Gary Numan was born Gary Webb in 1958 and began his musical career in a punk band called The Lasers in 1976. The following year, he and bassist Paul Gardiner left the band to form a new group called Tubeway Army, this new venture allowing them more freedom to explore their interest in synthesizers. The fusion of electronic and punk music was heavily inspired by Kraftwerk and David Bowie and saw the release of their first album, the self titled Tubeway Army in 1978. The following year saw the release of their second album Replicas, which contained the number one hit Are Friends Electric?, with both the album and single topping the UK charts. This second album was credited as Gary Numan and Tubeway Army and Numan had become a star overnight.
He replaced Tubeway Army with a larger backing band, but retained Paul Gardiner on bass and thus released his first album The Pleasure Principle in 1979. Containing his first international hit Cars, the album also topped the charts in the UK giving Numan consecutive number one albums. 1980 saw the release of Telekon which again topped the charts in England and contained three more hits, We Are Glass, I Die You Die and This Wreckage. In 1981 Numan announced his retirement from live performing (well, he was 23!) and did some farewell shows prior to the release of The Dance. Yet again, he achieved good chart success with this album and its lead single She’s Got Claws. He returned from retirement in 1982 to release the album I, Assassin and the single We Take Mystery (To Bed) and again achieved chart success, but by now the charts were flooded with synth-pop and it was not only competitive, but also repetitive. His 1983 album Warriors saw his last top ten hit in the UK.
1984 was a big year for Numan, long time friend and bassist Paul Gardiner died early on from a drug overdose, he formed the Numa record label and released and toured for the Berserker album. 1985 saw the release of The Fury which saw the last major chart success for Numan, He has gone on to continue recording and still maintains a diehard cult following today, but has never repeated his earlier success.
Gary Numan – Berserker is a concert filmed at the Hammersmith Odeon, London on December 11, 1984. From the opening segment containing interviews with fans and Numan preparing for the show, you instantly know you are back in the early '80s. The hairstyles are huge, containing a ton of hair spray, and the clothes are equally strange. The concert itself is only brief, with a running time of only 57:20. Numan seems a bit lost on stage, wandering from one side to the other, posing at the audience with his familiar fish style pout. He sounds as only he can, but I must admit the lyrics are a little hard to understand.
The setting for the stage is very futuristic and has been based on an arctic theme being predominantly white. Numan doesn’t interact with the audience to any degree verbally - he is simply there to perform.
Track listing:
We Are Glass
Berserker
Remind Me to Smile
Sister Surprise
Music For Chameleons
The Iceman Comes
Cold Warning
This Prison Moon
My Dying Machine
We Take Mystery (To Bed)
This is New Love
The biggest disappointment with this concert is the exclusion of his biggest hits. Songs such as Cars, This Wreckage and She’s Got Claws are personal favourites and chart toppers, but they don’t get a mention here. Apart from this exclusion, the concert is very good and is well filmed. Numan is not the best performer in the world, but most fans will not be surprised by this. Overall, this is a good show that most fans should enjoy.
For a concert of this age, this transfer is very good indeed. It is presented in full frame and is therefore not 16x9 enhanced. The only problems of concern are those usually associated with live performances, such as the over saturation mainly caused by blue lighting. There is some grain and aliasing but, as stated before, these are acceptable for a show of this age and are no worse than you'll find on the majority of concert releases on the market. There are no subtitles supplied and these would have been nice to understand the distinctive singing drool of Mr Numan. I should also mention the very nice and easy to navigate animated menu.
Audio supplied is a choice of English Dolby Digital 2.0 or 5.1. Both do a good job, with the DD 2.0 being a touch quieter. Separation is used subtly to add to the concert feel. Both are very bass driven and as mentioned prior, the vocals are hard to understand, but this is as much due to the singing style as to the audio track. Overall the audio does a satisfactory job and is as good as expected for something recorded 20 years ago. There is one annoyance with the audio, whenever the DVD VJ is selected and played in its default DD 2.0, the concert resumes also in DD 2.0.
The only extra with this release is the ability to press 'enter' when an icon appears before each song. By doing this, you activate a mini rundown about the song from a DVD VJ, giving some good information.
Considering myself a fan, I was slightly disappointed with this release. There is nothing wrong with the concert itself and the transfer is quite good, but my disappointment stems from the selection of songs. Quite a few of these songs were hits in England, but most will have trouble recognising them. Having said that though, this isn’t promoted as a best of release, it is simply a show from his 1984 tour and those not expecting a catalogue of his biggest hits will be satisfied.