L.A. Forum Los Angeles 1st November 1980

 

Numan takes Telekon to the US... here from Los Angeles.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-5ZqDgPamfK

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-387DQ3SjKB

Living Ornaments '79/'80 Press Reviews (25th April 1981)

 

For most Numan fans the Living Ornaments '79 and '80 album coupling, presenting highlights of the 'Touring Principle' and 'Teletour' shows are the epitome of Numan's first flush of success, a neat precis in vinyl of the 'black' chapter of his career that was finally closed with the 'Farewell' Wembley shows in April 1981.

Given his relationship with the music press it was perhaps a forgone conclusion that Numan's latest contribution to the record collections of a section of the nation's youth would not be greeted with open arms. That fact notwithstanding, Nick Kent's review in the NME (below) seems to be particularly vitriolic. Half the review rails against the way in which the album was to be marketed whilst the second half satifies itself with accusations that an opportunistic Numan took gross advantage of a Bowie sabbatical to fill the charts with sub-Dave tunes.

As to the marketing, I cannot say for sure what personal involvement Gary had in such matters, my instinct would suggest that these matters would more likely be handled by Beggars Banquet, who managed Numan very well as an asset and very much to their commercial advantage, propelling them from a near insignificant independent label to a label with an inpressive roster of signings. Regardless of who dreamt up the strategy far worse marketing schemes were to follow. Just three years later in 1984 Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Two Tribes' single was releases in six different remix formats in a (successful) attempt to circumvent chart return shop restrictions, a year later and Sigue Sigue Sputnik were selling advertising space in between the tracks of their debut album 'Flaunt It'. I wonder what Mr Kent would have made of that.

The Bowie thing is easier to comment upon. Numan has never made any bones about the musicians that have inspired him and influenced his writing be that Ultravox! or Bowie himself. I am not so certain about the 'Joe the Lion' reference, but in other respects Numan, along with any other artist who has enjoyed a hit, can have the accusation of plagarism levelled at them. If I listen to parts of 'Low' I can hear elements that clearly Numan drew on... to concede with Nick Kent on one point, I can even relate to the connection between a sniped of Cat Stevens' 'Matthew & Son' and 'The Joy Circuit'. But everybody has done it, not excepting The Thin White Duke himself! I am a big fan of David Bowie, especially of pre-Ziggy era meterial. Listen to 'Love You 'Til Tuesday' back to back with Anthony Newley's 'Pop Goes The Weazle' and my point will be very evident! Primal Scream did a good trade in sounding like The Stones and Oasis always reminded me of someone else too, but I can quite recall...

Alf Martin's Record Mirror review, is also quite dismissive, but at least in Martin's short analysis of Numan's career to date, he seems to have captured a grain of truth.

For my part, 'Living Ornaments '80' was for many years my favourite albums of all time. Perhaps it has slipped down the rankings over the intervening years, but it is still up there as one of the best live album's and its version of  'Down in the Park' still gives me a spinal shiver 44 years on.

New Musical Express 25th April 1981

GARY NUMAN

Living Ornaments '70 (Beggars Banquet)
Living Ornaments '80 (Beggars Banquet)

SO FAREWELL then, Gary Numan. All good things must come to an end sometime, and ground control is evidently calling your number even as I write, in the same harsh, hollow cadence you yourself have utilised for your sound.

Last year there you were, coasting along in your little bubble, still notching up big commercial coups: 'Telekon', your last studio album, streaked up to No.1, whilst those two singles 'We Are Glass' and 'I Die You Die' shuttled into the Top Five. If only the aptly entitled 'This Wreckage' hadn't failed to even secure a place in the Top Thirty, you'd be exiting this humdrum mortal coil that is the music biz market place with the old log-book completely unblemished.

But then again, by the last days of 1980, there were the likes of Steve Strange, John Foxx, Spandau Ballet and Midge Ure's Ultravox corporate crowding out the same stratosphere you’d once held omnipotent control of. All these new faces, new haircuts, new uniforms - even though stripped of their kilts and fringes they were just a bunch of ungainly, pasty-faced dough-boys.

Worse still, the man you'd chosen to ape, one David Jones of Beckenham, had returned from his sojourns out in left-field to claim his throne, the very chair your bum had been keeping warm in his Nib's absence for – how long is it now? Two years, at least, eh? A good innings for a pretty uninspired bloke with only one good (i.e. commercially viable) idea like - yourself, Gary. What else could you do under the circumstances?

On April 24th, the WEA corporate will release 'Living Ornaments '79' and ' '8O' in three different packages. Your fans – for whom this inspired aural 'au revoir' has been . especially released (it reads here, in this rather shoddy press-release I have before me) - can either buy the two records separately at £4 "or less", or they can buy the pair in a "special box-set" which includes an added two live tracks plus special free single which ... Oh, hold on a tick, the girl from Beggars Banquet just phoned to say that the free single is not to be included. Instead your aficionados will be privileged to receive a "leaflet" (sic) with 'some fab photographs and special info. on the two tours immortalized herein. The boxed set retails at £8 "or less" with the crucial stipulation that all three artefacts will be made available from the WEA pressing plant to shops from April 24th until May 15th. Yes, for only one month will your many fans be able to share in this extravagant finale. Or so it would appear.

In fact, the•latter ploy is the only truly inspired aspect to this whole spurious affair. Retailers have to order in bulk so as to fully accommodate the presumed flood of requests, thus rocketing the three records straight to the top of the album charts. Very canny, Gaz, very sharp. Even Big Brother Bowie hasn't come up with a piece of marketing strategy as wickedly on the ball as 'Living Ornaments 79/80'. The one-month stroke affords your followers the chance to bathe in the privilege of duping themselves into believing the whole ploy is a personal tribute to their fidelity while in reality the whole deal is simply arranged to ensure maximum sales returns.

Ah, if only the music were one fraction as inspired. Listen Gaz, I don't want to rehash all the old criticisms you've awkwardly cringed away from whilst scurrying off all the way to the bank. In fact, I imagine that you're a fairly genuine sort of bloke who genuinely considers your music to be complete evocation of a vision of a future devoid of passion, warmth and all-purpose humanity. Unfortunately, like your detractors, I view your music as being wretchedly one-dimensional, crass sci-fi drivel that would be merely a harmless ear-sore, were it not for the fact that a) your synth-obsessed bombast spotlights,every negative aspect inherent in the very concept and practical appliance of contemporary technology in direct relationship to music, and b) your puerile sub-'Diamond Dogs' scenarios are unwittingly a highly pernicious influence on impressionable types who, if they take this pompous garbage as seriously as you evidently do, are under certain highly dodgy delusions regarding their cultural bearings, simple human values and life 'as she is lived' in general. Listening to all four sides of your parting bouquet, all the old adjectives are summoned forth once more: the eerie synthesisers, the dank, drab metronome of a pulse-beat, your whining vocals, the empty gestures, the numbing bombast. It's unhealthy stuff, Gazza.

A snippet for Gazza fans: the live sound is slightly more fuzzily bombastic throughout both concerts (both recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon in the Septembers of the previous two years), with Numan's voice more strained and awkward than the studio would lead one to believe. ' '79' has Ultravox's Billy Currie in the backing group, though you-can scarcely pinpoint his contributions on stiff, note-for-note reconstructions of 'Cars', 'Metal', 'Dream Police', 'Conversations', 'Films', and other ultra-precious pearls of half-baked pomp like 'We Are So Fragile'.

'80' is a better buy for the poverty-stricken Gazzaphile, with the first side sounding slightly more solidly in synch with the "live" angle (although numbers like 'This Wreckage', ' I Die: You Die' and 'Every Day I Die' are so threadbare as to defy plausible renditions), and side two boasting some actual "punch", the corporation working overtime to•provide tension, verve and a certain ominous extra dimension to 'Remind Me To Smile' (Numan's ‘Joe The Lion' swipe), 'The Joy Circuit' (Gazza lifting Cat Stevens' ancient 'Matthew & Son' motif) and, to a lesser extent, 'We Are Glass'. Also 'Are Friends Electric?' is present and correct here, doled out with stern authority by his adept cronies.

And so it goes, around and around in ever-diminishing po-faced echoes. 'Living Ornaments' is your last twirl with the masses, Gaz. You kept Bowie's throne (luke) warm in his divine absence - just like Steve Harley did way back in '74 and just like Steve Strange is doing now. You should be pleased•- your success was longer-running and more widespread than Harley's was or Strange's will be. Last month's flavours and last year's favoured become this year's stale aromas. Idon't like your music - never did - and find this final salvo as crass as it's loaded with empty gestures.

Nick Kent

Record Mirror 25th April 1981

Primavera Sound 2010 Parc Del Forum Barcelona 29th May 2010

 

Here's a partial set audience shot DVD of Numan's performance at the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona in the summer of 2010.

DVD image: https://we.tl/t-Vkovfdbfmf

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-EFgNkMlCbb

01. Halo
02. Cars
03. RIP
04. Pure
05. Metal

Gary Numan Brentwood Leisure Centre 23rd October 1993

 

I have previously indicated in an earlier post of the Marquee gig (here) that in 1993 I shot myself in the foot when it came to Gary Numan. For 1993 was the year when the revival started. Something clicked for him (I believe with the help of Gemma) that enabled him to reverse his ailing fortunes (musically speaking). A big part of this could be put down to a major rethink of the set. Compare the set below to the 1991 Electric Ballroom set posted recently. Basically, he went back to the songs that meant the most to his loyal but (surely) dispirited fanbase. He did this to the extent that songs that hadn't been heard from a stage since 1978 were getting an airing again, 'That's Too Bad', 'Jo The Waiter' and 'Bombers' (at least in the Marquee set if not this one).

Maybe there is something in the psychology of musicians, whereby in order to avoid accusations of standing still you have to keep moving forward such that older material always loses out to the new. I get it. Then a musician comes to the point in their career when suddenly the old stuff is suddenly cool again... people start referring to songs as classic this and classic that. For Numan that came at around this time, 15 years or so into his recording career. It was in the mid to late '90's too that the generation that had grown up on watching Tubewsay Army/Numan on Top of the Pops were now in bands themselves (some of which at this time were in bands that ultimately became part of the yet to be named Britpop scene) and telling the likes of Sounds and NME who their influences were. Here Numan hit pay dirt, for the first time ever, his back catalogue was in vogue and he was being given the respect within the music industry that had eluded him for so long. The return to form 'Sacrifice' album of 1994 firmly established his current upward trajectory and he has not looked back since. Furthermore, Numan has fully learned that there is nothing wrong with nostalgia so long that it is done well and whole-heartedly.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-CIjfrahKRZ

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-uak1VvkAN8

Electric Ballroom Camden London 26th September 1991

 

I didn't really plan to see Numan in 1991, having arrived at the conclusion after last seeing him in 1988 that he and I were now on divergent musical paths. However, in 1991 I took up a university work placement in Crawley, West Sussex close to where my parents lived. The company was at that time Smithkline Beecham and I was working in one of their laboratories for a period of six months. Whilst chatting one lunchtime with my new work colleagues the topic of conversation switched to music and I mentioned that amongst other things I liked Numan, they laughed, as one of the number gathered around the table, Iain, was a big fan. It was Iain that offered me a ticket to see Numan play the Electric Ballroom in Camden where he was playing as part of the 'Emotion Tour'. I took the ticket thinking that this would be an opportunity to meet up midweek with my then girlfriend (now wife) Gunta. At that time I was living back at my parents' place as there was a health crisis in the family at that time and it was also an chance to save a bit of money for a few months and Gunta was living in Ealing Common.

On the night Iain and I met Gunta in The World's End pub (where the drinkers of the band also happened to be pre-gig) for a couple of hours before I said googbye until the following Saturday when I would return to London. We got to the venue in time to see the support, Freak U.K. who left little impression on me. Come the main event, on this evening Gary didn't really stand a chance. I was confident that I wouldn't enjoy the gig and in that respect I was not wrong. Material that represented my perception of Gary Numan had been swept from the set, only 'Me! I Disconnect From You', 'Cars' and 'AFE' has survived the musical cull. The vast majority of the set was fairly recent i.e 3-4 years old and it was all infected with his current leaning towards a soul/funk vibe, supplemented with bouncy keyboards and backing vocals aplenty. If that is your Numan era I have absolutely no issue with that, it's just not my cup of tea at all. The sound 'Soul Protection' that was included in the set that night is a perfect example for me of the extent to which Numan was struggling to stay relevant at this time.

The audio quality of this gig is great and I removed some glitches that existed on the original tape before it was digitised.

Luckily for me, and I am sure that others reading these posts will be with me here, better things were on the horizon.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-RJ2qdOD6Gd

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-xoQjfgns7U

Gary Numan The Junction Cambridge 1st December 2009

 

Between 2006 and 2009 Numan played the tours that I always wanted to see and never thought I would. These three retrospective tours offered much that even the original tours of 1979 and 1980 could not offer. Remember, 'The Touring Principle' featured a live set that covered both the 'Replicas' and 'The Pleasure Principle' albums. Numan had not to date played these albums and associated tracks in full. 

Numan with Paul Gardiner backdrop

December 2009

This album retrospective approach to touring seems to have been thing that has flourished in the last 20 or so years. To my mind it is perfect for artist and fans alike, in that it engages the musicians to learn/relearn long forgotten tracks and it gives fans the opportunity to hear old and well loved tracks often for the first time. It is something that is perhaps best suited to musicians who have enjoyed a long career. Bowie was early on the uptake of the concept when in 2002, as host of London's South Bank 'Meltdown' festival, he played his Berlin classic 'Low' back to back with his then current album 'Heathen'.

So, Numan brought 'The Pleasure Principle' to The Junction in Cambridge, one of my favourite venues in the country, but one that was too small on this occasion. I went with my son who was then 11 and needed to lift him onto a table in order for him to see anything (he is 6'2" now so would be doing the same for me these days!). A few nights later I saw the show at the Indigo in London and access to the stage was easy with perfect views to go with it.

Of this album, there is not much that I need to say for the benefit of this audience. Not as dark as its predecessor, the album took electronic music to a new height. There is not a duff track on the album, with precise instrumentation that perfectly complements the soaring keyboards that dominate the songs. Ever the purist, Numan made the decision to abandon guitar on this album, a decision that he has since stated was a mistake, but in my opinion the combination of bass, drums and keyboards makes for a complete sound. There is no need, or space for guitar on 'The Pleasure Principle'.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-oyHUgCAQ8K

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-pkdDcxsziF

 01. Random
 02. Airlane
 03. Metal
 04. Complex
 05. Films
 06. M.E.
 07. Tracks
 08. Observer
 09. Conversation
 10. Cars
 11. Engineers
 12. Asylum

 01. The Fall
 02. Pure
 03. Down In The Park
 04. Haunted
 05. Halo
 06. Jagged
 07. Are 'Friends' Electric?
 08. Encore Break
 09. We Are So Fragile
 10. A Prayer For The Unborn

Classic Pop Magazine's Gary Numan Special Edition

 

Not new news, but I was happy to pick up this a couple of weeks ago. I have thus far only thumbed through the pages but it looks pretty good. With interviews with Billy Currie, Chris Payne, Pino Palladino and Ade Fenton, it may through up some new information and insights. Of course, I went straight to the 'punk' Tubeway Army pages and thought that there could have been more, but given that I'm talking about a two year slice over a 48 year career, I will respectfully wind my neck in!!