81. Gary Numan
Royal Festival Hall
20 March 2015
It’s easy to talk about Gary Numan as a synth-pop pioneer, a reluctant godfather of British electronica, or the man who accidentally nudged the future into existence by pressing the right button on a Moog synthesiser in 1979. But that barely scratches the surface. This isn’t just nostalgia for a neon-lit past, it’s a career that’s found a new kind of urgency in the present.
Kraftwerk might have been the real genre pioneers, but it was Gary Numan who dragged it into the British mainstream. Whilst they were still being revered by bespectacled students in Düsseldorf basements, Numan was already glowering his way through Top of the Pops, two years ahead of Kraftwerk’s TOTP debut. And then, just as suddenly, he wasn’t. Hounded by a music press that treated his every move like an act of public vandalism, he lost his confidence, his mojo, bleached his hair blonde and started to listen to his label executives. Not long after, he had jacked it all in for a new career in stunt piloting, as if plummeting towards the earth in a fixed wing aircraft at terminal velocity was somehow preferable to enduring one more Smash Hits interview. However, here he was selling albums again, not just selling, getting a number one album into the charts, and playing bigger venues.
There was real anticipation around this show. After Savage reignited interest and signalled his return to form, this latest tour felt like a genuine moment. Not just another lap around the greatest hits circuit, but a statement: Numan is back, still evolving, still pushing. The man who once ducked out of the pop spotlight and into a cockpit now stands in front of bigger crowds than he’s seen in decades, and with a catalogue that’s somehow getting stronger.
Tonight’s venue, the Royal Festival Hall, felt like a fittingly grand stage for what was to come. And yet, hours before showtime, it looked like the whole thing might fall apart. Numan took to social media to say he was ill. Very ill. A brutal flu had floored him, taking his voice with it. But the show went on, thanks, it seems, to whatever questionably legal miracle cocktail the live music industry doctors keep in reserve for nights like this.
And he delivered. The set opened with a track from Jagged, signalling from the outset that this wasn’t a backwards-looking celebration but a journey through his darker, industrial rebirth. Over half the set drew from his post-1997 work; proof, if it were needed, that the second act of Gary Numan’s career might just be his most interesting.
The performance, considering the circumstances, was remarkable. You could feel the effort behind it, not in a laboured way, but in the kind that speaks to a deep, almost stubborn commitment to the craft. These weren’t just songs. They we; re exorcisms, confessions, declarations of intent. And whilst the older material: “Cars,” “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?”, “Down in the Park” were received like old friends, it was the newer tracks that landed with real weight.
The visuals were stark and dramatic, the sound immense, the atmosphere electric. By the time he encored with an acoustic “Joe the Waiter” and finally closed with “I Die: You Die,” the message was clear. This wasn’t survival, it was triumph. And not in a sentimental, let's-hear-it-for-the-old-timers kind of way. This was present-tense greatness.
Gary Numan may have been counted out more times than he’d care to remember, but here he is, still here, still vital, and still with something urgent to say.