“Only once did the mask slip, a moment when even he could not help but laugh at some rather inane guitar poses pulled by his “session musician bids for a chance of glory” axe-man. I’m not surprised he laughed, but it did come as a shock.”
“Only once did the mask slip, a moment when even he could not help but laugh at some rather inane guitar poses pulled by his “session musician bids for a chance of glory” axe-man. I’m not surprised he laughed, but it did come as a shock.”
Is Gary Numan still electric? Live, The Paradiso 5/06
The world of British pop journalism has never been kind to Mr. Gary Numan. Indeed, they have never really recognised him as an artist of any merit; not of the canon, not one to be talked about without sniggering. Now, really why is that?
Well, you can say that Mr Numan is rather awkward socially, certainly strange, even autistic, and as such, very alien to the chummy self congratulatory world of music hacks. His social awkwardness affected his music in terms of content and atmosphere. It still does. In some ways Numan in his very weirdness shows a certain similarity to David Bowie, albeit without any of the Dame’s crowd pleasing opportunism or “man of changing fashion” stance. Indeed, you could say that Numan has inhabited a very strange, Bladerunner-esque world, regardless of whatever anyone thinks since the late 1970s and he’s damned if he’s leaving it. As the Smog song goes (and let’s see if I can remember it right) “I could never be an Eno, never be a Bowie, all I will ever be is a Gary Numan”. Well, with reference to Bowie’s output since Scary Monsters, I wonder if Numan’s work comes out so badly after all.
Time to find out. It’s a hot Tuesday evening in the Paradiso, a place where – after 27 years of playing and liking his records – I experience the Numan live show for the first time. Well, I can say that Gary Numan in person does not disappoint. With a set-list mostly based on his last album Pure and the new one Jagged, the tone that emerged was serious and somewhat contemplative. The songs developed from huge squalls of feedback and sampling, turning into heavy guitar and keyboard riffs, becoming sonic platforms on which Gary Numan expounded his latest state of mind. Surprise! Nothing has changed; he is still uncomfortable about almost everything, but perhaps more honest, less anecdotal than the past. The new stuff isn’t admittedly as catchy as the old, but in some ways the new stuff dovetails the hits very well, allowing a build-up of tension that stuff like Cars and Metal release.
Visually, I was struck how well preserved Numan was, looking almost unchanged. He was certainly more elegant than his beefcake backing band but luckily the ridiculous amount of lighting ensured that we didn’t pay much attention to them. Even on the small-ish Paradiso stage, there was a light show consisting of four light pillars, and a whole array of lighting above the drum kit. In combination with the smoke machine, the lights flattened our Gary during most of the concert to a shadow, albeit a very impressive austere shadow… The long epilogue of Are Friends Electric? seduced Numan to move his arm and hands along the piercing electronica, as if he was painting the sounds. It looked wonderful. Only once did the mask slip, a moment when even he could not help but laugh at some rather inane guitar poses pulled by his “session musician bids for a chance of glory” axe-man. I’m not surprised he laughed, but it did come as a shock.
In retrospect, a great gig, and proof positive that his music still has a lot to offer. Funnily enough, the music is maybe more relevant now as the world we live in becomes slowly more alienated from us, just like the one The Tubeway Army painted in the late ’70s. Yes, we can all be a little too serious at times, and Gary Numan’s world is loud bold and maybe a tad awkward, but once in a while I find it a very attractive place to visit.
Words: Paul Overdijk.