Gary Numan

The first of two nights at the Waterfront may just have turned this non-fan into a Numanoid.

In truth, I am not a GARY NUMAN fan and I feel like an imposter at this intimate show. It is not that I don’t like his music, more that – obvious songs Are ‘Friends’ Electric? and Cars aside – I’ve just never really checked him out. So I’ve kinda been shanghaied by an enthusiastic mate into coming down to the Waterfront for the first of his two night stand. Oh boy, am I ever glad that I did.

Leaving aside the music for now, tonight has quite probably the best light show I have seen at the Waterfront and the sound is superb. A surprise to me – but not to the true Numanoids in the audience – is just how much a part of the show guitarist Steve Harris and bassist Tony Smith prove to be. (And I hope I have got those names right.) Looking like characters from the original Dune movie or a recent Dr Who, with a bit of Cenobite thrown in, each of the duo provides as much pf a focal point as Numan himself, with Smith even taking a trip into the audience towards the end of the main set. And it is not as if Numan himself isn’t a showman.

Including encore, the set runs to an hour and a half, taking in eighteen songs from six Numan albums and the two Tubeway Army LPs. As befits a progenitor of electronic music and a key influence on many industrial acts, the music is atmospheric, powerful, anthemic. Despite the generally dystopian, stygian mood, it is also surprisingly uplifting. Whilst it is never less than riveting, for this Numan newbie, the highlights are Tubeway Army song Down In The Park, along with Love Hurt Bleed and My Name Is Ruin, both from 2013’s Splinter: Songs From A Broken World.

It must be said that the audience is not young, with an average age almost certainly well in the fifties. There is however plenty of energy and enthusiasm. There are some younger fans too, at least one of whom sang along word perfectly to all the songs.

Hailing from France, openers DIVINE SHADE did a more than decent job of warming up a partisan crowd. With live vox, guitar, keys and drums over a backing track, their ambient/industrial/goth brought to mind Young Gods, the more electronic material on Killing Joke’s Pandemonium and (in my view) criminally forgotten industrial/goth duo Sulpher.