Founding New Order drummer Stephen Morris and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who have been married since 1994, will not be touring with the band “for the foreseeable future,” according to an Instagram post referencing New Order’s previously announced appearance at Chile’s Fauna Primavera festival in late November.
Morris, 68, and Gilbert, 65, are unable to perform “due to personal health reasons,” per the statement, which added that founding member Bernard Sumner and longtime sideman Phil Cunningham and Tom Chapman “are really sorry, but unfortunately the circumstances make it impossible.” No further details were provided.
The news comes ahead of New Order and its predecessor band Joy Division’s long overdue induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Nov. 14. The occasion could mark an uneasy reunion between Sumner, Morris and Gilbert with former bassist Peter Hook, who was fired in 2007 and has feuded with them in the press ever since.
New Order’s live activity has reduced greatly in the past decade, during which the group has never played more than 30 shows in a single year. It performed nine shows in 2025 and only three the year prior.
“We don’t really hope for anything, just that we will continue to be around and able to do this,” Morris told SPIN of New Order’s next phase in a 1985 interview. “It’s nice if people buy your records, you know, but you don’t desperately want it. All you want is the means to carry on with the next thing. I haven’t really got any illusions about stardom in America. It will just be more of what it is now, and we will have to deal with it pretty much the same way.”
