Gary Numan: The Pleasure Principle Tour Edinburgh, 26 November 2009
(with apologies for the very indulgently long, waffling and musings post
):
We Have A TechnicalSo here I was in the HMV Picture House for a gig, where tonight the audience would be beamed back to the future with the music of The Pleasure Principle album, and to a time when its modernist sound of 1979 was a highpoint in Gary’s analogue android art.
Like a homing pigeon, or someone with a compulsive behaviour trait, I stood amongst the crowd in the exact same place as the last time I saw a show at this venue, (Gary, as it turned out, would be performing about 20 feet from where I was standing, and where I would clearly see his face). So with a suitably robot-like stance for this evenings machine-music proceedings, I obeyed those self-imposed rules that we have, programming myself not to move away from this spot during the show, not even if later I urgently needed to go vent liquid through my front lower exit chamber.
With neither great expectations, nor serious doubts either about the entertainment level of the show to come, my pleasure circuits were fully set to -
Enjoy!, and it was all going to be okay. I say okay, because at the eleventh hour I almost never got to this 30th anniversary album gig. The irony here for me is that I had a ticket for Gary’s first major tour during the original ’79 Pleasure Principle release, but sadly I didn’t make it to that
Synth-Storming Glasgow Apollo show. Now in ’09 it had threatened to happen to me once again at this more modest, but rare performance.
I intended to see the show with a friend who has never been a Numan fan, but was being ‘open minded’ about an anniversary gig. Just before 6pm, a family situation occurred, and depending on the outcome I was now very uncertain if either of us would make it to the gig. By 8pm it was clear that my friend would not be joining me, and it was suggested that we contact a work colleague, (an almost total stranger to me, and also half my age), to step in and see the show with me. At first I was against this idea, but when I relented it turned out that that this person was ill with the flu, so was unable to use the freebie ticket.
It was just me on my own now, paying double for the pleasure of seeing the show, and having been spared the choice of an evening defending Gary from a non-Numan, or spending it with a total stranger, besides, my enjoyment of The Pleasure Principle had been a solitary experience back in my youth… so maybe it’s best just to continue to savour these things on your own.
So I Press ‘C’ For ComfortTaking a cue from Gary’s
Observer,
”as I stand here for hours” waiting for the band to come onstage, and doing the ‘lone watcher of human congregation’ thing at the other audience members, I see that regulation black attire is once again out in force tonight. Wearing black seems to be forever the colour of choice at gigs, its so prevelant as to be almost invisible, but it unites both the young and old alike, casually providing some degree of alternative credibility to the person wearing it while stating modestly that we are all still ‘in the know’ about something.
Gary, unsurprisingly, will be in black tonight in his tunic-style jacket. What’s your favourite album cover black look for Gary, is it Replicas? Telekon? Jagged? or heaven forbid, Warriors? No contest for me, it just has to be the Replicas look. In those early days of clone persona I pretended that it was me standing transfixed in a room under a lightbulb, all dressed up and nowhere to go, (its lonely being an android, but don’t you look good). Gary occasionally switched to no black in the past, he opted for a brown suit with tie on The Pleasure Principle cover as he pondered the practicalities of making love to a glowing pink pyramid entity, (well, he seems to be snogging it on the back cover), perhaps he’s absorbing it, trying to swallow it whole, do machines need food and water? and if so then ‘Do androids dream of eating sheep?’
The crew test the keyboard equipment, and with each burst of raw sound I think to myself:
“ooh, that’s a bit like the start of Metal”, or,
”ooh, that one is just like Conversation”. Clearly I was no longer suppressing my geeky excitement about the show, and I was not alone in feeling this way, as the smoke machine onstage released a few jets of white cloud skyward, from somewhere behind me, I over-heard a stranger casually say to someone next to him:
“we really should get one of those for the office…”.
Remember, I Was Just Like YouRandom and
Airlane both kick started the Pleasure Principle evening, two great up-tempo instrumentals placed neatly together introducing the show. Gary then spoke to the audience, and diverted from the original running order of the album by choosing to play
Complex next. Undoubtedly its one of his most heartfelt of songs, the most beautiful one on the album, and for this tour it’s being fittingly dedicated to the memory and friendship of Paul Gardiner, in acknowledgment of his importance in the creation of The Pleasure Principle album. Gary humbly spoke his thoughts before the song began, and then, wow! there it was, a huge B/W head-shot photograph of Paul on the large screen projection above the band.
I wondered if this seemed just a little bit much to anyone else, as it did for me. Most people might have thought that when it came to making a dedication then just saying some well chosen words was appropriate enough, but the scale of that projected face looking down at the audience eventually dominated the whole of the song for me. Perhaps that was the intention, for subtle it wasn’t, and yet it also seemed very idiosyncratic of Gary, just another small part of the way he is, contributing to the endearment that we have (or have come to have) for him since the old days of the big bright hits, and his unforgettable character during those early years.
Its retro night, so lets take a moment to remember the young Gary, the first Poster Boy of Synthpop, back in '79 appearing from out of nowhere with a hit song of such strange beauty that even your parents were struck down by it. Very annoyingly for his critics, his songs with lyrics of mashed up sci-fi pulp and ‘simplistically produced music’, (as they termed it), were delivered with total sincerity by Gary while he tapped into a new avenue of youthful alienation. He created a place where his obscure but emotional confessionals made sense to its listeners, but just as quickly as he became a household name, he also became the target of tabloid misunderstandings, and of music journalist’s resentments. Eventually his own painful honesty, (some called it naivety), and naked youthful persona became trapped in the glare of pop stardom, giving the bullies even more cause to pelt him as he sat high on his glorious throne of electro achievement.
I Plugged My Wife In Just For ShowAs the show progressed through the album with
Metal,
Films,
M.E., and
Tracks, the latter seemed to quicken the pace for the crowd, with more movement happening around me.
Observer, was followed of course by
Conversation, and here a sharper sound came into play lifting the overall tone of the music. Throughout the previous tracks there was something of a ‘grungy’ sound present, until
Conversation brought a bit more melody to the surface of the gig.
Watching Gary at his keyboard was interesting, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have played it like he was now if he was back in ’79. Firmly fixed for most of the time at his instrument (save for a few tracks) he seemed to be bashing just a few keys at the left-hand end, bending forward and enthusiastically slapping that keyboard hard, it was almost like he was saying:
”take that you Synthesiser…” Whack!
Only two tracks left now as the end of the Pleasure Principle appeared to
whirr away into the night, with the ghost of ’79 being exorcised before me. Was Gary thinking
never again, as the assumption seems to be as regards his attitude to doing these old album shows? Well, I’d enjoyed this chance to be at a full performance of a retro classic work, it was presented well, and besides, my pleasure circuits were set to
Enjoy!, and enjoy this rare moment in ’09 is exactly what I did.
Am I A Photo? …I Cant RememberAs
Cars, and
Engineers brought this first part of the gig to a close, I couldn’t help feeling that the bubbly
Cars seems now almost out of place on this sober, inward looking album, or is it just that I’ve heard that song a million times by this point in my life, blimey, even John has felt the need to write a song about a million cars (but I’m sure there’s no connection there whatsoever!). During
Engineers the stage went dark and the background light panels shone bright, taking on a very different configuration to what had been happening previously. Much more intense and animated, the effect was like being enclosed in the machine room of a Star-Trek stage set,
”Oy, beam us up Gary…”The Pleasure Principle album is classic art music from start to finish, its only failing for me is the distinct unevenness of the album art design. Its good on the outside, but not so great on the inside, Gary looking like he’d nipped into Burtons for a suit, and came back with a curious display prop in his hand, is amusing, but the inner sleeve’s handwritten lyrics seem out of place. Worst of all, (and something that still brings a wince to my face), is that tacky artwork with the band emerging from a pink pyramid, like clones being born from a birthing machine.
I once jokingly posed a question in a post on this forum, saying: ”Is John’s
Automobile better than Gary Numans
Cars?"
Well, no, and apart from the historical importance of
Cars as a knockout pop song, Gary will always zoom into first place with it in any race! But seriously, John as we all know has over the years garnered the title of ‘the Max Ernst of electronic music expression’, but back in ’79 with that one song Gary was clearly the uncrowned Andy Warhol of electro, (and stealing one of Bowie’s lines for a moment)
”Gary Numan looks a scream, hang him on my wall” With
Cars his talent at ‘communication through modernism’, (or something like that!), was such that with this song he had effortlessly created an iconic Pop Art image of the 20th century. Joking around here, if it had been a painting instead of a song it might have been called:
‘freedom of individual movement within industrialised society through personal transport habitat’, now I’m sure there’s a more pretentious Arty title I could find to use instead of that over-loaded one, but I’m just too lazy to think of it, so that ridiculous long one will just have to do.
And What If God’s DeadThe front keyboardist is swapping his instrument for a guitar and plunging headfirst into an industrial rock assault, there’s no doubt about it, we are now knee-deep into metal rock, and this last part of the gig also throws a few Replicas era tracks into the mix. A good performance of
Pure heralds the nature of the work to come, and Gary’s lyrics were reasonably clear here to me at this point, (I was prepared for otherwise, having read the comments about the singing at previous gigs), but as we continued onto
The Fall his words sadly were more or less lost in the sound.
Down In the Park briefly switched us back to the classics again, before we were dragged forward to more recent times with tracks from Jagged, but now Gary’s voice was completely gone in the storm, but, I rather liked what I heard, and was content to be bombarded with the drone and power of these almost instrumental versions of his songs, and if anything, I just wish it had been even more of an industrial onslaught. Although his work now is not necessarily innovative like the old music of the earlier part of the gig, I’m sure there’s a lot of scope for Gary to further hone and continue to claim a particular place in his new world of sound.
Switching back and forth between one style of music, and another, as we went from two or three industrial tracks to a classic track, wasn’t as shocking as I’d expected it to be after an evening of The Pleasure Principle. But one thing does jar for me with Gary’s music now, and that’s his performance of it, as his body language morphs into those sub-stadium rock pose’s, arms outstretched, head bent down, crucified T-shaped torso, all those highly unoriginal looks that are a standard of many a metal singer.
I just wish Gary would bring a difference to this music by creating a more individual body style while singing, particularly as he really does seem to enjoy putting his emotion into the songs he does, and its clear that he has to roam around the stage to build up the energy, but I don’t want to see his mike stand lifted up and hung behind his neck like any other old rock act. After four or five songs I felt that these generic moves drew too much attention to the inherent clichés involved, and when being performed in a small venue they were hard to ignore.
I Was The Best, I Worked them AllMore of an eyesore were the naff images being projected during the last part of the gig, thinking about this afterwards it occurred to me how unnecessary it was for any established artist, particularly of Gary’s reputation, to be saddled with these tatty sub Goth visuals. He can’t be that attached to them, dump them and please let someone who works with him get in touch with a local college and enlist the talents of some aspiring film or art students, and create something much more interesting, Gary really needs to get that Karborn chap on the case, (c’mon Mr Foxx, help out an old contemporary).
After the Jagged tracks, Gary chose to almost act out a performance of
Are Friends Electric. With a smile on his face he emoted the words and gestured slightly, and musically it reached interesting highs and lows, but I’m not so sure I liked his expressive manner with this song, As we headed towards the end of the show,
A Prayer For The Unborn stood out for me for good and bad reasons, good because its an excellent song, done well here, but the clumsy back projected image of an ultrasound scan repeating itself didn’t add anything of interest, if only we’d just had some low key lighting lending a more sympathetic atmosphere. The show ended with
We Are So Fragile, and this rocking little number (strange how I never noticed that before), went down very well with the majority of the audience.
I have to confess I was glad it was at an end, this had nothing to do with Gary, it was a good long show, and never once did I question the fact that I’d paid double to see it, but I was tired, and its hard work making yourself stand in one place all night.
One ‘laughable’ memory towards the end sticks out, during the second part of the gig a small group of young women in their early 20’s (intriguingly enough, not dressed in black!) squeezed in near to me, and between them they seemed to have a competition with each other to see who could scream out the loudest:
”Gareee F**king Numan”, and
"Gah-reee!, Ah luv Yuu…”.
