Gig review: Gary Numan

Published on Friday 27 November 2009 21:39

GARY NUMAN **** HMV PICTURE HOUSE, EDINBURGH

THERE came a time late in this show where a stark piano line rang out, and enough smoke was pumped on to the stage to almost obscure Gary Numan from view. On the central screen in the background, blue digital rain fell slowly and softly. It was all very dramatic. Then that piano line slowly coalesced into the one song which every person in the building must have been familiar with, and the place erupted. The song was Are Friends Electric? and the audience reaction was a football crowd's "whoa-oh" in time with it.

That's the thing about Numan. No matter how seriously he looks as if he's taking himself – and a lot of his audience, from young emo kids to middle-aged punks, take his work deadly seriously too – there are always going to be those who just want him to play the hits and take them back to the good old days. This latest live set began with a full replay of the classic album The Pleasure Principle (including his other big hit, Cars, the austere instrumental Airlane and the grinding hymn to isolation ME, which was subsequently sampled by Basement Jaxx on Where's Your Head At?), ensuring that the very best of Numan's synth-assisted heyday was indeed revisited.

After this, his five-piece band pulled on their electric guitars and stepped back into the industrial rock sound that has characterised Numan's output of late, and seen him feted as an influence by Marilyn Manson.

Yet tracks like Pure, Haunted, Jagged and Tubeway Army's old Down in the Park, augmented by an impressive light show and three-screen video backdrop, presented an accurate reflection of the sweep of his influential career, and also helped make this the best set he has toured in quite a while.