the foreseeable future because of personal health reasons. The June update leaves the band’s live setup built around fewer of the players who anchored its return in 2011, just as New Order and Joy Division move toward a joint Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction later this year.
Stephen Morris and two days in New York
Stephen Morris said, “I’ve got a bit of a health problem at the minute, which precludes leaving the country for any length of time.” He also said, “I don’t know. I really don’t want to dwell on what this illness is, but it’s pretty serious. It’s not something that someone’s going to come up with a cure for.”
That leaves a touring question with real operational weight. New Order’s live incarnation has centered on Bernard Sumner, Morris and Gilbert since 2011, so any shift away from that trio changes how the band presents itself onstage, not just who is missing from the photo.
Peter Hook and Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame
The complication is that Peter Hook, who left New Order in 2007, said in April that he would not stand with his former bandmates at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony. “No. No. Not after what they did to me and my family, no,” he said. He added, “I won’t stand with them. No. I couldn’t give a shit [how it would work]. I’m not bothered. You’ve got to have morals.”
He also floated an awkward workaround, saying, “Maybe Liam and Noel could be the intermediaries that you’re looking for. They might be like, ‘OK, you two. Let’s shake hands and get up there and play ‘Transmission,’ ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart,’ and ‘Blue Monday’.’”
New Order also has South American dates later this year in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Peru and Colombia, but the band has not said whether Gilbert or Morris will take part. The practical read is simple: the lineup is already in motion, and the health limits now sit above any nostalgia attached to the classic three-piece live core.
June and the live lineup
Morris said he has a health problem that keeps him from leaving the country for any length of time, and he described a two-day trip to the Ian Curtis lyrics exhibition in New York as ending in disaster. That kind of restriction makes touring a logistics problem before it becomes a musical one, because it narrows the set of dates a musician can actually clear.
For New Order, the immediate business takeaway is that the band is still playing forward, but not with full certainty around two familiar names. If you are tracking the South America run, the useful assumption is that the schedule can exist without Gilbert and Morris; whether either returns to the road is the open point the band has not filled in.
