anti-theatricality in rock (and a little bit of pro-theatricality in rock)

(from Viv Albertine's memoir Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music, Boys. Boys. Boys.)

 

Dennis DeYoung of Styx, early '80s NME interview

Oooh talking about Mr Roboto's

Numan actually had giant robots on stage in one of his superstar-era tours, didn't he? 

fragments from Rip It Up and the research: 

Critics, possibly disconcerted by the way Numan had bypassed the music press en route to the top of the charts, unjustly pegged him as a Bowie Xerox. They sourced Numan’s image in Bowie’s aristocratic alien from The Man Who Fell To Earth and his sound in Low. But what he actually derived from Bowie was less specific: the art of creative synthesis, or as Numan put it with characteristic and admirable frankness, “plagiarism”--weaving together an original identity out of pilfered bits and bobs. He also inherited glam rock’s penchant for theatre and spectacle. Punk’s “anti-hero thing” and back-to-basics simplicity were   “against everything I’ve ever wanted to do,” Numan told NME. He didn’t believe in “being the same as the audience”;  he liked distance, a literally physical gulf between the stage and the crowd. His tours featured stunning lighting, set design, and even robots. “Showbiz for showbiz’s sake more than anything…”  Numan told Sounds. ”I think I’m just taking it back to cabaret.” 

He even does a version of ‘On Broadway’ in his set. 

Numan doesn’t like venues without seats - likes a gulf between stage and audience, an orchestra pit preferably.

Numan on leaving behind punk:

“The anti-hero thing could never happen because this country has always had the heroes, it always will do-- I think it’s a very English thing to make heroes… I never agreed with coming on and being the same as the audience, I never liked that side of it.” 

“I very rarely write about ordinary things”

“I don’t see the point in singing about things which are happening every day. I don’t want to go out and listen to a bloke prattling on about how terrible it is living on the dole”

"I don't mind contrived things. cos if something's contrived it shows that someone has gone out and thought about something and worked for it.... Commendable, isn't it?"