214. Gary Numan
St John at Hackney
16 October 2023
It sounds bonkers on paper: Gary Numan, the man who accidentally pioneered synthpop by pressing a Moog key back in 1979, the very guy who raced past every gritty, underground synth band of the late '70s and blasted out three chart-topping albums in a little over a year and a half, turning a whole genre into a commercial juggernaut. And here he is, in a Grade II-listed church in Hackney, doing acoustic best-of hits. Not a synth in sight. No laser-show jumpsuits. Just acoustic guitars?
First, though, it’s Hackney, so we’re practically forced to weave through artisanal dumpling shops and gluten-free ramen joints on our way. After skipping the chance to try some flame-grilled, pan-Asian, vegan fusion whatever, we settle for the ultimate anti-Hackney snack: a gooey wheel of cheese at Pizza Pilgrims. Then we’re off, queuing through a gothic graveyard in true Numan style, under floodlit trees, the church looming like something out of a Dracula reboot.
Inside, Numan and his band are perched on stools, all moody and raven-like, clutching acoustic guitars like they’re about to break into a campfire singalong. It’s like watching Nosferatu with a tickling stick; everything in you says this should be wrong, but somehow, it works. We're taken through the deep cuts of his back catalogue, reimagined without the layers of synths, and it’s weirdly hypnotic.
He’s brought back songs you’d never expect to hear live, let alone unplugged. “You Are in My Vision” from “Replicas?”, “Every Day I Die” from Tubeway Army? The android has unplugged and delivers highlights of stripped-down gothic-industrial rock of “Metal” and “Bleed”, the latter making its first live appearance since the early 2000s and proving you don’t need electronics to make a song sound menacing.
And then, for the encore, the big reveal: “Cars” and “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” get the acoustic treatment. And surprise, surprise: strip away the synth layers, and underneath there remain bloody great songs here. We all leave the church feeling a bit like we’ve witnessed a musical reinvention, and that maybe, just maybe, Gary Numan could pull off a campfire gig after all.