Once lampooned as a fifth-rate Bowie knock-off, Gary Numan, synth rock's perennial pantomime fop, today finds himself lauded as a visionary experimentalist by apostles as diverse as DJ superstar Armand Van Helden and goth jester Marilyn Manson.

A bellicose slab of industrial-metal, Numan's recent Pure album sparked an unexpected revival. Spurning the vaguely camp, Kraftwerk-flavoured electro-pop that made his name, the revitalised Numan has set about capitalising on his newly acquired cachet with frantic zeal.

While the fans, a disparate group of greying new romantics and curious Nine Inch Nail aficionados, mostly couldn't care a fig for this "challenging" change of direction, Numan's faith in his new material proved justified. Awash with mangled guitars and driller-killer atmospherics, Pure's choicest cuts emerged as deliciously preposterous nu-metal pastiches.

When Numan finally relented and dusted down a smattering of oldies, he displayed commendable respect towards the songs and his audience's expectations. Refusing to sleep-walk through his back catalogue, he distorted 20-year-old favourites such as Are Friends Electric and I Die You Do into throbbing grindcore workouts.