There was barely a black-clothed, white-faced Numanoid in sight in the packed auditorium of the Royal Albert Hall as Gary Numan made his first ever appearance at the Victorian concert hall. His fans appear to have left that kohl-eyed look behind them as they’ve aged over the four decades since he first broke into the charts with Tubeway Army, but their love for him seems undimmed.
Black might have looked a little out of place anyway as the electronic pop pioneer and his band loped on stage looking like a cross between extras from Mad Max: Fury Road and refugees from the desert planet of Arrakis in Dune, but it was still de rigueur for the impressive Skaparis Orchestra who accompanied him and set the atmospheric tone from the start.
It’s traditional at a celebratory event like this one for an artist to play one of their big trumps to open – a song that could easily fit in the encore – to trigger audience delirium, but Numan held back and began the set with “Ghost Nation” from his 2017 album, Savage, Songs from a Broken World. “We live in a windswept hell / Where dust and death are neighbours,” he sang. This vision of an arid land, denuded of life, ran through the show, with striking video projections of unforgiving landscapes.
Numan has done more than 120 shows to promote this album and the confidence of band and singer showed. Savage’s epic soundscapes were distilled into a dramatic rock synth funk, led by the buzz guitar of Steve Harris, that gave the music an intensity and scale that had no problem filling the vastness of the Royal Albert.
He followed it with “Metal” from 1979’s The Pleasure Principle, soon to be followed by “Films” from the same album, which were both rapturously received. Numan turned 60 this year, but to say that he appears ageless would be an understatement. He looked and moved like a boy, as he danced, expressively, at the front of the stage. His distinctive vocal style hasn’t changed – basically it’s Anthony Newley filtered through the vocal chords of Bowie then tuned sharper by a Numan Nexus-6 – but it still sounds great.
There was nothing emotionless about this performance, though. Numan was wired and happy, coming to the edge of the stage repeatedly, arms raised, to absorb the energy of the audience; he brought the house lights up to see their faces, described it as “the best night of his life” and gave a touching thanks to his dad and his mum at one point. Two songs were performed with his 13-year-old daughter Persia, also in Fremen garb, and undaunted by the occasion. “My name is Ruin / My name is vengeance,” she sang, but Numan’s fatherly affection kept breaking through, as he flicked her hair lovingly and hugged her.
The string section beautifully heightened some of the Eastern influences in songs such as "The End of Things", but also added heat to songs that once were cold, such as the closing “Are Friends Electric?”, when excitement reached a peak. The encore began with “This Wreckage” from 1980’s Telekon, and included “A Prayer for the Unborn” from 2000’s Pure, but no “Cars”. Not playing your biggest hit is a sign that you are determined to be seen as an artist still moving forward. Numan made that call, but he could have played it to this audience and blown the roof off.