Joy Division

In January 1980, Joy Division set out on a European tour. Several dates were canceled due to Curtis's deteriorating health. On February 28, the band played a gig at the Warehouse in Preston. The gig was plagued with sound problems. With Martin Hannett again producing, the band began recording their second album Closer at the end of the European tour in March. As with the early Warsaw/Joy Division track "No Love Lost" the band again featured a song with a literary reference: the opening track on Closer, "Atrocity Exhibition," shares its title with the novel The Atrocity Exhibition by J. G. Ballard. On April 8, Curtis was pulled out of hospital to play a gig at the Derby Hall in Bury. At the urging of Factory Records founder Tony Wilson, Joy Division's set began with Alan Hempstall of Crispy Ambulance and Simon Topping of A Certain Ratio filling in on vocals for Curtis who was initially too ill to perform. However, many members of the audience protested, turning the gig into a riot in which Hook, Gretton, and other crew members fought with angry onlookers. [4] Several April gigs were canceled due to the continuing ill health of Curtis. Following a one-off gig in Birmingham on May 2, the band took a two-week rest in anticipation of their scheduled American tour.

At the time, Curtis' relationship with his wife Deborah (the couple married in 1975 as teenagers) was collapsing. Contributing factors were his deteriorating ill health, her being mostly excluded from his life with the band, as well as his relationship with a young Belgian woman, Annik Honoré, whom Curtis met on European tour in late 1979.