Generally speaking, I am not a box set person. (From Warrington Guardian)

Generally speaking, I am not a box set person.

This piece of information might not seem particularly important, given the state of the world at this precise moment and, frankly, given the fact that you don't know me or care about my peculiar purchasing habits.

Do bear with me however, because it is something I feel with a passion that borders on the insane. Not being a box set person is to make a profound cultural statement ... I truly believe.

There may well be people, I realise, who haven't the faintest idea to what I refer. To them, I can only add assurance that a box set is neither a piece of essential cricketing underwear nor an ugly sixties television made out of mahogany. You may be forgiven for believing that a box set is something which neatly houses the collective works of any given music artist and comes complete with well researched sleeve notes, photographs and previously unheard demo and live recordings ... and you may think that this is all well and good and not something that some wine soaked paw-boy sap hack should be getting his Calvin Klein's in a twist over.

Fair enough. However, there is a box set mentality that is currently sweeping this country. First and foremost, it is a particularly vicious method for record companies to re-sell a bulk of material to the very people who, by their very nature, already own everything within that box ... and probably in triplicate. Being natural completists, one senses that their own mothers would be eagerly sold in order to attain the said rectangular item.

I would also guess that half the box sets purchased are never actually listened to lest the collectable perfection suffer slight damage. Sleeve notes, once carefully perused, are neatly put back in place and stored in a dust-free environ, in some bedroom museum.

Ok I admit it. Last week I purchased a box set. My first and, I hope, my last. The band in question are Joy Division. Arguably the greatest band I have ever seen and, without question, the greatest band I have seen at close quarters. Then again, everyone who ever saw Joy Division live, saw them in an intimate setting, as the infamous suicide of singer Ian Curtis caused them to be forever encased in a state of small band intensity.

I am one of the world's most fortunate journalists. By geographical accident - and the fact that no London music paper had the faintest interest in sending their capital-based hacks to a provincial outpost like Manchester - I became the first person to interview Joy Division for the music press. I claim no perceptive powers at all. For, at that point, I couldn't see any reason why Joy Division should be any more interesting than, say, The Drones, Slaughter and the Dogs or Ed Bangor and the Nosebleeds. I didn't have a clue what a future legend would look like, but I certainly didn't expect him to be squirting ketchup on a meat pie in a Knott Mill tap room while chatting to me about the "...fit bird who serves in Woollies...".

During the previous hour, as they performed a full set before my eyes ... and manager Rob Gretton, I couldn't possibly have known how that evening would haunt me in later years. Nor, indeed, could I envisage the fact that, in 25 years' time, I would be purchasing their box set! It wasn't just down to my lack of critical vision. Joy Division were shot full of clich. At that point, their set was a stodgy block of sub-Banshees drone. It would take Martin Hannett, ironically an old school producer of Stockport-based blues artists, to find the key by hauling in Steve Morris's prog-rock drumming and replacing it with Germanic disco beat.

That night, in the Gaythorn pub, was simple fayre. A daft young hack asking dull questions about the band's arguably unholy fixation with The Third Reich. It probably wasn't the wisest line of questioning although, when it appeared in Sounds, it caused a certain furore that, rather ironically, helped both the band and myself. This mild confrontation wasn't particularly fierce. Contrary to myth, Joy Division in person were a typical tumble of laddish camaraderie ... they could have been any gang in any town. They were neither solemn nor personally intense.

A year later I had no doubts at all. Following Joy Division from gig to gig, I became lost with the intensity and power of a music that seemed to flow through this extraordinary band, despite their still embryonic musicianship. They made music that came from somewhere else and took you there, if only for a while.

To reiterate my point. You don't notice greatness when it taps you on the shoulder and says, "That pint hit the spot ... I'll have another one, mate if yer buyin?"

Worth remembering, I think, when tempted to slam the prowess of the young and local bands today. You just never know what lies around the corner.