Gary Numan at First Avenue, Minneapolis (28 November 2017)

The most enduring artists are those that continue to make music that resonates and reflect the times in their sound—

With new album Savage (Songs from a Broken World) (on BMG /The End Records) electronic synth-pop pioneer Gary Numan proved to a capacity crowd in the Mainroom at First Avenue, that his music remains still urgent, vital, and fresh.

The evening opened with a short but distinctive set from Brooklyn’s Me Not You, in support of September’s Reckoning 1 EP (MNY Music) and formed by Nikki Taylor and Eric Zeiler following their work in the band Little Daylight.

The band plays a driving, somewhat crunchy blend of alt-rock with Taylor’s somewhat ethereal voice (like The Sundays’ Harriet Wheeler) lilting against grungy riffs and electro beats.  Tracks like ‘Relief’ played early in the set and lead single, ‘Bulletproof’, their set closer, make us more than curious to hear more from the group. 

After a break, lights dimmed and a foreboding intro track welcomed Gary Numan and band to the stage for their hundred-minute headlining set.  Numan and his band (Richard Beasley – Drums; David Brooks – Keys; Steve Harris – Guitar; Tim Muddiman – Bass) were dressed in post-apocalyptic Bedouin-style pale colored wraps, a stark contrast to Numan’s dark spiky hair. Lights were as overwhelming as the band’s wall of electro sound with multiple lit poles and vari-lites perched everywhere behind the band, making for an audio-visual spectacle even greater in effect than his previous tours. 

The new album’s opener, ‘Ghost Nation’ began the evening, moving into 1979’s classic ‘Metal’, a song older than most people attending this night. Numan’s music has turned more industrial in recent years, with the new album being about “the things that people do in such a harsh and terrifying environment” and newer songs like 2012’s ‘Everything Comes Down to This’ referencing his synth past while sounding like a highway song from Mad Max.

Older classics like 1979’s ‘Down in the Park’ thankfully still retained their original sound, with Numan and band only slightly tweaking things to sound more contemporary.  Numan posed dramatically amidst the rolling dry ice fog as lights flashed, didn’t really speak between songs presumably to keep the flow going and not break character, though he smiled often, clearly pleased at the strong reception the Minneapolis crowd afforded the band. 

Numan didn’t get behind the keyboard much, instead choosing to engage and encourage the audience as a frontman (which was just fine with everyone), picking up a guitar briefly towards the end of the set, often flailing his arms or posing, as songs like the piercing new ‘Pray for the Pain You Serve’ progressed.

Recent single ‘My Name Is Ruin’ throbbed with a middle eastern beat over booming percussion and pulsing synth rhythm, and stage lights turned candy pink and neon light green for 1979’s ‘Cars’, Numan’s biggest US success. The buzz of the new ‘When the World Comes Apart’ led into the bleeps and pulses of 2000’s ‘A Prayer for the Unborn’, with Numan singing “If you light my darkness then I’m blind and no one can see me” to end the main set.

The encore began with two classics from 1979- ‘M.E.’ from The Pleasure Principle album and ‘Are “Friends” Electric?’ (originally done with Tubeway Army) with Numan and band then departing to screams and rave applause, from an audience that wasn’t quite ready to go home.  

The stage screen stopped its slow roll downward then rose again, with the sound man quickly adjusting his board as Numan and band emerged for an unplanned second encore, surprising even himself as he had already taken off his monitor earpieces and was busy re-inserting them, smiling broadly as the audience cheered on.  1980’s ‘I Die: You Die’ would end the evening, with Numan commenting later on social media, that Minneapolis was the best crowd of the tour thus far.

Touring on a seeming bleak post-apocalyptic themed new album, Gary Numan showed that his own musical future was anything but dark; still sonically vibrant after forty years, inspiring fans old and new to still dance, even in the worst of times.