It all started with Gary Numan. On 26th September 1979 my mum took me and two of my three siblings to the Manchester Apollo to see the man whose Top Of The Pops debut a few months earlier had been the talk of the school playground the following day; the jarring, alien nature of Tubeway Army’s “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” was like nothing you’d ever heard before. A week later it was number one and for the next few months my copies of Replicas and The Pleasure Principle were never too far away from the turntable. The Apollo gig was my first ever. A few months earlier I’d been given the opportunity by my dad to see Dire Straits at the same venue but had turned it down, knowing that one day the topic of my first ever gig would come up in conversation and that my indie cred might be at stake. My brother wasn’t so lucky.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Replicas the album has been re-released with all the usual extra tracks and Numan is touring, playing tracks from the album as well as the b-sides and rarities that make up those album extras. The last time I saw Numan live was at the first V Festival in Warrington in 1996, during his goth metal phase that I’m not entirely sure he’s out of yet. Prior to that, my brother and I saw him a number of times during the 80s, always at the Apollo, where he would return year after year with a new album and a new look. These shows were always highly enjoyable; they had great sci-fi stage sets with synth players sitting atop huge towers of light and drum risers that rose halfway to the ceiling. By the time he released Strange Charm in 1986 I was rapidly losing interest, my attention now focused on the likes of The Smiths, R.E.M., The Go-Betweens, The Replacements and all manner of exciting indie guitar bands. My brother hung on in there for another decade but I got the impression that Numan’s best days were far behind him.

So, Brother and I arrived at a packed Academy for a night of pure, unadulterated nostalgia. After a half-hearted attempt to get to the bar we found a decent spot about halfway back and watched the last few songs of support band, Daggers. I’d seen Daggers a few years ago at the Roadhouse, when they were called Bureau, and they were pretty good, if I recall. At the Academy they went down very well with the aging crowd,which is not surprising considering that they are exactly the sort of synth pop band that began popping up everywhere in the early 80s on the back of Numan’s inital success. What we saw was, again, pretty good and brought back memories of Depeche Mode, Soft Cell and Human League among others.

Songs aside, I didn’t really know what to expect from Gary Numan. He is prone to drastic rearrangements of his older material, which is understandable if you’ve been playing the songs for 20 years, but I am happy to report that he gave us as faithful a rendition of each song as I had hoped. The atmospheric “Replicas” kicked things off in great style as I struggled in vain to remember the song’s title (my more knowledgeable sibling put me right after the gig). Not the words, though: I was surprised to find that I remembered almost every word to every song on an album I hadn’t heard for 20 years; and most of the b-sides. “Me! I Disconnect From You” was next and it was great to hear it again as it’s one of Numan’s very best with its brilliant synth melodies and soaring vocals. Unfortunately – and this was the case for quite a few songs on the night – those synth parts that should have been booming from the speakers and filling all four corners of the room, were all but drowned out by the bass and guitars. Numan’s vocals were excellent, however, sounding better than they did back in the day, and it’s fair to say that, despite the fact that this gig was taking place on his 50th birthday, he barely looked a day older than he did in the late 80s, at least from where I was standing – I’ve no idea exactly how thick a layer of foundation he was wearing.

Despite the minor gripes about the sound almost everything from Replicas was a great success and went down a storm with the crowd, particularly the menacing “Down In The Park” and the guitar-driven power pop of “You Are In My Vision”. Interspersed between the album tracks were the b-sides and other songs from the same era. “We Are So Fragile” and “We Have A Technical” were two of the high points of the night while “The Crazies” and “Do You Need the Service?” were less successful.

After a slight mid-set lull, exacerbated by having instrumentals “I Nearly Married A Human” and “When The Machines Rock” played in close proximity, the set gathered great momentum to reach its inevitable conclusion of “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?”. Again, the guitars smothered what is Numan’s most well known and influential synth riff, though his vocal performance was as close to the original as you could get, only the annoying “whoa-o”s from the audience putting a dampener on things, drowning out yet more marvelous synth work.

We were left wondering what he had left to play for the encores when he came out to announce that it was 10:30 – the exact time he was born 50 years ago. Cue the surprise appearance of the wife with birthday cake, the rendition of “Happy Birthday” by the thousand strong audience, and a few tears from the man himself. He muttered a few words of thanks before launching into “Cars” – slightly off the gig’s chosen path but as rapturously received as you would expect. Then we got “Every Day I Die” from Tubeway Army’s eponymous debut and another great jolt of nostalgia from a song that I won’t be hesitating to put forward when The Guardian’s Readers Recommend section finally gets round to Songs About Wanking, which should be any week now.

He finished up with, I believe, “Prayer To The Unborn” from Pure, released well after I jumped ship but sounding pretty darned great and fitting in well with all that had come before. Still, I won’t be rushing out to buy those later albums; there may be some decent songs there but they won’t come attached with wistful links to my formative years. Should Numan tour, say, The Pleasure Principle or Tubeway Army or Warriors or Dance, then I’ll certainly be back to see him.

Tubeway Army – Me! I Disconnect From You

Tubeway Army – We Have A Technical