Gary Numan is, in my opinion, an iconic artist who was always on my list of people to see. Friday 14th November 2025 threw up the perfect opportunity for me to achieve this when he performed at the O2 Academy in Leeds.
The tour had been billed as the 45th anniversary of his revered “Telekon” album and it was announced that he would be playing the majority, if not all of the tracks on that the album. This promise was fulfilled and it seemed to delight the capacity audience.
The atmosphere was great and Numan himself seemed to revel in this. His daughter Raven was the support act and I have to say I quite enjoyed her material which, wasn’t too dissimilar to that of her father.
Some casual fans might be disappointed that he didn’t perform two of his most well-known songs in “Cars” and “Are Friends Electric?” however the Numanoids will have been delighted with the tracks they did hear.
I had to familiarise myself with some tracks pre-gig however, I found that I enjoyed the majority of them on the night. Many people will be familiar with “This Wreckage”, the set opener, plus “I Die, You Die” and “We Are Glass” which were played back-to-back prior to the encore.
Talking of the encore, Numan went back to the very beginning and treated us to four Tubeway Army songs. My favourite of these was the first one “My Shadow in Vain”.
I was unsure, prior to the gig, how good Gary’s voice would be at the age of 67 however, I had no reason for concern as his vocal skills don’t seem to have diminished very much, if at all, over the last forty-five years or so! One other thing I noticed was that his energy levels didn’t drop throughout his performance. He bounced around and contorted his body in ways I could never imagine being able to do!
Numan isn’t a big talker. He communicated more with gestures than actual words. He did interact with the audience when he felt it was appropriate and in the lead up to “Like A B-Film” he described it as a song he thought was “shit at the time” referring to when it was written, circa 1980. It has now been included as a bonus track on the 2025 re-release of the album. For what it’s worth, I really enjoyed it on first hearing.
Overall, it was a very entertaining night and I have already booked to see him again in 2026 at the Piece Hall here in Halifax. I would expect that show to include the aforementioned big hits that were omitted in Leeds. I also should be able to avoid the travel chaos I experienced due to the inclement weather which disrupted my journey to the venue.
I would give this gig a rating of four stars (out of five). One sad footnote to this event was the tragic passing of Numan’s brother after attending the gig himself. RIP John.
