Gary Numan
Gary Numan put his all into his performance, prowling around the stage with an intensity I'd not seen before. Flanked by the impossibly tall, cassock wearing baldies, Tim Slade and Steve Harris, they only served to emphasise Numan's modest stature. What he lacked in height, however, he more than made up for in stage presence
Fighting your way through the heaving, expectant crowd at the long since sold out Numan gig, it was hard to credit there was a time when he languished in obscurity. After initial success with Tubeway Army, he went solo, and then - shortly after releasing Telekon in 1980 - retired from touring. Reinvention followed, bringing some commercial success, but a seemingly restless urge to do something different ultimately led him down a cul de sac of poorly received, and poorly selling, music. Back in the day, when he popped up at a John Foxx gig, DJing afterwards, I was thrilled to tick off two legends in one night. I didn't really stop to reflect on his appearance supporting Foxx, a pioneer for those of us who know, but hardly a household name.
Yet come the noughties and he re-emerged, like a Phoenix from the ashes, with a grittier, industrial sound that teetered close to heavy metal, and a live performance that smacked you in the face with post-apocalyptic graphic imagery and a stunning light show. The culmination of this "phase" was an outing on the Park Stage at Glastonbury this summer but while I enjoyed it, he wasn't a man to watch on a sunny afternoon, so for me the highlight was when he sweetly got his daughters on stage. It was something I'd seen him do repeatedly, so it was quite a shock to see that the little girls of yesteryear were all grown up. Perhaps it was, in hindsight, inevitable that one of them would eventually take centre stage.
Raven Numan, supporting her Dad, surrounded herself with gifted musicians that elevated her dark, synth-drenched gothic set of pleasingly doom-laden songs, way beyond what we'd expect from an opening act. Her voice, both in tone and inflection, was markedly similar to Gary's, but the stance on stage was her own. Whether it was shyness or remoteness that distanced her from the audience it's hard to say. But, tellingly, when she faltered over her lyrics, and then giggled at her silliness, we got a glimpse of the sweet person behind the facade.
But it was Gary we had all come to see, not least as we were invited into his time machine, before all the reinventions that had variable success, to his last great album of a time that now seemed like another age. To paraphrase Eric Morecambe, another great performer from that era, Gary Numan played all of Telekon, but not necessarily in the right order. To those most familiar with the album, this must have been dislocating, but I thought it inspired, freshening up what might otherwise have been a box ticking exercise. After opening with the pulsing synth of The Wreckage, we moved on to - poignantly, given his fragile state - Remind Me to Smile. The Aircrash Bureau's dreamy soundscape appeared far later on, while Remember I Was Vapour and I Dream of Wires were shunted up the batting order. He even threw in the unreleased Like a B side, a song he had no memory of writing. "It must have been me", he said, in a rare bit of banter, "I recognised my voice on the tape."
Throughout the evening, Numan put his all into his performance, prowling around the stage with an intensity I'd not seen before. Flanked by the impossibly tall, cassock wearing baldies, Tim Slade and Steve Harris, they only served to emphasise Numan's modest stature. What he lacked in height, however, he more than made up for in stage presence, belting out this early work with the confidence of an old pro. Shrouded in smoke and criss-crossed by an extravagance of lighting, this was the best staging I'd seen at UEA since Public Service Broadcasting a few years back. The main set closed on the contemporaneous singles We Are Glass and I Die You Die, neither of which appeared on Telekon, serving to remind us just how modest the run time of vinyl LPs was at the time. Even with their inclusion, we'd only been entertained for a little over an hour.
Thankfully, an extended encore kept the crowd happy, with a selection of Tubeway Army songs, a thrill - no doubt - for proper fans of his earliest material and still hugely enjoyable for those less familiar with Listen to the Sirens and Down in the Park. What everyone was familiar with, of course, and notable by their absence, were Cars and Are Friends Electric? So much so that my companion, for one, was reluctant to leave without hearing them. "What about an encore?" he asked. "That was the encore," I replied gently, as the house lights went up. It was the first time I'd seen Numan without those undoubted highlights, but fair play to the man if he wanted to move on.
There was something extraordinary about Numan's performance, indeed his very appearance, that must have weighed heavily on him, sometimes unbearably so. Only days before, his brother had died suddenly of a heart attack. It was only with the encouragement of his Dad and his brother's wife that he decided to continue the tour, and the grief he was trying to process was evident throughout. Whether it was a hug from Steve Harris or just looking skyward for answers, every move on stage was informed by what he must have been going through. Was it any surprise that during Please Push No More - a song that dealt with the superficiality of fame - that familial reality overwhelmed him?
"So much for being a fucking robot," he said, with a rueful smile.
The crowd, as one, cheered and clapped their support, which on reflection was an odd response to grief, but what else were they to do? We come to a gig, or a sporting event, or a horror film to experience emotion, excitement and fear, but do so safe in the knowledge none of it is real or lasting. Yet faced with Numan's grief, we were moved in a way only real life is able to stir us. One could only hope he took some comfort from the affection - love even - with which his audience tried their very best to comfort him
