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Kevin Cummins Hits The North – Joy Division To Oasis Caught On Camera
John Tatlock , September 30th, 2009 07:26

As legendary NME snapper Kevin Cummins exhibits photographs of his Mancunian muse in Yorkshire, we present a gallery of his photographs and hear the curious story of Ian Curtis' pink suit. Interviews by John Tatlock

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Ian Curtis by Kevin Cummins Futurama, Queen’s Hall, Leeds, 8 September 1979

This was at Futurama, in this huge warehouse on the edge of Leeds city centre. It was horrible actually, like a weekend festival indoors, completely anti everything punk and post punk stood for. Cause punk was about getting close to bands and being in small sweaty clubs, and suddenly here was this festival they hoped 10,000 people would turn up for, and it wasn't really what anyone wanted. And it was only salvaged when Joy Division came on and played this blistering set.

I always wanted to do something different every time I saw them; I was building up a sort of portfolio of them. That night, I wanted to do a sequence of pictures of Ian dancing, and I always shot whole rolls, so I had really nice sequential shots. I more or less ignored the rest of the gig, because I knew I had the pictures I wanted.