THE LIQUID ENGINEERS – THE PRINCE ALBERT, BRIGHTON 1.5.22
We at Brighton & Hove News had booked to see Gary Numan’s first performance in the Brighton Centre for nearly 40 years, which was an exciting prospect – Read our review HERE. We then learned that the UK’s premier tribute to Gary Numan, The Liquid Engineers. were appearing at The Prince Albert on the same day, but several hours earlier. Well it would be rude not to attend both wouldn’t it.
This Liquid Engineers are a five-piece outfit usually consisting of Pat (lead vocals and occasional guitar and synth), David H (synths and programming), Faye (bass and Moog synth), Pete (lead/rhythm guitar) and Dave T ‘Twiggs’ (drums).
Over the past few decades, I have witnessed a number of ‘Numan tribute bands’ come and go and it’s fair to say that quite a number of these haven’t really been up to scratch. I know what Numan sounds like and I know what I like. Thus, when I first watched approximately ten live amateur videos on YouTube of The Liquid Engineers, I was more than pleasantly surprised!
There’s always a snobbery around music fans as to whether there’s a place for tribute bands or not and whether their favourite artist ever should be subject to such mimicry or homage. If a thing is worth doing, then you do it properly! Classic examples of this being Absolute Bowie and The Ramonas.
The Liquid Engineers successfully emulate (or should that be ‘Emulator’) Numan from his early days right up to his recent releases. Nicely versatile I’d say!
It turned out that The Liquid Engineers performed for a mere three minutes less than Numan did later at the Brighton Centre. This is quite impressive for a set at The Prince Albert.
The band took to the stage at 3:25pm and concluded at 5:07pm. Faye was stage left (our right) and behind the synths which were nicely contained within their KS-3000 Millennium stand. She was also in control of her Rickenbacker bass.
On the opposite side of the stage (our left) was David H who was in charge of two Alesis synths and the laptop. In front of him was Pete on Gould guitar. Centre stage was Pat Martin who was the voice of Numan and even had a guitar on the go at one stage.
I guess the luckiest member of the quintet surely must be Dave T ‘Twiggs’ as he was sitting behind the drumset. It’s not any old drumset, oh no! It’s only THE drumset that was owned and used by Gary Numan’s South African born band member Cedric Sharpley from 1979 to 1992. Sadly Cedric passed away in 2012 and ‘Twiggs’ managed to have a discussion I believe with Cedric’s other half. I’m pleased to report that the drums are still in tip top condition.
Behind the band at both ends of the stage were two panels of eight white tube lighting. In the centre there were three others arranged in a triangle, and there were to the fore three central vertical red tube lights. It was all very ‘The Touring Principle’ from 1979.
The opening bars of ‘This Wreckage’ rang out and so far so good. Then Pat kicked in with the vocals. Bloody hell, he DOES sound exactly like Numan. If fans were to close their eyes, many would think it’s the man himself.
Their sound is very close to the real thing, which is very impressive, especially the synths, but I couldn’t hear the guitar from the opposite side of the stage. I was wondering whether it was actually plugged in, but Pete was on the case. Maybe the folks on the opposite side of the room to me couldn’t hear Faye’s bass?
Pat is dressed like early Numan and has obviously studied many Numan video’s in order to get it right. None of the others looked like any previous or current Numan band members, but I didn’t really care about that. What I did care about was what the band sounded like. Yes there were a few off notes here and there during the set, but only a handful. The rest was heading towards carbon copy. This was most pleasing as they would be performing some numbers which Numan hasn’t played for years such as ‘My Breathing’ and ‘Call Out The Dogs’.
The band were powerful too and one of the heavier numbers was ‘My Name Is Ruin’, which was one of their set highlights. This was eclipsed by the wall of noise of ‘Pure’ with Pat adding to it on his guitar. One of the other highlights was surprisingly ‘Airlane’ which is an instrumental track that the band really rocked and one that did not require the services of Pat, hence a change of gear, cue red and blue tie!
The weakest number I would suggest was ‘Love & Napalm’, but I had actually somehow forgotten what the tune sounded like. The room wasn’t quite full, but they had almost filled it with eager Numanoids that would be heading down to the Brighton Centre in a couple of hours in order to witness the real thing. The Liquid Engineers had won the crowd over, including me. Let’s hope that they make a swift return.
The Liquid Engineers setlist:
‘This Wreckage’
‘Metal’
‘Creatures’
‘Intruder’
‘My Names Is Ruin’
‘Love & Napalm’
‘Pure’
‘Prayer For The Unborn’
‘Stormtrooper In Drag’ (Paul Gardiner cover)
‘She’s Got Claws’
‘Airlane’
‘I Die: You Die’
‘Down In The Park’
‘Dominion Day’
‘My Breathing’
‘Call Out The Dogs’
‘Tracks’
‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’
‘Cars’
‘Me! I Disconnect From You’
‘We Are Glass’
Find out more about The Liquid Engineers at www.theliquidengineers.co.uk
