THE LIQUID ENGINEERS + SYNTHONY 101 – THE VENUE, WORTHING 24.2.23
The Brighton & Hove News certainly couldn’t pass up on the opportunity of witnessing a live electronic music concert inside an unusual building of great interest. Thus we headed West to sunny Worthing to the former St Paul’s Church.
St Paul’s Church was designed by John Rebecca and built by Ambrose Cartwright and first opened in 1812. The building has a Doric portico with four columns facing Chapel Road, with a bell cupola behind it. The building’s yellow bricks are made from the blue clay taken from Worthing Common (also known as the Saltgrass), the green space which in the 19th century existed south of the current beach and is now underwater. The building is partly stuccoed. The interior of the church was finished by a Worthing man, Edward Hide. Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, presented the church with the royal coat of arms in thanks to the people of Worthing for showing such generosity and kindness to her two daughters, Princesses Amelia and Charlotte when they stayed in the town.
The building is now known as The Venue, an independently owned 500 capacity live music venue and entertainment space. The Grade 2 Star listed building is noted with English Heritage as a building of great historical interest. Following a £2m refurbishment the building is now one of the UK’s leading live music venues.
In the main, the Worthing concert going experience is much different to that of Brighton. It’s likely connected with the general demographic of the town’s population as compared to our city, which has a high student population. This is reflected in the current batch of concerts coming up at The Venue, namely, tribute bands! There’s a Duran Duran one in the offering, a Depeche Mode one, a Human League one, a Supertramp one, a Coldplay one, and Hendrix Clapton Cream one. A few days ago there was even a Wrestling half term spectacular which had sold out! You’d never get me at wrestling, even if you offered me £1000 to go!
Tonight’s tribute was a homage to the now much respected and regenerated Gary Numan in the form of The Liquid Engineers who I had first witnessed live back on 1st May last year up at The Prince Albert in Brighton.
To be honest, I’m not really a fan of tributes, unless they are really, really good!
If a thing is worth doing, then you do it properly! Classic examples of this being Bootleg Blondie, Absolute Bowie and The Ramonas. Tributes are virtually almost always a shadow of the original artist and in certain cases need to be avoided like the plague. I avoided any form of Numan tributes ever since they came about, other than two of my mates going under the banner of The Borg, back in the day, but they were sadly short lived after the untimely passing of one of them.
Last year I plucked up courage to witness The Liquid Engineers as they were playing in Brighton a few hours before Gary Numan was himself at the Brighton Centre, his first time there in 39 years (Review HERE). So I really had nothing to lose! I concluded the review of The Liquid Engineers by stating that they “had won the crowd over, including me. Let’s hope that they make a swift return”. Today is that partial return! However, they will be playing Brighton on 15th September, where they will be filling Patterns. You can purchase your tickets for that concert HERE or HERE.
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).
This quintet proudly perform material from the start of Numan’s career in 1978 and 1979 with ‘Tubeway Army’, right through the decades up to his most recent 2021 ‘Intruder’ album. They pick out select tracks from all era’s over the last 45 years in order to provide an ever changeable setlist, including all the fan favourites and some long forgotten, but well loved album track choices, some of which is certain that Numan wouldn’t revisit in a live setting again. Thus tonight would be possibly the only chance to witness some of these masterpieces in a live setting.
The quintet graced the stage at 8:56pm and ran through no less than 20 Gary Numan numbers until 10:29pm. The two ‘Dave’s were stationed quite a way back on the performance area, but I guess they were utilising the available space, space that wasn’t available at my last encounter with the band up at The Prince Albert.
Dave T ‘Twiggs’ is certainly the luckiest member of the band as he was sitting behind the Tama drumset that was owned and used by Gary Numan’s South African born band member, Cedric Sharpley, from 1979 to 1992. In 1979 the Tama’s were brand new as well, and thankfully tonight the kit is looking in tip top condition. Sadly Cedric passed away in 2012 and ‘Twiggs’ managed to have a discussion I believe with Cedric’s other half to secure the instruments future. Not only that, but The Liquid Engineers encourage punters to donate money into an upturned drum on their merch stall. This has been put to good use, as last year alone, the gifts managed to put two kids through drum school.
As David H was so far back and his equipment was virtually hidden behind a panel, I was unable to ascertain what he was using. I could see the laptop as it was the highest, but I’m unsure what the two keyboards were, but it’s likely they are the same two Alesis synths as last year.
Centre front stage is Pat, who was in essence ‘Numan’. He’s mastered the voice and mannerisms perfectly, but a little work on the cocky swagger Numan stroll around the stage might be needed. Tonight he didn’t play his guitar as he had last year and he only played a few bars of the Yamaha CS1X synthesizer at the tail end of ‘Cars’.
Faye was stage left (our right) in control of her Rickenbacker bass and occasional Yamaha CS1X keys, and on the opposite side (stage right, our left) was Pete who flittered between lead and rhythm guitars, one of which was a Gould.
The lighting in the venue was rather good and thus negated the use of the 1979 style ‘The Touring Principle’ tube lighting put up by the band last year at The Prince Albert. The sound tonight was absolutely superb, the quality of the FBT speakers in use was almost unreal, you’d never guess that they have only been around for a decade. Thus, tunes like ‘Down In The Park’, ‘My Name Is Ruin’, ‘Metal’ and ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ – which started quietly like the Numan live version does – sounded wonderful, there was a great depth of meaty sound! I was standing there thinking to myself “Are these really a tribute act? They sound so good!”.
Mid set, during the ‘Airlane’ instrumental, Pat left the stage for a slight costume change, just like Numan used to do. The 20 tunes were a decent cross section of Numan classics and included several that Numan himself would no longer entertain in playing live. It was worth driving ‘over the border’ to this gig, just for those. A journey that was made all the more enjoyable by listening to ‘The Ruben and Sharon Show’ on RadioReverb, which is the UK’s only regular intergenerational radio show with a mum and son presenter. They excelled themselves this evening by playing the truly wonderful ‘The Morning Of Our Lives’ (live version) by Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, as well as dropping ‘These Days’, not the Joy Division one, but the Nico one. I have been fortunate to have witnessed both Jonathan Richman and Nico performing live.
Meanwhile….back in Worthing….The Liquid Engineers were rattling their way through their enjoyable set, which was vastly different to last year’s and the fans were all on board, including myself. The only complaint being ….”Wot no ‘Telekon’ tunes”. Yes I know that both 1980 ‘We Are Glass’ and ‘I Die: You Die’ singles were found on the cassette version, but I’m talking about the 10 others. Roll on 15th September, when they play Patterns…can’t wait!
The Liquid Engineers setlist of Gary Numan material:
‘Engineers’ (from 1979 ‘The Pleasure Principle’ album)
‘Me! I Disconnect From You’ (from 1979’s ‘Replicas’ album)
‘Creatures’ (from 1985 ‘The Fury’ album)
‘Down In The Park’ (from 1979’s ‘Replicas’ album)
‘Complex’ (from 1979 ‘The Pleasure Principle’ album)
‘Cold Warning’ (from 1984 ‘Berserker’ album)
‘Love Hurt Bleed’ (from 2013 ‘Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind)’ album)
‘Saints And Liars’ (from 2021 ‘Intruder’ album)
‘My Names Is Ruin’ (from 2017 ‘Savage (Songs from a Broken World)’ album)
‘Airlane’ (from 1979 ‘The Pleasure Principle’ album)
‘Cars’ (from 1979 ‘The Pleasure Principle’ album)
‘Stormtrooper In Drag’ (from 1982 ‘New Man Numan: The Best of Gary Numan’ compilation album (Paul Gardiner cover)
‘Love Needs No Disguise’ (from 1981 ‘For Future Reference’ Dramatis album) (Dramatis and Gary Numan song)
‘I Don’t Believe’ (from 1999 reissue of 1988 ‘Metal Rhythm’ album)
‘She’s Got Claws’ (from 1981 ‘Dance’ album)
‘Tracks’ (from 1979 ‘The Pleasure Principle’ album)
‘Metal’ (from 1979 ‘The Pleasure Principle’ album)
‘I Die: You Die’ (from 1980 cassette release of ‘Telekon’ album)
(encore)
‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ (from 1979’s ‘Replicas’ album)
‘We Are Glass’ from 1980 cassette release of ‘Telekon’ album)
Support this evening came from Synthony 101 who are an 1980’s electronic tribute act hailing from West Sussex (Rustington, I think). They formed in 1999 and operate as vocals and synthesizers only, with the odd bit of guitar thrown in for good measure. They pride themselves on creating cover versions from scratch and refuse to “cheat” by using MIDI files downloaded from the internet.
I last saw them live on 9th March 2018 in Lewes when they were a quartet featuring Hayley, Antony, Sean and Dave. Back then there was more than a whiff of Butlins/Cruise Ships vibe to them, although the folks then present enjoyed their set, which included their versions of The Human League (‘Being Boiled’), Gary Numan (‘Cars’), Blondie (‘Call Me’), OMD (‘Messages’), Kim Wilde (‘Kids In America’), Yazoo (‘Nobody’s Diary’), Depeche Mode (‘Everything Counts’), Propaganda (‘Duel’), Eurythmics (‘Here Comes The Rain Again’), Blancmange (‘Living On A Ceiling’) and Visage (‘Mind Of A Toy’) to name but a few.
Clearly in the interim period they have certainly honed their craft and were, putting it bluntly, much more enjoyable this time around! Tonight they are a trio of chaps with Antony on vocals and the other two stationed behind Roland Juno keys and other inputs, plus a Ensoniq SQ1 Plus Workstation. They commenced their 10 track set just before 8pm and entertained the punters until 8:40pm.
Tonight, only ‘Living On A Ceiling’ remained from their set five years ago. The other choices this evening were arguably not like their middle-of-the-road synth selection from my previous encounter. The track selection tonight was more pure cred retro synth and all would have sat nicely within a synthesizer mixtape. Incidentally I purchased all of the track selection on vinyl when they were released, so I was happy as Larry Loeber.
They opened with Depeche Mode’s ‘Photographic’, which just might be my fave tune of theirs. I have it on the 1981 ‘Some Bizarre’ compilation album, which also featured seminal material from Soft Cell, Blancmange, The The, B-Movie and Naked Lunch.
Next up was the first of two Ultravox covers, namely ‘Passing Strangers’, the other was ‘Sleepwalk’ which was the penultimate track. ‘Living On A Ceiling’ followed and was solid. Visage’s “ahhhh ‘Fade To Grey boom” was given an outing, a predictable choice, being the band’s biggest hit from 1980. Maybe taking a punt on 1982’s ‘The Damned Don’t Cry’ or ‘Pleasure Boys’ would have been more of a surprise.
They took me unawares by playing the timeless ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (Joy Division), which was most enjoyable, as was the following number ‘Seconds’ (The Human League), a wise selection instead of opting for the very safe ‘Don’t You Want Me’, which like Kraftwerk’s ‘The Model’, are both almost the weakest tunes on their retrospective albums…..controversial or what!
‘Quiet Life’ (Japan) was unleashed next. I would have equally been happy with ‘Life In Tokyo’, ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’, or ‘The Art Of Parties’. Their second Human League cover tonight was ‘The Sound Of The Crowd’, also from 1981’s classic ‘Dare’ album, which can only be bettered by ‘Love Action (I Believe in Love)’. Their second Ultravox number was ‘Sleepwalk’, which was also from 1980’s ‘Vienna’ album and both tunes (‘Sleepwalk’ and ‘Passing Strangers’), being selected as singles ahead of the biggie album title track. A useless piece of information?……“This means nothing to me Ohhhhhhhh….”.
They left us with OMD’s debut single, ‘Electricity’. Now here is a band that has gone in a handful of years from one I wasn’t fussed about ever seeing them live again, to really wanting to see again! And that folks is why you always check out the support bands!
