Goths, goths everywhere and not a drop to drink! In fact the Numan gig demographic is wider than you would have anticipated tonight from, of course, your run-of-the-mill goths and Pete Burns tragedies, to little housewives and football supporters – “Nuuuuuuu-man”! Fans of dark electronic metal will tonight witness the supreme power of UK master of goth-dom…pity it’s actually a bit pants.

Everyone knows Gary Numan, he is the bloke who made Sugababes funky, who gave ‘Where’s Your Head At’ an extra dimension, and who wrote a little ditty about cars. He is one of the UK’s sources of electronic inspiration, or perhaps was. The fact is that the Numan experience is somewhat lacking at tonight’s performance – there are even tickets still on the door, and now I can see why: he has become boring. Barely saying a word tonight, Gary struts on stage trundling through the stagnant twaddle that is his new album. ‘Blind’ and ‘Melt’ are wonderful examples of standard goth dirge and opener ‘Pressure’ takes a good ten minutes to get lifted of as Gary does the whole ‘Look at me, I’m interesting’ thing. It really is as dull as dishwater.

Faint glimmers of the Numan legacy break through in the form of an eerie ‘Down In The Park’ and pop-driven ‘Are Friends’ Electric’, and show just how inspirational Gary has been. However this all becomes lost in the palm muted thud of ‘In a Dark Place’ and ‘Jagged’, which turns out to be a cheap Rammstein imitation.

Even by the time a noisy rendition of ‘Metal’ bursts out, it is still difficult to forget the disappointment of tonight’s performance. Unfortunately, Gary has now dwindled into a dank netherworld of yawn-some goth clichés, and murky rip-off riffs. However, you can tell that his devoted fan base are sort of satisfied, as the golden oldies are lapped up with a raucous ‘Nuuuuuuuuuuu-maaaaaaaan’, which kind of takes the dark majesty away somewhat.    
(2/5)

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