No Great Dark Numanoid
I went to see Gary Numan the other week. It wasn’t planned, but a friend had a spare ticket and his very generous girlfriend thought your synth loving xxjfg writer would enjoy the experience more than her.
It’s not that we are Numanoids or anything, but Robert (hello if your reading!) who lived in my street and shared the school bus with me was.
By the time Gary dumped the guitars and escaped the English punk scene he was in a total word of his own with DJ’s like Afrika Bambaataa as excited to meet him, as Kraftwerk “In the late 70s and early 80s Gary had the rhythms that DJs wanted to get hold of and people waited for his records on the dance floor.” says the Zulu Nation head. It’s another one of those odd things like
For me personally I find Numan un-listenable after the second album. I get people trying to convince me, but I don’t even like the original Numan songs that later got sampled in tunes I do like. Nowadays Numan seems to be a shit industrial goth. So why go and see him?
Genius. Who needs Daft Punks pyramid or the Justice cross, this is Gary Numan driving around in a little bumper car! (and recreating a brilliant album too). I couldn’t wait and went a Numan feast which messed up my Lastfm charts for that week. I told people excitedly where I was going that night. They looked at me weird and i truly felt what it was like to be a Numanioid.
We arrived full of expectation watching whole families of Numanoids packing the
At last the auditorium went black.
The atmosphere was tangibly electric.
The stage lit up like Tron as a bunch of Ladytron look-alikes stuck up the keys on what were clearly not vintage synths, but hey – it sounded fucking cool! This was it, i was experiencing an album and a gig from beyond the grave, an almost perfect Replica of, erm, Replicas! And then it happened. I was living the new romantic futuristic dream, all but willing to sell my soul to
How could he possibly do that to me? To us? Is this like when The Stones went disco? When Phil started singing with Genesis? Is this what it was like when Dylan went electric? My mind was tumbling, and I was in a living hell.
Perhaps it’s for the best.
We identified the guitar criminal as a chubby looking Chris from Three Colours Red, whose only redeeming feature was once being in a band with the guy from
I don’t walk around wearing black every day. Maybe my friends are electric, but they know how to appreciate the space between sounds.
Let this be a warning to you all!
NEVER EVER GO AND SEE
Gary Numan – I nearly married a human
(even if he promises to drive around in the bumper car)
I came very near to seeing him once as I had (and have) an intense love for Replicas, The Pleasure Principle and Telekon. But as I was online getting ready to get tickets it dawned on me that everything hes made since Telekon is well… total bullshit. Except for Change Your Mind by Sharpe and Numan, which is rad in a pretty non Numanesque way. Anyway, I’m glad that I’ve read this and know I didn’t make a mistake by missing it. I knew it just might ruin what I loved about him.
Thursday, April 3, 2008 8:39 amseandonson
stu, it weren’t THAT BAD. it was better, at least – i think – then when i saw him in 99 in manchester. but nowhere near as good as when he did Telekon in the London. Also, Replicas is fundamentally a guitar album! I did find it a bit dispiriting that his band only actually seemed really into it when they did rubbish new song at the end though.
He should do an album with Black Strobe. Black Strobe should also do an album with Sunn 0))) and Satyricon – kind of anthemic EBMblackmetalfusionfunk with clouds of billowing black guitars over the top.
Thursday, April 3, 2008 9:13 amdavemc
hopefully he’ll release the Living Ornaments video on DVD soon (with the little car!!!). I stand by Dance as an album. One day I’m actually going to get round to listening to all the 80s Numan LPs I bought in a frenzy when I was 19, but the covers to some of them give me the fear.
The Fury, apparently, is not that bad: http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/44354.jpg
Thursday, April 3, 2008 9:29 amdavemc
Aww…
Gary’s a cat lover so giv’em a break.
He reminds me of Rick Moranis though.
Thursday, April 3, 2008 11:34 amBrian
fair enough… still, I saw him on tour for the jagged album, which I thought was very listenable and sufficiently dark and the show was descent… the highlight for me being ‘prayer for the unborn’ http://youtube.com/watch?v=4eLgRu9Sm2I
Thursday, April 3, 2008 11:54 amTeep
“He reminds me of Rick Moranis though.”
I always thought *I* was the only person who got that! no one else sees it…
check out the nume’s wall of swords:
http://money.independent.co.uk/property/homes/article3221419.ece
aw. poor gary. i love him.
Thursday, April 3, 2008 1:49 pmdavemc
sorry, broken link: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/house-and-home/interiors/gary-numan-lord-of-the-swords-764265.html
Thursday, April 3, 2008 1:52 pmdavemc
Stu,
That Independant story references the thing I told you about Newman getting arrested for spying while flying his plane around the world! It reads like he wrote the article himself though, very odd.
Thursday, April 3, 2008 2:43 pmDan Nixon
look at his kitchen, those chairs are way cool!
Thursday, April 3, 2008 8:37 pmsassa
I suspect Gary was never quite the same after ‘Blade Runner’ was released. It made visual what he had been trying to accomplish through his music for his entire career up until that point(Roy Batty even had his hairdo, for Pete’s sake).
Speaking of hair, once in the late 90′s I shared a few pints with the Man himself at a football pub in his hometown of Hammersmith. At some point in the evening, he graciously let me try on his toupee. It fit like a glove.
(:{D
Thursday, April 3, 2008 10:48 pmGeorgie
I’m a fan but I don’t mind saying it’s not for everyone. No artist is.
Saturday, April 5, 2008 6:33 pmJon Lester
thanks for that awesome review. I will never go see Gary Numan!
Sunday, April 6, 2008 4:17 pmdona
it wasn’t very good, but it was still better than Gay Against You.
Monday, April 7, 2008 9:29 amdavemc
unrelated to gary numan:
http://www.myspace.com/certainbreeds
italo-horror influenced vancouver outfit right up your alley
Monday, April 7, 2008 11:10 pmburkowitz
Funny, a few days after reading this I noticed Feadz released a track on Ed Banger called Numanoid. Beatport top 10 electro-house! :-p
Tuesday, April 8, 2008 11:58 pmJustin Baum
I think ‘never ever go and see him’ is a bit strong.
To be honest I blame the sound desk guys at the Dome; I went to the Brighton and London dates and the guitars were nowhere near that high in the mix for the London show.
I see Numan a lot and the Replicas show is a very bad example of the average gig.
Please give Gary another go. Please.
Evidence of good later career music;
Saturday, April 12, 2008 9:12 pmExposure, She’s got Claws, Music for Chameleons.
Andrew