A mere 29 years after he first came to my attention, I decided it was time to see Gary Numan in concert, which I did last night, in Wolverhampton. He is on his Replicas tour, playing the whole of the Replicas album, which topped the UK album charts for a week in July 1979, when released under the Tubeway Army name.

The gig was very good, but don't ask me too much detail as it's all a blur already. I woke up yesterday in the grip of the lurgy, but stupidly went to work for 07:00, I lasted until 08:45, then came home, went to bed before 10:00 and slept until gone 16:00. I seriously considered not going to the gig, but after waiting so long, I wasn't going to waste my money, so I struggled valiantly on, drove to Wolverhampton and spent the whole gig sniffling and wishing I could sit down.

It was worth going though, not just to see Gary Numan and his fantastic band, who were enthralling and at times thrillingly dark and brooding, just as I expected, but also for the support band. They are called Daggers and they were absolutely captivating. Their singer, Theo (as I find out from their MySpace page) was brilliant, with his bequiffed head, spinning around on stage like a Morrissey on speed, possessed by the spirit of Billy Idol. He was wearing an open black leather jacket, with a flimsy black waistcoat underneath, revealing much of his incredibly lean torso, along with low-slung black trousers with a big silver belt buckle, accentuating how incredibly flat his stomach was. Let's just say he was extremely fit, as well as oozing charisma. It's probably unfair to call him their lead singer, as one of their two synth players (actually three, as the guitarist grabbed one of the synths later on too) also sang lead vocals on all of their songs. She's called Biz, but she was stuck behind the keyboards, while Theo was leaping about.

All sorts of influences went through my mind as I watched them; The Associates, Editors, New Order and The Other Two, OMD, The Human League and even Killing Joke. (I'm amazed they don't list The Associates amongst the diverse influences they acknowledge on MySpace.) But the final piece of the jigsaw was only put into my head as I walked to the toilets in the interval and I overheard a man say three words, "Spear of Destiny". That's who he reminded me of, Kirk Brandon! (Photo on right.) Here's Theo, taken from Daggers' MySpace photo albums:



Daggers' MySpace page has links to four tracks which you can download for free. I heartily recommend them. The band is also playing at Poptastic's birthday party at Birdcage in Manchester on Tuesday 8 April. I think I might go.

Oh blimey. Pete Burns is on as well. I'm definitely going!

Labels: Daggers, Gary Numan, gig

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