By Christopher David<\/p>\n
The trend of playing albums in their entirety is the stuff of dreams for the rabid music fan; it would be impossible for me to even think of all the times in my life when I\u2019ve thought, upon entering a venue, I wish they\u2019d just play the whole record<\/em>. Seeing songs live has always given them a special kind of legitimacy in my eyes, so the whole concept of a top-to-bottom live set\u2014a relatively new one\u2014is more than cool with me.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a rare opportunity, though, to see a truly legendary artist revisit an entire era<\/em> live. That opportunity presented itself when the one and only Gary Numan, the godfather of modern electronic music, landed at the Metro for a three-night stand that saw the classic \u201cmachine\u201d trilogy performed in its entirety on respective nights: 1979\u2019s Replicas, <\/em>its immediate follow-up The Pleasure Principle, <\/em>and 1980\u2019s Telekon<\/em>.<\/p>\n Replicas<\/em> led the charge, offering up an immediate platter of hook-drenched classics. \u201cDown in the Park,\u201d \u201cMe, I Disconnect From You,\u201d and \u201cAre Friends Electric\u201d all followed the title track which began as slow-burner intro music and slithered into the full-band album arrangement. One of the more interesting elements of the residency was that no record was played in sequential order\u2014the setlist was structured to fit a live environment, which presented an interesting angle on the material. There was no phoning in of album cuts just because they happened to be on an album; every song had its place. This worked particularly well for Replicas<\/em>, allowing for some of the lesser-known and just as catchy album tracks to find a comfortable and well-received home among the more widely-known tunes.<\/p>\n Five minutes into the first night\u2019s set, and it was clear that overstating Numan\u2019s importance to modern electronic rock would be impossible. Clad entirely in black, his lithe stage movements, commanding and confident as the crowd shouted along with the songs, called to mind everyone from David Bowie before him to Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson after him. Synth textures wove in and out of undeniable hooks, and indeed, watching the five-piece band roar through the bouncing riffs of \u201cThe Machman\u201d and the driving, mechanized pulse of \u201cI Nearly Married A Human,\u201d you could practically see the entire landscape of 1980s and \u201890s industrial, goth, and new wave as we know these genres: it was being mapped out, track-by-track, on the Metro stage by the guy who, for all intents and purposes, created it, just as surely as Bowie kicked down the doors to glam rock in the early \u201870s.<\/p>\n The Pleasure Principle <\/em>and Telekon<\/em> came across just as smoothly, with the former hinting at an almost soundtrack-styled series of soundscapes. It\u2019s not a long album, and while \u201cCars\u201d is the obvious takeaway for the casual listener, \u201cMetal,\u201d \u201cM.E.,\u201d and \u201cObserver\u201d remain some of Numan\u2019s catchiest and most compelling tracks (\u201cMetal,\u201d having been covered by everyone from Nine Inch Nails to Afrika Bombaattaa, is absolutely pummeling live and is perhaps the best harbinger of where industrial music would go in the 1990s when it met the radio).<\/p>\n Lyrically, the paranoia and future-shock of the \u201cmachine\u201d albums seems perfectly at home in 2016, when surveillance, artificial intelligence, and robotic technology is the norm and not some comic-book vision of society gone mad. Songs like \u201cI Dream of Wires\u201d (\u2018we opened doors by thinking\/we went to sleep by dialing O\u2019<\/em>), \u201cWe Are So Fragile\u201d (\u2018they can give us a war just to keep us amused\u2019<\/em>), and \u201cEngineers\u201d (\u2018we are your heartbeat, we are your nightlife\u2026all we know is you and machinery\u2019<\/em>) feature characters that are seemingly among us now, a shadowy, synthetic, robotic presence in our culture as we struggle to find the balance in the relationship between men and machines. Nowhere in Numan\u2019s catalog is this more apparent than in the disparate, haunting Telekon. <\/em>The most abstract of the \u201cmachine\u201d records, Telekon<\/em>\u2019s presence live was almost as atmospheric as the studio version, which is something of an achievement given the dry, sometimes minimalist approach taken in songs like \u201cSleep by Windows\u201d and \u201cRemember I Was Vapour.\u201d Offset by tracks like \u201cThe Joy Circuit\u201d and \u201cWe Are Glass,\u201d which call to mind the more hook-driven singles from Replicas<\/em>, Telekon<\/em> provided the most diverse set of songs in the three nights.<\/p>\n The real triumph of these three records, particularly when viewed as a trilogy of sorts, is the exploration of that man\/machine relationship, and the humanity in Numan\u2019s early work is something that, to this writer\u2019s eyes, has never been given enough credit. For every warbling, synthesized echo, there\u2019s a lush, layered piano melody lurking nearby, for the robotic delivery of vocals in songs like \u201cCars,\u201d there\u2019s a tranquil, softly-sung tune like \u201cPlease Push No More.\u201d Telekon<\/em> in particular hums with a kind of paranoid menace, but by the end, gives way to \u201cI Die You Die,\u201d one of Numan\u2019s greatest pieces, bringing the trio of albums full circle. (It\u2019s no surprise, taking the three-night longview of the setlists, that \u201cI Die You Die\u201d was one of the only songs played each night, alongside \u201cCars,\u201d \u201cMetal,\u201d and \u201cDown in the Park.\u201d) That the material translated so well to a live stage more than thirty years down the line is a testament to how ahead of his time Numan really was in building his dystopian musical world. If you walked into a club and saw these songs being performed for the first time this weekend by a brand-new artist, you\u2019d be throwing your credit cards at the merch table and demanding for someone to get Riot Fest on the phone.<\/p>\n Establishing a real legacy is one of the hardest things for a musician to do, requiring just the right combination of timing and talent\u2014there\u2019s a reason that, in the grand scheme of things, there are relatively few enduring musical icons. Gary Numan is a both a legend and an icon, a mad scientist and great songwriter, and as this live exploration of his most epic work proved, his legacy is etched in stone.<\/p>\n Or maybe microchip.<\/p>\n For more info on Gary Numan, tour and music, click here<\/a><\/p>\n For photo gallery from the three nights at the Metro in Chicago, click here<\/a><\/p>\n