On Video

Love Will Tear Us Apart

The Phantom is bound up with this song from the very beginning, and the video is the reason most people know what the guitar looks like at all.

Writing in Bonhams Magazine, Jon Savage noticed something about the early footage: Ian Curtis holds the guitar almost as an obstacle, its weight closing down the movement that made him such a presence on stage. Once you have read that, it is difficult to watch it any other way.

The shoot took place three weeks before his death in May 1980. The video was released afterwards.

After 1980 — the Phantom in New Order

The other two clips here are from 1981, and they are the part of the story that tends to get forgotten. After Ian's death the guitar passed to Bernard Sumner, who used it in the early years of New Order, and it turns up on stage with the band well into that period — "Everything's Gone Green" live, and a New York concert from November 1981.

It is a strange thing to watch. The instrument did not become an exhibit in 1980; it carried on being a working guitar for years afterwards, through New Order and later through Electronic, before it eventually came back round to Ian's daughter Natalie. The about page has the full chain of custody.

More footage

If you know of other film the guitar appears in, we would like to hear about it — let us know.