So this was the day we would find out whether Gary's voice would handle the new style of vocals live. The Pure album had been available for some four months in it's original form and a special "Tour Edition" had been shipped out by Eagle Records just over a week before the tour started. There had also been the sneak preview, for want of a better term, of some of the stuff Gary might do on the Radio One John Peel Show. That had been quite good and Numan had been allowed to do nine songs in a special live set at the BBC's Maida Vale studios in front of a small audience. Things were setting up nicely for the tour and one of the shows had even been recorded for an Internet broadcast. It just goes to show how the media's opinion of Gary Numan has changed over the last couple of years.

One sad thing... Before the tour started, fellow Numanarchist, Ade Eyeudye, had been over here for a holiday from Canada but had to go back before the first concert. Once again, it was down to myself and Mike R. Slides to infiltrate the Numanoid ranks and deny all sycophantism. Poor Mike travelled all the way from the south coast of England for this show rather than go to a London show 'cos he knew he'd have a better time up here.

Before He came on...

Let's start with a bit of background info, you know how I love to rant on!
Slides and I had been to the Manchester Academy for the one-off show in 1999. We stood outside for about an hour and a half then but decided we weren't that bothered this time. If we got to the front, great. If not, who cares? We set off at about 6-15pm, Manchester being about 20-25 minutes away from my house and the show due to open at 7-30pm. We'd gone about 3 miles and then there was this really bad hold up on the road to the motorway. We got stuck in that for about 20 minutes before getting to the end of the road and finding the police had closed the Motorway link road!
I had to quickly think of another route. This took us about 7 miles out of our way and time was cracking on. Bad memories of days gone by rushing to try to get there on time came flooding back. Anyway, thanks to some excellent driving and navigating by me, we got to where we parked the car last time for just about 7-15pm. PHEW!
As luck had it, there were only about a tenth as many people waiting as the 1999 show and we were in the venue within 20 minutes and right at the front again, HaHa!

I was awe-struck by the appallingly bad tour T-shirts which were just black with a bit of white text on the front and back. There was no way I would pay even £5 for one let alone the required £15. I was surprised that ANYONE had bought them but sure enough, there were some already wearing theirs...

Mike and I waited about for the support act to come on. And we waited. And we waited... In fact, it was a full hour after we got in the place that they decided to make their appearance. By this time we were in no humour for them as we had had our ears polluted by some really crap backing tapes which seemed to consist mostly of "Starfackers Incorporated" being repeated over and over again. I hadn't heard much Nine Inch Nails before but if this is the direction that Numan wants his own stuff to go in then he go on his way without me following. It really was crap of the highest calibre.

The support act were called "Little Hell" and to be honest, they were. Although their songs had a good amount of power in them, they lacked much in melody and had no songs that caught my interest at all. The lead singer certainly did catch my interest however! She was really quite nice to look at with her chest almost popping out of her top. The girl bassist was good too. There, that's my sexist bit out of the way for the rest of the review!

As bad luck, and indeed bad taste, had it, we got more of the awful backing tapes again when they had departed and it was incredibly almost 9-35pm by the time He made His appearance...

Numan arrives

At last He came. What we had been waiting for. After all the waiting about however, I just wasn't that excited. It felt more like relief when the house lights went down. A familiar sounding intro began which was an extended opening to the title track, "Pure". It was odds on favourite that this would be first but I don't know whether I would have put money on Him playing His guitar on it. Gary wore a full length leather coat and some big-soled boots with a pair of jeans that seemed to have straps around the legs of them. He only wore the coat for the first song after which it was just a T-shirt with shoulder pads and a lot of belts around his waist. Maybe He has a bad back. Maybe they were just to keep in the ever expanding sausage and chips gut hidden! Whatever, it wasn't a very interesting image without the coat. Mind you it does get hot in there.
"Pure" was excellently performed with Gary singing extremely well. The sound quality from where I was stood was very good indeed. Not what you expect from so close to the stage speakers which were only about six feet from my ears!
At this point in days gone by, I would have been expecting to make some comment about the light show by now. Well, there were about twenty-six lights of various colours and a few of those "boxes of eight" white lights dotted around. That's about it really. Nothing to talk about. No moving gantries or stairways. No lighting panels. All in all, I'd say it was the worst Numan stage show I've ever seen. Not that I expected big things like we had in the olden days of course, but I would have liked a bit of an effort to have been taken especially considering that this was His first UK Tour for over three years.

As I said, Pure was performed really well and I was ready for Him to tear into His next song when to my surprise, He did "Films"! Although I do think it was a good song to start doing again back in 1993, it has once more become a bit too predictable and so gets boring when it is done over and over. With that in mind, it wasn't particularly well placed as the second song.
Back to what we wanted next though with an absolutely brilliant version of "Rip". I hadn't been at all sure about this one when I first heard it but Gary did it better than I have ever heard it. His vocals on the whispering verses were if anything clearer than on the album and He got the shouting chorus parts very close to perfect as well.

Another new song next and the supposed forthcoming single, "Listen To My Voice". Once again this was performed beyond expectations the only downside being that to me it seemed to have been slowed down a little bit. I used to notice that with "A Q of Faith" as well, maybe my imagination.
Back once more to The Pleasure Principle for the updated version of "Metal". This has obviously been re-done to fit in more with the new style. Always did like "Metal" don't you? I just have that nagging afterthought that it's getting a bit predictable again.
On the same subject, next was "Down In The Park" which by now I think we could all do without. Actually, I suppose that's a bit unfair isn't it? After all, we all have our favourites. On the other hand, it's my review - go and do your own if you don't like it...
More new stuff followed in the form of "Walking With Shadows" which I was happy to hear. Although not one of the most up-tempo songs from the new album, it sort of leaves a chill down your spine and it was great to have it here.
"My Jesus" just had to be included with that blistering chorus line. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring along my legendary four foot sponge sole and am getting too old to be taking off my shoes all the time so I had to give the old joke a bit of a miss this time around, probably much to everyone else's relief I would guess! I would have to say that I think the original studio recorded vocal line was mixed in there along with Gary's live vocals but only in the background. It seemed to be to add power rather than to hide His limitations if there were indeed any limitations to hide.
I have to say that I was really happy that He did the next song. I wasn't sure He would do it live as it didn't really seem to be one of the most popular from the new album, but when has that ever stopped Him before? "Torn" is vastly underrated in my opinion and it's inclusion here made it six new songs from the nine performed so far. Excellent.

Things were going so well up to now weren't they? Well, you can't have it all your own way as I discovered when He decided to do "Every Day I Die" for about the millionth time. He still had the edge though with six new songs and four boring old ones.
"Me! I Disconnect From You" always did get the crowd on their toes and tonight was no exception. It was the first old one that I had really been glad to hear.
Another chance for Gary to show off his new style vocals again came when the next song was "I Can't Breathe". Once more, He managed to stretch his voice to limits that I would never have believed possible a few years ago.
Well, one day we might get a concert without "Are Friends Electric?", but tonight wasn't it. This masterpiece of a song that got me into Numan, and indeed music, all those years ago, has for me and a few others I know of, lost its charm. It could be that I'm just sick of it but I think it could be the way it has been done in recent years. Far too heavy on the guitars and not enough emphasis on the synthesisers for my liking I'm afraid. Gary -- DO A SYNTH VERSION, PLEASE!!!
Oh! He must have heard me! More synths than the last few years anyway. Still don't think it's as good as the 1989 version though and I'd love a version more like the 1980/81 versions...
Predictably, this was the last song before the exit stage right, even though He had only been on for about an hour at this point.

The encores

It wasn't too long before He came back on and did His other hit, "Cars". Yeah, once again, we know it's gonna be there, but what can you do? I stopped even pretending to enjoy this one years ago. Even with its "nothing seems" lines added in.
What did he do after that? "Voix", that's what. Yet another one that I really liked originally that I have had enough of now. Particularly the newer guitar laden version we get again here. Rather than go off stage again here, He did another song. Oh good, I thought, maybe He's doing longer encores to make up for the rather short main set. Maybe, maybe not...
"Remind Me To Smile". Well, yeah...
After four boring songs on the trot, He came good again with a spectacular version of "A Prayer For The Unborn", which I love. He had His guitar again for this but seemed to use it more as a stage prop than an instrument.
Strangely, when he had done this, it was all over. Gemma disappeared from her pit at the front of the stage, Gary did a weightlifting impression with His guitar, and that was it! Finito. The end.

To sum up

A superb sounding concert with Gary's voice never clearer as far as I can remember. The most "new" album tracks that I think I have ever known him to do. He has proved that at almost 43 years old, he still has a lot to offer. The band didn't seem to cock anything up neither, not even Beesley which I found amazing to be honest. Steve Harris as the resident Demon Axx Warrior up from Oblivion was excellent and a total nutter! In fact, he was probably more interesting to watch than Numan for a lot of the show.
On the downside, it did seem an awfully short concert, particularly after waiting so long for Him to come on. I think the running time was only about 85 minutes including the time between the main section and the encore. The lightshow, although not what I go for, was disappointing. Numan's performance was audibly fantastic but, I think He has to re-learn how to put Himself about on the stage a bit. There were times when I could have cringed as He crouched down with His head almost scraping the floor or waved His arms in the air like some poor man's excuse for an exotic dancer. I just think that at times He looked really undignified.
The other bad thing was the old tracks chosen again. Now I know some will defend Gary on this because of things He says on the Purified CD, but come on, how many times do we all need to hear "Films", "DITP", "RMTS" etc.? It's not like they fit in any better than a lot of other old tracks is it? I will be going on about that in more detail elsewhere on the site as it's too big of a subject to explore here.
All in all, there were some very good points about the show but there were some down sides to it as well. For some reason, there just wasn't any excitement for me when we waited. Gary sang brilliantly and did lots from the Pure album but looked bad to me. I was really glad I went to the show but to be honest, I was equally as glad that I wasn't doing any more shows on the tour as I have in the past. Until I get the feeling that I used to get up till about 1993, I'll be happy to just do the local shows I think. I do find it sad that what used to be a sort of institution for some us has become just another night out once in a while but maybe that's not all a bad thing. I save a fortune these days!
Six and a half out of ten is the score I'd give this show. For all it's good points, it didn't thrill me even as much as the last one at Manchester, which didn't even have any new stuff. Oh yeah, and if I hear "Starfackers Incorporated" one more time I'm gonna blow the speakers up!!!