Gary Numan
By Rob McCune
Sixty-eight-year-old Gary Numan, 50 years into a music career that has pushed punk into new and multitudinous directions, is an out-of-this-world villain with the charisma of Kahn and Palpatine-like reflexes for firing lightning from his fingers.
His spacey henchmen: Steve Harris on guitar and Tim Slade on bass are twin-like tentacles slapping the strings, while David Brooks masters the synths and Jimmu Lucido the drums.
With a lightshow rivaling the Borealis, Numan and his band blitzed the Cleveland House of Blues in late March on a tour that just wrapped up its North American leg in San Luis Obispo, California, and will head overseas this summer.
The Cleveland show was warmed up by L.A.’s Tremours, featuring Lauren Andino on guitar and vocals and Glenn Fryatt on drums.
The duo’s hazy, ominous overtures washed over the crowd, slowly building a tremorous rhythm in the soul of the venue.
Numan’s two-hour set features tracks from seven albums, including his breakout hit “Cars” from his 1979 debut solo record “The Pleasure Principle,” and two songs from his first band Tubeway Army. Halfway through, Gary turned lead mic over to his daughter Raven Numan and sang backup on her song “Nothing’s What It Seems.”
A two-song encore featured “The Gift,” off his 2021 album “Intruder,” and “My Name Is Ruin,” from 2017’s “Savage (Songs from a Broken World),” the music video for which casts Numan into the desert of a Dune-like world.
From ruin to ruler, Numan has dominated this world already, and has more still to conquer.
Follow Rob McCune on Instagram (@Every_Thing_After_Photo) and listen to the “Every.Thing.After Podcast” on Spotify.
