The Piece Hall isn’t just a venue. It feels a lot more like a monument. A vast Georgian courtyard built in 1779 for the brutal rhythm of industry, where 315 rooms once opened every Saturday morning to the clang of a market bell. Cloth traders, handloom weavers, merchants, and hustlers alike all filled the stone corridors, dealing in wool, sweat, and survival. It’s the last surviving Georgian cloth hall in the world, and a relic of a time when Halifax’s economy was powered by human hope and mechanical ambition. Last night, standing inside that immense courtyard, you could feel the weight of that history pressing down like a second atmosphere.
I feel like my 11 year old self piecing together some sort of class talk on my favourite subject of 1979 here, but Gary Numan isn’t just another artist passing through Halifax, nor is he a “used to be pop chart famous for five minutes” cashing in on some sort of reunion tour. You could say I’ve grown up with Gary Numan. I first heard Tubeway Army’s Are “Friends” Electric? as an 11 year old and it was like someone had cracked open a door I didn’t even know existed. Before that moment, I didn’t realise electronic music was even a thing, but it led me in turn to John Foxx’s Ultravox, Caberet Voltaire, Kraftwerk, Fad Gadget and many others, so when Are “Friends” Electric? and Cars hit in 1979, they didn’t sound like anything else in the charts. They were cold, synthetic, minimalist, and futuristic at a time when guitars still ruled the world, but here was this cold, almost alien sound that felt like it had dropped out of another world and it totally rewired my brain.
Numan didn’t just arrive during the birth of New Wave, but helped define what it became. Those early Tubeway Army and solo releases weren’t just hits.They were blueprints. Cold synths, mechanical rhythms, detached vocals and dystopian futurism wrapped in punk attitude were the exact sound that dragged electronic music out of the underground and into the mainstream. Are “Friends” Electric? and Cars weren’t just successful, but foundational, because they set the tone for what New Wave became, and the genre grew around the architecture that Numan laid down. That inspiration covered the globe and crossed genres. Trent Reznor has said Numan shaped his musical world, Depeche Mode credit him as a blueprint for their later sound and feel, Dave Grohl calls Cars one of the most important electronic tracks ever made. Fear Factory, The Prodigy, Prince, Marilyn Manson, Billy Corgan and more have all openly admitted he changed the way they thought about and make music, but Numan’s influence didn’t stop at the alternative charts or the industrial underground either. It reached right into the birth of hip hop and electro itself. Afrika Bambaataa has openly said that tracks like Cars and Are “Friends” Electric? helped shape his vision of futuristic, machine driven music and you can hear it all over Planet Rock. Arthur Baker, one of the pioneering architects of early electro and hip hop production has said that Numan’s cold, synthetic sound was a blueprint for the electronic revolution happening in New York. These weren’t just fans, but audio pioneers who took Numan’s ideas and pushed them into entirely new cultures, new genres and new continents.
He’s an absolute musical powerhouse pioneer who’s carried almost five decades of electronic history on his shoulders. and he’s been brutally honest about the toll it’s taken. He’s spoken openly about his hearing and how he’s now around 90% deaf, how he relies on hearing aids just to communicate, how loud environments have become battles rather than comforts. I suppose that when your entire life has been built around sound, around precision, around texture, around the relationship between the human voice and machine noise, that losing your hearing isn’t just a physical challenge, but an existential one. Then there’s the emotional weight he’s carried in recent years. Life behind the scenes has been heavy, and he’s never hidden that from his fans. He broke down on stage during the Telekon anniversary tour after receiving devastating news about his brother’s death. His wife has faced serious health issues and he’s been her support and anchor, mirroring their early times together when he felt musically lost and she encouraged him creatively back into the studio, reminded him of who he was, that musically he still had plenty to say and what he could still do. Flying was once every bit as important to him as music. He became an accomplished display pilot, performed aerobatics in World War II aircraft and immersed himself in a world he genuinely loved, but one by one, friends from that flying community were killed in accidents. Combined with serious incidents involving people close to him, the losses eventually took their toll and he stepped away from the display circuit. For someone who has always lived at full throttle, it felt like another reminder that even the things we love most sometimes come with a cost that’s too high to keep paying.
In short, I followed him quite obsessively through those early years, drifted away during what he himself admits was a less creative period, and then watched him come roaring back to life with renewed vigour, new life, new passion for creativity, and new messages in his songs. I’m not by any stretch of anyone’s imagination a professional photographer or reviewer/writer, so please bear this in mind before you let loose on your keyboards regarding the above lol.
My night started after leaving work in Leigh, with Numan and Ladytron on Spotify and Waze butting in every now and again with directions as I headed along the M62. Not a bad drive when you leave at 4PM during the school holidays, but I hadn’t hit Halifax, so wasn’t aware of what lay instore for me. It felt like the whole town centre was being remodelled. I’ve never been to Halifax before, and it felt like Waze hadn’t either because every turn that it suggested was blocked off, with a diversion in place. Road markings were worn off at junctions, making priority the responsibility of the bravest, and the one way system is dictated by no entry signs that look like they are more applicable to cyclists than motorists as they are all very low down. Anyway, with my navigational trauma over, I parked up on the carpark opposite a pub called “The Three Pidgeons” because it felt closeby and I figured that locals would know it if I couldn’t find my car post gig. Apart from the payment machine not taking cards so I had to download and install an app, register, enter car details, enter payment details etc, I was good to go. I grabbed my camera bag out of the boot and simply looked for the first Numan Tee I could see and followed that lol. What I did notice was the buzz the town had. The sun was out and so was the pre-gig atmosphere. There was Numan fans everywhere and it was a proper sight to behold. This tactic got me as far as the West entrance, where street sellers had an abundance of Numan Tees and Hoodies for sale, all freshly printed and all laid out in size order on the floor upon tarp. Cash sales only if you know what I mean. They seemed very chirpy and very busy, but as I needed to get to the South entrance to collect my press accreditation I headed off to my right and not only found the accreditation booth a few turns later, but a familiar face. Frank is a fellow photographer and always good to sit and talk with if we get the time. He has years worth of photographic experience and knowledge, and it’s always good to see him around and find out what he’s up to, so we shared a shandy (and in Frank’s case a diet coke) or two and caught up as we waited to collect our passes.
We eventually grabbed our passes and headed inside, and that’s when the size of the place really hit home. It’s listed as holding 5,500 and was almost full. The atmosphere was amazing, but it wasn’t just the normal pre-gig buzz, This was something heavier. Something that felt like it had been building long before any of us arrived. Maybe it was the setting, maybe it was the crowd, maybe it was just me, but there was a real sense that tonight mattered for many reasons, and the more I thought about it given what I’ve just said, the more that feeling made sense to me, so as I stood there in The Piece Hall, surrounded by ancient stone and thousands of people who’ve followed him through every era, it was impossible not to feel that sense that we might be witnessing one of his last great tours. Not because he’s slowing down creatively, but because the cost of continuing seems to rise every year. This wasn’t just another gig. Tonight I wouldn’t just be listening to an artist I grew up with. Tonight I’m listening to the source code of modern electronic music performed by the man who wrote it. It felt like a moment. A chapter, and a night where the past and future collided, and where Numan, against all odds, stepped into the centre of it one more time.
Ladytron didn’t just open the night, but more altered its temperature. Before Numan stepped into The Piece Hall’s vast courtyard, Ladytron’s mere presence shifted the entire mood of the place. One moment Halifax was buzzing with pre gig excitement as sunlight still clung to the stone, and the the next the courtyard felt like it had slipped sideways into a darker timeline. Their sound is a kind of controlled detachment. It’s cool, minimal, and beautifully precise. It doesn’t try to hype the crowd or whip up chaos, but it conditions the space. It recalibrates the atmosphere. The synths feel like machinery warming up, the rhythms pulse like circuitry, and the vocals float above it all like a transmission from somewhere just out of reach. I’ve seen their sound described as “electronic pop”, but it’s much more than that for me. It’s music that doesn’t ask you to dance, but surrender, and by the time their set reached its final moments, the courtyard felt transformed. The sunlight had faded, the shadows had deepened, and the crowd had shifted into a different headspace entirely. It was the perfect descent, because when Numan finally stepped into that charged atmosphere the stage was already set. Ladytron had opened the portal, adjusted the frequency, and pulled everyone gently but firmly into the world where Numan’s music thrives. They weren’t just the support act. They were the gateway.
When the lights dropped and the courtyard fell into that anticipatory hush, you could feel the entire place recalibrate again. This time it didn’t just feel like excitement, but reverence. There was this kind of collective breath holding, and like a figure stepping through a portal rather than onto a stage, Numan walked out. His stage presence is unlike anyone else’s. Even now, with the weight of hearing loss, grief, and decades of touring carved into him, he moves with purpose. It’s controlled and almost ritualistic. There’s a physicality to his performance that feels almost ceremonial, like he’s conducting the environment and everything in it around him rather than simply performing with it. Every gesture is sharp, very deliberate, and charged with emotion. He seems to inhabit every song he sings like he still fully believes every word he’s penned, and why wouldn’t he?
His voice was strong but every now and again it showed a little fragility. There’s a grit to it now, and a weathered edge that adds depth. That vulnerability sits right alongside the power, and that duality is what makes modern Numan so compelling. He’s not trying to recreate 1979. He’s showing you what living inside each and every one of those songs feels like.
The lighting was brutal in the best way imagineable. Stark beams, deep shadows, flashes of cold white, blue, yellow and blood red that carved him out of the darkness like a character from a cyberpunk opera. The smoke curled around him, catching the light and turning the courtyard into something quite legendary. At times he looked like a silhouette, whilst at others like a machine being taken off charge and the crowd was 100% connected. Not rowdy. Not nostalgic, but fully locked in. There was thousands of people there who’ve lived their own lives alongside his music, watching a man who’s given everything he has left to be there. Every cheer felt like support. Every quiet moment felt like respect. It wasn’t just a gig. This was a gathering.
What struck hardest was how present he was. Despite the hearing issues, despite the physical strain, despite everything he’s been through, he was fully inside the performance. No autopilot and no going through the motions. He delivered the whole set with passion, with intensity, with precision, with that unmistakable trademark focus that makes even the smallest movement feel significant. There were moments where he seemed almost lost in the music, head down, body swaying, hands carving shapes through the air, entirely in his own world. The courtyard and everyone in it responded like it was breathing with him, but beneath all that power was an undercurrent of fragility. Not weakness, but humanity. The kind that comes from someone who has fought to get back on stage and stay there, fought to keep creating, fought to keep touring even as his own body makes it harder every year, and I think that was what made the night feel so significant was the sense of everything he’d overcome to still be standing there.
By the time the final notes of Are “Friends” Electric? echoed off the stone, the lights faded and I’d said my goodbyes to Frank, The Piece Hall felt somehow changed. I found myself standing in absolute silence, staring at a now empty and darkened stage, not quite ready to leave. The band’s absence had left something fragile, something rare in the space they had occupied only moments before. It was the kind of quiet that follows a moment you know won’t come around often. Watching Gary Numan in that courtyard felt less like witnessing a gig and more like witnessing a life’s work. I’ve followed him, on and off, since I was eleven years old, through reinvention, struggle and resurgence, and last night felt like all of it converging into a single moment. As I finally turned to leave, I realised I wasn’t thinking about the setlist, the lights, or even the photographs I’d taken. I was thinking about an eleven-year-old boy hearing Are “Friends” Electric? for the first time and discovering an entirely new world. Forty-seven years later, the same man was still standing on stage, and somehow, against all odds, I was there not only to witness, but to shoot and review it too.
The world has changed beyond recognition since The Piece Hall opened in 1779, and it has changed beyond recognition since Gary Numan broke into the mainstream in 1979 too, yet somehow both the hall and the man remain, and that feels worth remembering. Some gigs merely entertain for an evening, but this one will always be with me.
I was right about parking opposite a well-known pub, though. I did end up having to ask for directions back to my car afterwards hahaha.
