Are ‘friends’ electric? 1,000 gigs in, Gary Numan sure is
Gary Numan performed the thousandth concert of his career in the dark and dingy confines of the Electric Ballroom in London on Saturday night. The landmark event passed as pretty much every Numan concert has passed since he rose to fame as Britain’s first synth pop star in the late 70s. That is, in a furious blizzard of throbbing and slamming electronic sound, dazzling lighting, theatrical posing and drily mannered mockney vocals delivering dystopian visions of a future we have arguably long since reached. “Are ‘friends’ electric?” Numan puzzles on his storming 1979 number one smash. It would be an interesting question to ask ChatGPT.
It is extraordinary, really, that after 45 years, vintage synth music can still sound like something out of science fiction. Well-crafted electronica conjures sounds that can move around you and drill right through you, making your insides vibrate and your ears ring. Numan, a rather lonely and maligned pioneer of the genre as a pop form, certainly understands sound design and arrangement dynamics. On the night, he used a variety of modes and rhythms to keep things interesting within the confines of consistently stark and dark atmospherics and a voice of limited melodiousness, from 1979’s still snappily effective solo debut Cars to 2021’s broodingly ominous Is This World Not Enough?, sung with daughter Persia.
At 65, he still sounds as if he adopted his monotone talk-singing style from a very narrow focus on David Bowie circa ’77 (which led his hero to dismiss Numan as an inferior copy). A kinder view might be that mimicking Bowie allowed the younger Numan to identify his own range and style, which he has exploited thoroughly, with passion and conviction, over 23 albums (including two with his original band, Tubeway Army).
On Saturday, four musicians – drums, bass, guitar and keyboards – underpinned and augmented what are now (presumably) computer-driven synth tracks, freeing the frontman to throw dramatic poses, silhouetted before a bright pyramid screen backdrop, only occasionally strapping on a guitar or bending over a synthesizer to remind us that he can actually play a bit too.
Numan barely spoke on stage, but then he rarely does. He famously has Asperger syndrome, for which music has been a way of connecting with the world. “I should have prepared something,” he awkwardly admitted in his only acknowledgement of the occasion. “But to get to 1,000 is special. I’m quite old now, so I don’t know if I’m gonna get to 2,000. But I’m gonna f---ing try!”
Maybe, by then, his synth pop futurism will sound dated. But I’ve got a feeling that an electro riff as squelchy as Are ‘Friends’ Electric is never going to get old.
Touring the UK in October; garynuman.com
