I was just heading off to bed one night last week when I happened to catch a recording of the Sonisphere 2014 festival, and while some of the acts were meh, there was one that stood out to me, the more because it surprised me how impressed I was. That was the single song performed by Gary Numan, darling of the eighties new-wave scene and best known of course for his number one hit with Tubeway Army, “Are friends electric?” It was in fact this song that he played, but it was the way he “rocked it up” that truly staggered me. Known as one of the best examples of what would be seen as emotionless pop music of the time, it's hard to imagine this rocking at all, but he did a great job on it.
Now of course I guess anything can be made tougher and harder and more rocky if you have the talent, but for me the awe was that this was not a cover by some rock band who would be used to such music, but the artiste himself, famous for his pasty-faced makeup, emotionless drone and unblinking stare, and to see him with long(ish) unkempt hair, smiling and dancing around, well it was quite a revelation.
The crowd certainly seemed to love it (most would have known or known of it I guess, even if they would pretend never to have heard it or enjoyed it) and Numan himself seemed to be having a blast. The keyboards were there, sure, but cut right back and the electric guitars drove the song, giving it much more of a bite, adding a real punch and injecting a lot of emotion into a song that originally would have made the likes of Kraftwerk proud. I of course don't know how Numan performs these days, and his last album seems to be mostly still rooted in the new-wave/industrial style of music, but it's good to know that almost thirty years later he's discovered how to kick back, let his hair down, smile and not take everything so deadly serious. Are friends electric? This song certainly was, in a live setting.