NOTE: All photos are copyright of Howard Shiau Photography 2025
If all you know about Gary Numan is his big 80s hit “Cars”, then you’re missing out. Yes, he was an icon back in the 80s but he’s been putting out new music and touring regularly ever since. If you’ve ever been to one of his shows, you’d remember it vividly. And his music has evolved from almost all synthesizer to synthesizer layered with heavy bass and guitar. His TWENTY SECOND studio album “Intruder” (released in 2021) is dark and angry, something you don’t see that much from acts who have found success. This reflects the world today with global warming accelerating and the increased polarization in world politics. Numan’s tour to support that album ended up getting postponed as Covid numbers were rising. He resumed the tour last month at the Fonda Theatre in LA and stopped by the Town Ballroom in Buffalo on Saturday, March 12th.
Holy Crap! I Speak Machine’s (aka Tara Busch) brooding and intense set freaking blew me away! Her performance is very theatrical, complete with scream and yelps as she stomps around the stage, a perfect opener for the similarly theatrical Gary Numan. And why not as the project started as a collaboration with filmmaker Maf Lewis, making music for soundtracks to horror and sci-fi films. I’m looking forward to going through her back catalogue of work.
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Gary Numan and his band hit the stage at 1000% from the word go. For a guy in his mid-60s, I was seriously impressed by the energy he exhibits on-stage, more than lead singer for much younger bands that I’ve seen. He is moving non-stop, making it feel like a concert mixed with modern interpretive dance. The lighting was also very well done without too many bells and whistles. The setlist itself was a great mix of oldies that everyone recognizes and newer songs from his last two albums. I surprised myself to find that I was much more into the harder dark industrial rock songs that came from 2018’s “Savage”. Those seemed to jive better with the current composition of the band and aesthetic. I would dare say that I enjoyed this show more than most and it’s definitely on my short list of top concerts of the year (so far).
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