NEWS: Gary Numan Announces Show At ASB Theatre Auckland

Thursday , 03 Feb 2011

The Pleasure Principle 30th Anniversary Tour

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of his revolutionary album, The Pleasure Principle, Solid Entertainment is proud to present Gary Numan, one of the founding fathers of modern electronic music.

Having toured New Zealand just once in 1980, the electro pioneer is returning to perform his classic 1979 album The Pleasure Principle in its entirety, plus material spanning across his career.

Gary Numan performs one show only on Saturday 21st May at the ASB Theatre in Auckland.

The release of The Pleasure Principle in 1979 was a defining moment in music history. It marked the birth of electro-pop and cemented Gary Numan as an innovator and pioneer in modern popular music. Thirty years later it’s difficult to imagine just how different Numan’s music sounded and felt at the time. Most people quite simply had never heard the like!

As an album, The Pleasure Principle abandoned tradition. A rock album where guitars were largely replaced with Numans’ signature sound of synthesizers being fed through guitar effects pedals with traditional song structures being left behind altogether. Containing the iconic single ‘Cars’, The Pleasure Principle ushered in a decade of forward-thinking electro-pop, and a revolution in popular music.

In 1979 Gary Numan had released the Replicas album under the name Tubeway Army. The revelatory and unique sounding single ‘Are Friends Electric’ reached Number 1 signposting the epoch defining The Pleasure Principle album to be released later in the same year.

Astonishing commercial chart-topping success followed and Numan’s innovative production techniques and sounds spawned massive, unprecedented and ground-breaking hits around the world. With three Number 1 albums in the space of 2 years it was an extraordinary period in time, a period of seismic music cultural change and impact that still resonates today.

Creatively, not only did The Pleasure Principle act as a benchmark for many electro-pop artists following in Numan’s legacy including Ultravox, The Human League and Depeche Mode, but it also had a direct impact on the works of a wide and varied range of artists including Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Basement Jaxx, Sugababes, Wu Tang Clan, Fear Factory and Afrika Bambaata. Artists who later covered or sampled Numan songs giving birth to a whole new re-booted generation of Numan hits!

Few artists can lay claim to the titles of 'legendary' and 'pioneering' but as the NME noted 'Gary Numan's influence on electronic music is unparalleled’. In recent times the legacy has solidified further through the wide acknowledgement and respect from such artists as Queens of the Stone Age, Beck, Tricky, Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker and David Bowie. In 2009 Trent Reznor invited Gary to appear onstage with Nine Inch Nails explaining how Numan was a “vitally important and a huge inspiration” during the past 20 years.

In 2011 Gary Numan’s influence has resonated far and wide. He’s made an indelible mark in musical history, commands huge respect from his peers and his name and his music have spanned the last thirty years via many channels.

Gary Numan’s story is not one that could have been scripted. Who would have guessed that to a whole new generation of TV audiences he would become an instantly recognisable cult figure in the hugely popular series The Mighty Boosh? The Vince Noir character made many adulatory references to Numan later leading to a personal appearance.

Vince Noir [holds up a cassette tape] “This is the best of the sixties.” [holds up another cassette] “And this is the best of the seventies.” [lifts a huge stack of cassettes] “And this is Gary Numan!”

Don’t miss your chance to see Gary Numan performing The Pleasure Principle this May 21st. One New Zealand show only.