Tripod, Dublin: Thirty years ago, synthesizer maestro Gary Numan foretold the arrival of a chilly dystopia, a future of crystalline surfaces, muted unhappiness and social disconnection. With heavy irony, the album that described it was called The Pleasure Principle. Today, crammed into the Tripod with an army of nostalgic, nodding and sometimes air-punching Numanoids, it's easy to believe that its contentedly miserable prophecy has been fulfilled.
It isn’t that the man who sings “All that we know is hate and machinery” was eventually proved correct by a robot uprising. Instead, Numan’s vindication lay in the shape of pop music to come.
A taciturn presence, he is unlikely to say he told us so, and taking the stage in a conspiracy of black Doc Martens, military chic, kohl-lined eyes and liquorice-coloured hair, he seems no warmer now than in 1979. Indeed, the man who paired the glassy sound of Moogs with the alienating pinch of his voice knows there are pleasures in unlikely combinations.
Once roundly mocked by his peers (Yes tore him apart in a song), Numan has left a much keener imprint on pop than his detractors. When M.E. reverberates darkly through the space, its grimly compelling motif divided among a number of synth banks, you can't banish thoughts of Basement Jaxx's sample-siphoning club hit. Similarly, it's difficult to disentangle the Sugababes' mash-up from the whirling hook of his original Are Friends Electric?or to silence the grisly echoes of Nine Inch Nails when Numan swivels towards industrial rock. From a pop song to a ringtone, you'll hear his gargantuan hit, Cars, freely appropriated everywhere, and performed live it's a sound that still suits today: sharp, repetitive, slightly unhinged.
Performed in its entirety, The Pleasure Principleseems suspiciously effortless, its slick drones and pinprick details rarely demanding more than two-finger tapping from Numan and his cohorts. But when the synths are traded in for churning guitars and pummelling beats, only the drilling Pureand Hauntedstand out among the wallops of industrial aggro. The variation gives the performance a new energy, but tellingly it's his return to the more finely wrought Are Friends Electric?– here softened by additional piano – that finds Numan making a connection with his audience. As the song ends on gentle drift of synths, Numan steps forward to trace languid patterns in the air, as though painting, taking deserved pleasure in his portrait.
