The local classic rock radio station used to get these lyrics stuck in my head all of the time: “here in my car / I feel safest of all / I can lock all my doors / it’s only way to live - in cars”
Such a weird song to hear in your car. Weird because it feels - true? And you put the synthy layered guitar riffs on top of it, and you’re just lost in the fog of wondering how it’s a classic rock song even though you know, undeniably, it is. Like it could be The Cars almost but it’s so, so much weirder, in the most intriguing way possible.
In high school it got drowned out by Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and other various “industrial” fascinations I had, where Gary Numan was little more than a curious name check. It wasn’t until I was in college and working on some mixes for a guitar riff heavy band I was working with, that as I was reference mixing against some Red Hot Chili Peppers or somebody else with that guitar-tone-is-competing-with-the-vocal-in-frequency issue (IYKYN), and somebody, I wish I remembered who, so probably my buddy Jim, suggested I put a Gary Numan album on.
“Like, the here in my car guy?” “Exactly.” “Classic rock?” “Not so much, but there’s more space in those mixes than you’d expect. Plus, so many layers despite so many pointed sounds.”
Thus began my modest familiarization and fascination with The Pleasure Principle. Over the years I tried to venture away from that album, but, you know what is and isn’t exactly your thing, and something about the middle school meets high school new ear’d surprise factor made that one special to me.
Now my wife has had a totally different experience with Gary Numan. She’s synth girl, though. So anything that has synths in it I assume she irrationally loves, which she regularly corrects me on (but then admits it’s true), and she is up on his pre-fame and post-fame catalogue, entirely.
That’s how, when we were talking about going out to Joshua Tree again, and how we wanted to see a show at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown, because we ate their last time and walked around where the shows were outside, looking up at the starry sky in the desert and the small stage and agreeing this would be amazing, we ended up with our last trip getting booked.
Gary Numan was playing at Pappy and Harriet’s. It was almost 2 years to the day from the last time we were there. So we got tickets and a vacation with a concert in it was born.
For those who have never been - even though we got there early, the parking lots were filling fast and the warm day with a cool breeze was quickly turning cold, it is April after all, and we weren’t sure what to expect as we parked a quarter of a mile down the nothing road in a sandy parking lot next to a different bar.
Drunks were calling out to the band on the porch. We heard 30 seconds of “Mustang Sally” - by request, after we parked the rental car and began the desert stroll towards the venue. It’s actually a pretty cool walk. It feels like you’re on the set of a western and somebody else will have to tell you what those other buildings and places are, but people were everywhere just walking about, and we quickly joined the long queue to enter the venue.
We got in and - it was a party from the jump.
I was real glad I’d brought my knit cap. Just saying. Desert nights get deceptively cold, fast, especially in April.
The t-shirt game at this concert deserves it’s own moment. If it wasn’t kind of a mid-vacation date night, I’d have been tempted to walk around with my phone and take pictures or maybe even videoing people asking about the merch they were wearing. We saw some incredible stuff while we sipped some drinks waiting for the show to start.
I saw a TSOL hat. A Viagra Boys tank top. A Ministry tour shirt from the 80s. Lots of Cure and Skinny Puppy merch. A bunch of Nine Inch Nails stuff. A Throbbing Gristle shirt. Too many cool pins and patches. The merch game here was like nothing I’d ever seen. And believe it or not, Wilkes-Barre has quality merch fashion when the old heads come out, but this was a West Coast experience at this show.
Tremours was the opening act and they were cool. Great duo. Totally fitting for the vibe. The sun was setting. We talked to the Gary Numan merch guy and got some new swag. My wife got a shirt and we got the most amazing car air freshener ever for our buddy Kenny’s new car as a gift (and he’s a big Gary Numan fan so, can’t go wrong there).
But once the sun got down, it was time.
The starry blackness of the sky, against the soft string lights, makes for an dizzying display of out of focus reflections. When all the lights go out and just the stage lights are there, the blackness and contrast is visually deafening. It’s the coolest part about being at an outdoor show.
Because when the real lights kick in - you are as blinded as you are blown away by the turned up sound when moments ago you could have heard a jack rabbit hopping around 30 feet away like it was next to you. The desert atmosphere is so weird. To all of the senses.
I have a thing about what I call “time machine shows.” The stuff I would go back and see in a particular place and moment just to know how it really felt. I’ve got early stage Nine Inch Nails and Ministry on that DeLorean tour list. They’re there because I always wondered, and always thought I’d have loved to know, what all those synths and guitars and deep basses and splitting leads felt like in the right sized room, performed expertly well, as killer LIVE songs.
That will (probably) never happen. But this show scratched that itch. Gary Numan delivered on a smaller venue crazy crowd and sonic experience that I never thought I’d have.
For starters, the band and presentation was heavier than I expected? More industrial and less straight synthy. That’s not a weight comment. Gary looks good for 68 (and, totally like a Gary without makeup, I bet).
The band itself was wild. Very un-“Gary” energy. Way harder and heavier than the synth-pop guy would have suggested. Him and the guitar player and bassist put on something that is straight out of a dystopian fantasy movie you feel like you saw before but can’t quite remember. It got weird at times (“did they… kiss? Did you see that?”), but it got as weird as it deserved to get at times because that’s kinda his whole thing and it was amazing.
The crowd loved it. There probably should have been a mosh pit or some crowd surfing but there wasn’t. Age appropriate? Maybe. But there could have been. That point matters. Because Numan himself? You’d really never have guessed he was 68. My wife had to google it.
He’s apparently been going through some stuff adults his age go through, that my wife filled me in on (re: googling, some Facebook posts, etc.), but that guy can PERFORM. He was killer live. His voice sounded more the same than I’d have guessed and the dance moves - from the poses and extensions to the, what I can only describe as a weird, wounded dove-flapping type of move that he did a bunch of times - Gary Numan is goth Mic Jagger.
Nothing beats live music. I can’t believe I could go from riding in the car with my dad in the ‘80s and ‘90s, hearing a song on the classic rock station, to reference mixing something in college for the frequency ranges, to seeing him live on the other side of the country in the desert in the span of 40 years. Only music can do that.
If you get to see Gary Numan on this tour, or in the near future, I can’t recommend it enough. As I told my wife after the show, “Best Goth Rave Ever.” “You think everything is a goth rave, don’t you” she asked. “Isn’t it?”
It is. Why not. Party on. Even with the pasty kids, err now adults. Their synths sound awesome after all.
p.p.s. photo credit is me, but with my wife’s phone, and honestly I had no idea how cool some of those came out until later that night because I was zoomed in and kind of shooting blind. Again, the light in the desert is something else!
