Gary Numan
The Park Stage, Saturday June 28, 2025
Brilliantly, Gary Numan has made sticks of rock modelled on his Number 1 1980 Telekon LP available on his merch stall. It seems apt for today: here in the sunny Park, there is the large candy-striped Ribbon Tower for sightseeing, and a short walk away is Glastonbury-On-Sea – a proper seaside pier installed on Somerset farmland. The veteran electronic pop eminence may take to the stage in all-black, but he’s not intending to harsh the fun times.
Since the late ’70s, Numan’s been making his singular interior world external with a changing strand of industrial, gothic techno that’s all his own. But there’s also the spectacle of rock to consider. Consequently, his boldly bald band, who look like a post-apocalyptic cult in sarongs, rock out as their leader kneels and poses for his themes for a world in flames.
Bearing down on the listener like Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir, Haunted from 2006’s Halo is accompanied by images of crucified figures, while The Chosen from 2021’s Intruder combines punk energy and the biggest beats as Numan bends in torment over his polyphonic synth.
The classic material still sounds incredible, his alienated estuary whine undimmed. M.E. grinds ice and metal to wonderfully disturbing effect. Crunching and relentless, and accompanied by onscreen runic road signs, the mighty Cars is as sublime now as it was in 1979 (Numan should come onstage in a car like Judas Priest’s Rob Halford does with his motorbike), and when he closes with the vivid, mindbending pulse of Are ‘Friends’ Electric, J.G. Ballard looks down and smiles.
Numan also brings his daughters Raven and Persia out for a gothed-up song each, and seems touched by the warm response he gets. And of course, being down in the Park, he played Down In The Park. The Numanoids assembled, and were not disappointed.
Gary Numan At Glastonbury Setlist:
Halo
The Chosen
Metal
M.E.
Pure Play
Cars
Haunted
Down In The Park
Nothing's What It Seems
My Name Is Ruin
A Prayer For The Unborn Play
Are 'Friends' Electric?
Follow all of MOJO’s Glastonbury 2025’s coverage HERE!
Photo: Gary Numan at The Observatory, Santa Ana, California, April 11, 2024 (Credit: Corine Solberg/Getty Images)