Gary Numan, auteur and pioneer in electronic music, is currently on tour in support of his 21st studio album, Savage (Songs from a Broken World). The album is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape and populated by humans haunted by their fight for survival. Numan brought those ghosts with him to Brooklyn Steel in Brooklyn, NY, this week in a show on booking his long and twisted career. The night focused on Numan’s work in the aughts, with occasional dips to his solo breakthrough almost forty years prior. No song released from Numan’s work between 1981 and 2000 was performed.

The surprise is that it didn’t matter. Numan’s latter-day work fits alongside his early hits cleanly, and the audience, clad in “Gary Numan” t-shirts both new and genuine vintage, reveled in all songs equally, enthralled at Numan’s mere presence.

Setlist:

1. Ghost Nation (2017, Savage)
2. Metal (1979, The Pleasure Principle)
3. The Fall (2011, Dead Son Rising)
4. Everything Comes Down to This (2012, Big Noise Transmission)
5. Bed of Thorns (2017, Ghost in the Shell)
6. Down in the Park (1981, Urgh! A Music War)
7. Pray for the Pain You Serve (2017, Savage)
8. Here in the Black (2013, Splinter)
9. Films (1979, The Pleasure Principle)
10. Mercy (2017, Savage)
11. Love Hurt Bleed (2013, Splinter)
12. My Name is Ruin (2017, Savage)
13. Cars (1979, The Pleasure Principle)
14. When the World Comes Apart (2017, Savage)
15. A Prayer for the Unborn (2000, Pure)