Gary Numan '11

Overview

For over 30 years, Gary Numan has moved effortlessly from one genre to another, all the while creating something instantly recognizable as his alone. Inspiring new generations of musicians at every turn, the synth-pop pioneer who first launched a thousand blips before morphing into the neo-metallic lord of darkwave, has not only reinvented himself but shed new possibilities on increasingly jaded genres. In this spectacular concert we filmed in Sydney, he plays his entire 1979 album The Pleasure Principle, and it's astonishing to remember that it was recorded with no guitars whatsoever. Today those same songs are delivered with a fierce determination, and it's easy to see how the sheer symphonic power of those early chords lay the foundation for the industrial goth-metal of later songs like Jagged and Halo.