Barrowlands Glasgow 21st September 1987

1986 saw the release of the 'Strange Charm' album. With this release, Gary's media exposure in terms of promotion was waning. This was also the last album that I bought on the day of release. To be honest, the album has some half decent tracks, notably, 'My Breathing' and 'The Sleeproom'. The singles lifted from the album, 'This Is Love' and 'I Can't Stop' didn't overly trouble the charts and the same can be said of the album too, peaking in the UK chart at 59. 

'Strange Charm' was not promoted with live dates. The new material got its first airing on the following year's tour that was linked to the release of a hits compilation 'Exhibition'. This was the first serious greatest hits treatment that Gary had received. Previously, a German compilation 'Photograph' was released and quickly withdrawn, making the album a much sought after collectable. That was followed by 'Newman Numan' released by TV Records in 1982 (seemingly a vehicle for an accompanying VHS compilation of promo videos interspersed with some additional footage). The 1987 tour is best documented on the fanclub released album 'Ghost'.

For me, I was at the 'Exhibition' tour at the Civic Hall in Guildford.

Here is an incomplete set from the tour, broadcast late in the year by Radio Clyde, when Numan played the celebrated Barrowlands in Glasgow.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-CZdKG6bJhx

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-vZW6Q5BS6N

Gary Numan and Little Boots BBC 6 Music Session Maida Vale Studios 7th December 2009

 

Was this collaboration really 15 years ago! Little Boots and Gary Numan in session on BBC Radio 6 Music.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-gPw6gramF7

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-g2RIq0jcE5

01. Metal

02. Interview (Numan)

03. Earthquake

04. Interview (Little Boots)

05. Are Friends Electric?

06. Stuck On Repeat

07. Interview (Both)

08. Venus In Furs

Newcastle City Hall 24th September 1985

 

September 1985 saw the UK release of 'The Fury' and hot on its heels a promotional tour. No Brighton date on this tour so I travelled to Guilford for this one. Three singles were lifted from the album, none of which broke into the top 40. This was as I recall around the time when trouble started with BBC Radio 1 (back in the day it was crucial to get your singles onto the station's playlist if you were to have any kind of commercial success). It was thought amongst many fans that the station had an unofficial boycott of Numan's records. Back in 1985 I was working in a factory in Mid-Sussex and Radio 1 was played over the speakers from morning until evening and I can recall hearing 'Your Fascination' no more than twice at this time. If a boycott was not in place it certainly seemed that Numan's singles were getting significantly less rotation that a lot of other chart acts. 

Despite the poor chart placings of the singles the album reached 24 in the UK album chart, a respectable placing. The tour of course was well attended. Record sales may have been on the decline compared with the first two years of his career, but this did not carry over to his tours which continued to be well supported by the fan base.

Some further changes were brought in for the tour. The services of brother John and Andy Coughlan were retained and Karen Taylor's backing vocals were supplemented with the addition of Kit Rolfe. All joined the core touring trio of Rrussel, Chris and Ced.

Here is a recording from the tour from Newcastle City Hall.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-lO5zkqeskN

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-MMEf94GsBM

01. Tricks
02. Me! I Disconnect From You
03. Creatures
04. Metal
05. Berserker
06. Are 'Friends' Electric ?
07. Miracles
08. Down In The Park
09. Cold warning
10. I Die: You Die
11. Sister Surprise
12. This Disease
13. We Take Mystery (To Bed)
14. Call Out The Dogs
15. Cars
16. My Shadow In Vain
17. We Are Glass

Edinburgh Playhouse 2nd December 1984

 

Electrofunk still had something of a hold over Gary Numan when the time came around to record a new album. The leather and studs of the ‘Warriors’ period were cast aside in favour of his most outlandish image to date. The album was ‘Berserker’ and Numan promoted the album and subsequent tour as a white faced iceman (a theme first heralded on the ‘Warriors’ album) with blue hair and make up. 

Released on his own Numa Records label (having parted ways with Beggars Banquet after the release of ‘Warriors’ with this new album Numan for the first time in his career failed to take the record buying public with him. The album peaked at number 45 in the UK album charts whilst the title track just made it into the top 30 (reaching No. 29), whilst the follow up, ‘My Dying Machine’ floundered at number 66. These poor chart placings were despite a fairly high profile promotional campaign seeing the album and singles plugged in supportive music publications. There were also several TV appearances. 

There was a significant departure on this album and tour and that was the introduction of female backing singers. It was in all probability one factor amongst several behind the chart performance of the album. The tour was a saving grace for Gary in that he still commanded a loyal following that supported him admirably at the live shows. If the music had shifted somewhat the presence of the core Numan touring band in the form of Ced, Rrussell and Chris lent a certain familiarity to the proceedings.

I saw him again on the tour in Brighton, this time at The Dome (a beautiful venue that was once the stables of the Royal Pavilion).  As I recall for that gig, the venue was 90% seated. I say this because I was quite near to the front in the stalls in a seat. When the ultraviolet kicked in as the band took to the stage I stood on the seat which promptly folded sending me unceremoniously over the back, much to the amusement of those around me. 

The ‘Berserker’ live set was quite light in terms of the new material played. The singles were in there alongside ‘This is New Love’ and ‘Cold Warning’. The latter track was in my opinion one of the stronger songs on the album. The best track on the album ‘A Child With The Ghost’, a heartfelt tribute to fellow Tubeway Army founder and long term musical collaborator, Paul Gardiner, who had died in February of that year from a heroin overdose was a notable omission. Perhaps it was still to raw to play at that time.

The penultimate gig of the tour in London was recorded and released as ‘White Noise’, this album also spawned the ‘Live E.P.’ Interestingly, both live releases outperformed the studio releases.

The tour was intended to be something of a package tour promoting the acts signed to the recently established Numa label. Tour support was provided in the form of Larry Loeber and Hohokam. Unfortunately, Numa Records was not much of a financial success, one of several financial ventures that did not work out so well for Numan.

Here's the show from the Edinburgh Playhouse.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-Ta2EFpX88v

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-qh7atSwXiv

Glasgow Apollo 20th September 1983

 

1983, so this is the point where Numan and I came together on the live circuit. Stuck in Sussex without the benefit of an older sibling who could act in the capacity of a gig chaperone, my pleadings to the parents to let me go to travel to Wembley for one of the farewell shows in April 1981 fell on deaf ears. I was 12 at the time.

With the release of ‘Warriors’ and with the planned return to the stage in the UK, I was razor keen to get my hands on a ticket! For the tour, the touring machine that had travelled the globe in 1979 and 1980 was reassembled when Ced Sharpley, RRussell Bell and Chris Payne were reunited behind Numan. Sadly, Paul Gardiner was not present as he was battling his own demons at the time, although he received a rapturous reception when Gary brought him onto the stage in London. Bass on the tour was provided by Joe Hubbard, the man who apparently imparted the slap bass technique to Nick Beggs of Kajagoogoo. Whilst that style of playing was aligned with the electro funk orientation of the latest album it did not, in my opinion, lend itself so well with the back catalogue. 

As was the case for most of my early gigs, my live introduction to Numan took place in Brighton on the 29th October 1983. Despite all of the shortcomings of the Brighton Centre (a soulless box of a place!) I thought that the gig was brilliant. It was the last of the big, lavish set productions that Numan was known for at the time and that he was later to rue due to spiraling touring costs. A shattered post-apocalyptic cityscape saw the band as on previous tours positioned on multiple levels for a visual feast of a show. 

The tour opener in Glasgow was symbolic, marking the third anniversary of the opening night of the ‘Touring Principle’, Numan’s first nervous steps onto a big venue stage. The set was a fair representation of his studio output from ’79 to the present with ‘Love Needs No Disguise’ thrown in for good measure.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-8lGYohx6Rt

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-LqkQFJCVkD

 

Record Mirror Interview 13th March 1982

In this favourable interview, Gary talks of his around the world flying adventure, early steps into a second career in stunt flying as well as the planned return to the stage with a US tour (click on the article to enlarge).

The Ritz New York 26th October 1982

 

Less than a year had passed before Gary was planning a 'comeback' tour (see next post) that would see him come out of the shortest retirement from live performing imaginable.

After the last notes of the 'Replicas' outro faded into the April night in North London in 1981, a sated Wembley crowd not only bade goodbye to Numan the stage artist but also to the second phase of the man's career (second if you count the punk era Tubeway Army as the first). Out went the leather boiler suits, to be replaced by the wardrobe of Edward G. Robinson. For Gary Numan, this meant 1930's gangster chic, for me it was the start of a series of fashion faux pas that would last a couple of years and haunt me for many more! I looked like a right dick in a trilby and grey double-breasted suit. I was about 4 foot 5 inches... think along the lines of the Anthill Mob!

Back then whilst I felt luke warm towards 'Dance', 'I, Assassin' was rather more accessible. 'We Take Mystery (To Bed)' was fantastic and songs such as 'This Is My House' and 'War Songs' had enough elements of his former albums to hold my interest. Looking back from today's vantage point this was the start of the career struggle that Numan had throughout the remainder of the 1980's. It was a problem for many bands that surfed in on the wave of 'New Wave'. It was a wave that when it broke it left many bands washed up on the shore, flailing for a new direction that would keep them in the charts. Unfortunately, come 1982/1983 the record buying public has moved on, embracing new music that to my ears is shallow, banal and disposable. Many of the bands that emerged in the late '70's threw in the towel in this period. Numan had a particularly arduous road to survival in the pop world. Never a darling of the music press and faced with an unofficial BBC boycott, Numan only had his fan base to fall back on and many of those, myself included, started to drift away in search of new musical avenues (only not of the banal kind!).

The Autumn of '82 saw Numan back on stage with a new band. Unfortunately I do not think so many of these shows exist as recordings today, just three or four from a 19 date tour. Maybe it is just me but I don't think that the set worked particularly well with older songs sitting rather uncomfortably next to the new material. In the same way that 'I, Assassin' material would sit awkwardly in a 2023 Numan. The tour did however set him up for the return to the UK stage the following year. 

 FLAC: https://we.tl/t-UAB7Lmly3D

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-JIGsU6jR4r