The Godfather on synth, Gary Numan, has clearly still got his ever-increasing loyal ‘Numanoid’ army on board, as this morning tickets went on sale for his 998, 999 and 1000th live shows of his long and illustrious career! By lunchtime, former Sussex resident Numan had released a statement saying:
“All three shows sold out in ten minutes this morning. That’s amazing. Thank you. We’ll see you in April”.
Gary Numan commented, “I never imagined when I first started doing this a lifetime ago that I’d still be doing it, and still loving it, 1,000 shows later. But I am, and I do, and I’m excited to be celebrating such an important milestone with the fans over three epic nights at the Electric Ballroom in London.”
The trio of gigs are set to take place at the Electric Ballroom on Camden High Street in London on 13th, 14th and 15th April 2023. This trio of performances will live in the memory of the 64 year old performer, as his very special guest for all three shows will come from one of his daughters, ‘Raven Numan’. They will be her first live concerts and what better way to start, than under the supervision of her proud dad. No doubt the whole Numan family will be in attendance for these special occasions.
I strongly suspect that none of his fans would have believed that he would still be performing live in 2023, having initially ‘retired’ from live performances with another trio of concerts 42 years ago. These took place at Wembley Arena on 26th, 27th and 28th April 1981 and thankfully I attended all three! In fact, Numan performed a show at the same venue back on 7th May last year, which was just six days after he performed live at the Brighton Centre for the first time in 39 years. Read our review HERE.
His two previous gigs at the Brighton Centre were back in 1980 and 1983. His first ever local concert was in the year of his breakthrough in 1979, when he played at the Brighton Dome on 5th October 1979. That year he scored two No.1 albums, ‘Replicas’ (under the Tubeway Army banner) and ‘The Pleasure Principle’, his first as Gary Numan. His ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ and ‘Cars’ singles also climbed to the summit of the charts.
Back then, the 19 year old Numan, was convinced that he wasn’t going to live past the age of 30. He was convinced of it, and his flamboyant hobbies of fast cars and planes compounded fans’ fear that he might just be right. But here we are all these years on and Numan’s last two albums, 2017’s ‘Savage (Songs From A Broken World)’ and 2021’s ‘Intruder’ both went crashing into the UK Album Charts at No.2. Clearly Numan is back to stay and quite possibly the three forthcoming April concerts might signal the rise of the next generation of Numan’s. Time will tell………..
Oh Yes!!! Nuuuuuuuuummmaaaaaaaaaaaannn!!! 😀
Thanks Paul.