Gary Numan live in SHOWstudio studios Dec. 14, 2011

Gary Numan is definitely in the air. I wrote about his unusual “Radio Heart” single a few weeks ago. That got me to listening to my Numan boxed sets for a thorough revisiting. Yesterday I was on the OMD forum and someone had posted a link to a session Gary Numan had recorded in December at SHOWstudio. Click here to see Gary performing three songs from his new album, “Dead Sun Rising,” and his classic “Are ‘Friends’ Electric.” SHOWstudio recorded the performances intimately and in black & white [no doubt in post]. From the clips it’s hard to tell if there’s a band there with him or a laptop, or maybe just a CDR in playback. The post-production editing is truly frightening in its hyperactivity. If you don’t have epilepsy before watching this, may may experience seizures afterward. Nevertheless, if you ever liked Gary Numan, you should definitely watch this performance.

Personally, his material of the last eighteen years passes me by with its dark religion related thematic focus and weighty pseudo profundity. The notably atheist Numan views religion as a horror movie; viewed through red stained glasses. That was fine and dandy on “Sacrifice,” eighteen years ago. Following his post-I.R.S. Records wilderness years, it was absolutely electrifying! That’s one of his best albums, in my opinion. As the theme was revisited on “Exile” and “Pure” it certainly seemed that the man doth protesth too much! One album decrying religion is fine. Heck, I’m an atheist myself, but to dwell on these issues for years and albums at a time is indicative of a problem. Listening to Numan carp about religion is as tedious and pointless to me as hearing gospel music. It’s alien to me and I can not relate to religion as a topic either in a “pro” or “con” frame! From my perspective, it’s all the same; singer nattering on about things that don’t exist. Whether they’re “for” or “against” these topics is irrelevant to me. It’s all a waste of my precious, finite existence and irrelevant to how I relate to the universe.

The new material is barely worth a listen, but Numan has also revisited his first hit single, the always excellent “Are ‘Friends’ Electric,” and the new, rather “unplugged” arrangement is utterly stellar. Numan concentrates the emotional crux of the song with the clarity of a laser in this new arrangement and the song packs a poignant wallop that frankly, it never quite had in its 32 years; until now! The intimacy of the song can now pole vault its teenaged sci-fi origins to really hit home with some serious force. AFE was always one of his best songs. Now he’s made it untouchable. If Numan ever sees fit to move on to thematic topics that I can relate to or care about, he’s got the chops to really make an emotional impact and the result could be his best work ever. As it stands, this emotive recasting of the very familiar AFE had me misty-eyed for the first time ever with a Numan song! I hope that one day he can make music this direct and evocative again.

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