By Denny Dyroff, Entertainment Editor, The Times
Gary Numan
“Go West, young man” is a phrase concerning the United States’ westward expansion which was first stated by John Babsone Lane Soule in an 1851 editorial in the Terre Haute Express.
If he were to make a similar statement today concerning attractive live music shows in the area this weekend, he would probably say, “Go South, young men and women.”
The reason for that would be a number of tasty shows scheduled for locations in Delaware and Maryland – Arden, Wilmington and Elkton.
The highlight of this weekend’s shows will be on March 15 when Gary Numan headlines a show at The Queen (500 North Market Street, Wilmington, www.thequeenwilmington.com).
Numan formed the band Tubeway Army in 1976 in London and introduced a new sound to the British rock scene.
He came to prominence in the 1970s as lead vocalist, guitarist, songwriter, and record producer for Tubeway Army. After adopting a punk rock-style they signed a recording contract with Beggars Banquet Records and released their debut single “That’s Too Bad” in February 1978.
Tubeway Army’s eponymous, new wave-oriented debut studio album, released in November 1978, sold out its limited run and introduced Numan’s fascination with dystopian science fiction and synthesizers. During the recording of the album Numan found a Moog synthesizer left behind in the studio and the transition towards an electronic sound began.
Following exposure in a television advertisement for Lee Cooper jeans with the jingle “Don’t Be a Dummy,” Tubeway Army released the single “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” in May 1979.
After a modest start at the lower reaches of the UK singles chart at No. 71, it steadily climbed to No. 1 at the end of June and remained on that position for four consecutive weeks. In July its parent studio album, “Replicas,” also reached No. 1 on the albums chart.
A key moment came on the Top of the Pops show in May 1979. The show’s steady menu of punk and disco got interrupted by a transmission from the future.
A luminous synth riff echoes out, a beat drives on and up steps an otherworldly figure – part robot, part alien – to deliver an enigmatic lyric depicting some kind of android existence in a dystopian future.
It’s Gary Numan fronting Tubeway Army for their breakthrough hit, “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?.”
In September “Cars” reached No. 1 in the UK. The single found success in North American charts where “Cars” spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Canadian RPM charts and reached No. 9 in the US in 1980. “Cars” and the 1979 studio album, “The Pleasure Principle,” were both released under Numan’s own stage name.
The album reached No. 1 in the UK and a sell-out tour (The Touring Principle) followed. The concert video it spawned is often cited as the first full-length commercial music video release.
“The Pleasure Principle” was a rock album with no guitars. Instead, Numan used synthesizers connected to effects units to achieve a distorted, phased, metallic tone.
Numan, and fellow late 1970s bands OMD and the Human League were described as “the holy trinity of synth-pop.”
In 1980, Numan topped the UK Albums Chart for a third time with “Telekon,” and the singles “We Are Glass” and “I Die: You Die”, released prior to the album, reaching No. 5 and No. 6 on the UK charts.
In April 1981, Numan decided to retire from touring following a series of concerts at Wembley Arena Canadian experimental musician Nash the Slash as the opening act.
Nash the Slash was multi-instrumentalist known primarily for playing the electric violin and mandolin, as well as the synthesizer, keyboards, glockenspiel, and other instruments. He performed as a one-man band until his retirement in November 2012. He died of a heart attack in May 2014.
Numan’s option of retirement was short-lived. Departing from the pure electropop that had been his trademark, Numan began experimenting with jazz, funk, and ethereal, rhythmic pop. His first studio album after his farewell concerts was “Dance” (1981).
Numan’s four decades of achievements include seven Top 10 singles, including “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” and the debut solo hit “Cars”; eight Top 10 albums, three of which topped the charts; and huge critical acclaim, most notably with the Inspiration Award at the prestigious Ivor Novellos.
Numan’s two most recent studio albums were “Savage (Songs From A Broken World)” in 2017 and “Intruder,” was released on in May 2021.
“Savage (Songs From A Broken World)” is an album with a narrative that is set in an apocalyptic, post-global warming Earth in the not-too-distant future. There is no technology left and most of the planet has turned to a desolate desert wasteland.
Food is scarce, water even more so and human kindness and decency are just a dim and distant memory. Western and Eastern cultures have merged, more because of the need to simply survive than any feelings of greater tolerance or understanding. It’s a harsh, savage environment, as are the survivors who still roam across it.
“I started writing the album in November 2015,” said Numan, during a phone interview from his home in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.
“I did a Pledge Campaign. I wanted donors to experience it from Day One – to see how a song evolved – to see how the various elements are added. I hadn’t gone into the studio for quite some time before that.”
While Numan was writing the record, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. It made sense to make him and his climate decisions the catalyst for the apocalypse theme of the album.
“With the election, it’s an interesting connection,” said Numan. “The first song I wrote was about how much pressure I was under because my last album did really well. I was doing a lot of touring – and I was managing myself.
“I was dealing with an awful lot of things I wasn’t used to. I wrote 22 bits of music that turned into four or five actual tunes. I wanted the new album to be good enough. So, that was the first song.
“Then, I started to steal ideas from the book I was writing about a post-Apocalyptic future. Then, Trump appeared. I saw that he was against climate change – calling it a Chinese hoax.
“The thing that really got me was the climate change. He was saying things that were very different to what I believed to be true and it worried me.
“I had had no intention of doing an album about it but Trump made it all more relevant – taking ideas from my global warming book.
“Without Trump, the album would have been very different. I realized I needed to tap into this far more than I had anticipated. The project stopped being a purely science-fiction thing.”
The desolate future Trump’s actions could create took a central position.
According to Numan, “The songs are about the things that people do in such a harsh and terrifying environment. It’s about a desperate need to survive and they do awful things in order to do so, and some are haunted by what they’ve done.
“That desire to be forgiven, along with some discovered remnants of an old religious book, ultimately encourages religion to resurface, and it really goes downhill from there.”
Numan’s 19th solo studio album, “Intruder,” was released in May 2021.
According to Numan, who is also a pilot, an aerobatic flying instructor and founder of Numanair, a small charter flight company, “‘Intruder’ looks at climate change from the planet’s point of view.
“If the Earth could speak, and feel things the way we do, what would it say? How would it feel?
“The songs, for the most part, attempt to be that voice, or at least try to express what I believe the earth must feel at the moment.
“The planet sees us as its children now grown into callous selfishness, with a total disregard for its well-being. It feels betrayed, hurt and ravaged.
“Disillusioned and heartbroken, it is now fighting back. Essentially, it considers humankind to be a virus attacking the planet.
“Climate change is the undeniable sign of the Earth saying enough is enough and finally doing what it needs to do to get rid of us, and explaining why it feels it has to do it.”
Numan’s most recent album release is “Telekon (45th Anniversary Expanded Edition).” It was released on December 12, 2025. Black Vinyl Double LP and CD were released on January 30, 2026.
“Telekon” was the second solo studio album by Numan. It debuted at the top of the UK Albums Chart in September 1980, making it his third consecutive No. 1 album.
It was also the third and final studio release of what Numan retrospectively termed the “machine” section of his career, following Replicas and The Pleasure Principle (both 1979).
Numan is currently on his ‘Telekon’ tour, celebrating 45 years since the release of the LP. He also recently confirmed that he had played 1,000 live shows and took to social media to talk about what the milestone meant to him.
According to Numan, “Playing 1,000 shows is quite something, and yet if someone had said it was 5,000 the number would still have felt low, given the extraordinary effort, sacrifice, commitment (and stress) that’s been poured into those shows over the years.
“Each tour is a life within a life, a world within a world. Each one a unique adventure. I have been touring my entire adult life, from a nervous, out-of-my-depth, sulky young man to something entirely different today.
“It’s a life like no other, and I feel privileged to have reached the 1,000-show milestone and honored to have shared that journey with so many of you.”
On Sunday night, Numan will share that journey with his audience at The Queen.
Video link for Gary Numan – https://youtu.be/lHomCiPFknY.
The show at The Queen on March 15 will start at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $44.
Other upcoming shows at The Queen are CKY on the Main Stage on March 13 and Jenni Schick & The Gourds / Kat Rivers & The Second Sight / Abby Lee on March 12 and Joy and the Wildfire with Monstera on March 13 at The Crown.
Main Stage shows at The Queen later this month will feature Sugar Mountain on March 20, Kenny Vanella and Friends on March 21, Aly & AJ on March 22, GWAR om March 25 and Obey Your Master on March 28.
Ron Ozer, who is putting on Numan’s show on Sunday, is also the promoter responsible for presenting shows at the Arden Gild Hall and the Elkton Music Hall.
A much-anticipated event will take place on March 12 when the Arden Gild Hall (2126 The Hwy, Arden, Delaware, ardenconcerts.com) hosts Donna the Buffalo.
Donna the Buffalo
Donna The Buffalo is a band – more specifically a trio with a rotating rhythm section.
The group got its start in New York’s Finger Lakes region in the late 1980s with the duo of Tara Nevins (vocals, fiddle, acoustic guitar, accordion, washboard, tambourine) and Jeb Puryear (vocals, electric guitar, occasional pedal steel). For more than two decades, the lineup has also included David McCracken (Hammond organ, Hohner Clavinet, piano).
“We have a pool of drummers and bass players we use,” said Nevins, during a phone interview Wednesday afternoon prior to the band’s departure this weekend for shows in Delaware, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
“David, our keyboard player, has been with us for a long time. We formed the band over 30 years ago in the Ithaca area. Jeb and I are the only original members still left in the band.”
With roots in the old-time fiddle and Appalachian music scene, Nevins and Puryear began writing original songs which blended bluegrass, country, jam band, rock, newgrass, zydeco and Americana styles.
“We were Americana before it was cool to be Americana,” said Nevins. “We were Americana before Americana existed.”
When the band needed a name for a show at Cabbagetown Café in Ithaca, “Dawn of the Buffalo” was misheard as “Donna the Buffalo” – and that name stuck.
“How have we evolved over the years – we’ve gotten better,” said Nevins. “Our music is a mix of styles – just as it always has been. It’s Americana.”
Donna The Buffalo is not just a band. It has become a lifestyle for its members and audiences.
The band’s career developed through relentless touring – more than 100 shows a year — and a grassroots ethos. They released 11 albums including “’Rockin’ in the Weary Land,” which won an Association for Independent Music Award for Best Rock Album in 1999.
Since 1989, the roots rockers have played thousands of shows and countless festivals including Bonnaroo, Newport Folk Festival, Telluride, Austin City Limits Festival, Merle Fest, and Philadelphia Folk Festival.
They’ve opened for The Dead and have toured with Peter Rowan, Del McCoury, Los Lobos, Little Feat, Jim Lauderdale, Rusted Root, and Railroad Earth to name a few. They also toured with Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen to help raise awareness about increased corporate spending in politics.
In 1991, the band started the Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival in Trumansburg, NY. The four-day festival has become an annual destination for over 15,000 music lovers every year and was started as an AIDS benefit. It continues as a benefit for arts and education.
To date, the event has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and is now one of three Grassroots Festivals along with the bi-annual Shakori Hills Fest in North Carolina and Virginia Key Festival in Florida.
In 2016, GrassRoots Culture Camp was introduced in Trumansburg, New York featuring four days of music, art, dance and movement workshops, including nightly dinners and dances.
“
We play a lot of shows every year and we play a lot of festivals – including our own,” said Nevins.
“We have our Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival. And for about 10 years now, we put on the GrassRoots Culture Camp – a four-day event which has everything from workshops to food.”
Donna the Buffalo’s legacy lies in fostering community. Fans are called “The Herd” – a name they share with Peter Frampton’s first band when he was a young rocker in London.
“The Herd” is a self-organized “tribe” that connects at shows, embodying the band’s community-focused lifestyle.
Donna The Buffalo has headlined major events like South by Southwest and Telluride, toured domestically and abroad endlessly and been featured in the documentary, “On The Bus.”
“We play all kinds of gigs – festivals, clubs, theaters,” said Nevins. “We play a lot of theaters and we travel all over.
“We haven’t started work on an new album yet. It’s hard when you tour a lot. Our last album was ‘Dance in the Street’ in 2018. We’re probably overdue for doing an album.”
Video link for Donna the Buffalo – https://youtu.be/UEkcqzg-L88.
The show in Arden on March 12 will start at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $35.
The lineup of March and April shows at Arden Gild Hall also features Oneida/Carlton Melton/Terry Gross on March 20, Patrick Watson – Uh Oh Tour w/ La Force on March 21, The Tisburys, Mothman Properties, Ripe Enough on April 10 and “Laurie Kilmartin: An Evening of Comedy” on April 11.
On March 14, The Elkton Music Hall (107 North Street, Elkton, Maryland, www.elktonmusichall.com) will host a return engagement by Sue Foley.
Foley, a Canadian guitarist, singer, songwriter and bandleader based in Austin, Texas, visited the area in recent years with concerts at City Winery, World Café Live and Elkton Music Hall.
Her latest release, “One Guitar Woman: A Tribute to the Female Pioneers of Guitar,” was nominated for the 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.
On it, Foley delivers a masterclass in acoustic guitar, honoring the trailblazing women who shaped the instrument’s history—from Maybelle Carter and Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Ida Presti and Lydia Mendoza.
On her Facebook page, Foley posted – “A guitar can carry a lot of history.
The One Guitar Woman project began as a way to honor some of the women who shaped this instrument, many at the cusp of recorded music.
Players like Memphis Minnie, Maybelle Carter, Lydia Mendoza and many others who forged their own path with six strings.
Every night on this tour I get to tell some of those stories and play the music that grew out of them.”
“One Guitar Woman” is a solo acoustic album that is a tribute to female pioneers of guitar. True to the album title, Foley performs all the songs on one guitar — a nylon-string acoustic guitar, a flamenco Blanca made by master luthier Salvadore Castillo, purchased by Sue on a 2022 excursion to Paracho, Mexico.
“The new album is just me honoring my heroes,” said Foley, during a phone interview.
“I’ve done a lot of interviews with female artists. It’s really put a lot of wind in my sails.
“This album pays tribute to Memphis Minnie, Lydia Mendoza, Maybelle Carter, Ida Presti, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
“There is a lot of diversity. It crosses cultures. It crosses genres – but everything is blues. The song selection was pretty easy.
“I recorded it in 2023 at a studio just outside Austin – Blue Rock Studio. It was mastered at Abbey Road Studio in London.”
The album showcases the dexterity of Foley’s acoustic nylon string guitar skills as she expands on her blues playing into other genres like Piedmont fingerpicking, traditional country, flamenco and classical.
According to Foley, “From the time I decided to be a professional guitar player, I’ve always looked for female role models. These are the women who were expressing themselves through the instrument as far back as the 1920’s, at the inception of radio and recorded music. They are the trailblazers and visionaries whose footsteps I walk in.”
Raised in Ottawa, Canada, Foley was drawn to the guitar at 13 and performing professionally by 16. After relocating to Austin, Texas in her early 20s, she signed with Antone’s Records—home to legends like Stevie Ray Vaughan—and released her 1992 debut, Young Girl Blues, to widespread acclaim.
She has since toured internationally and shared stages with B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan, and Billy F Gibbons, earning her place among the top tier of modern blues artists.
A five-time winner of the Blues Music Award for Traditional Blues Female Artist (2020–2025), Foley also holds a Juno Award, the 2024 Maple Blues “Blues With a Feeling” Lifetime Achievement Award, and numerous other honors.
She is not only a performer but a scholar: her forthcoming book, Guitar Women: Conversations with the Heroines of Guitar (Sutherland House, 2026), chronicles her interviews with groundbreaking female players. Foley also holds a PhD in Musicology from York University.
In May 2024, Foley was awarded the Blues Music Award for Traditional Blues Female Artist (Koko Taylor Award) in Memphis — an award she also won consecutively in 2023, 2022 and 2020.
She was also recently honored with Guitarist of the Year and Blues Act of the Year at the 2023 Austin Music Awards, and Guitarist of the Year at the 2023 Maple Blues Awards. Her last album, Pinky’s Blues, took home Best Traditional Blues Album at the 2022 Blues Music Awards.
Foley’s other “new” CD, “Live in Austin, Vol. 1,” came out October 2023 on Stony Plain Records.
“I had never done an electric live album before,” said Foley. “I had been getting requests from fans for a long time. Recorded at the Continental Club in Austin, it has a great vibe.
“We knew we had to use the Continental Club. We’re very loyal to Steve (Wertheimer, owner of the Continental Club). “This is ‘Vol. 1,’ There will be a ‘Vol. 2’ with more roots stuff.”
Considering Foley has released 15 albums over the last 30 years, there is no dearth of material from which to choose.
“There is a good selection of songs — a career-spanning selection,” said Foley, who won the Juno Award for her CD, “Love Coming Down,” in 2001. “We go all the way back to ‘Young Girl Blues’ (Foley’s debut album in 1992). There was a lot of music to choose from.
“I’m usually about new songs. I tend to be really current. My most recent albums were ‘Pinky’s Blues’ in 2021 and ‘The Ice Queen’ in 2018.
“In my show now, I’m doing a lot from the new album – almost all of it. Some of the songs sound the way they were recorded over the years, and some have evolved. Also, I’ve aged – but I still have angst.”
Foley’s live shoes are energetic and powerful – just what you need for a live recording.
“We recorded two nights in a row at the Continental — four hours each night,” said Foley. “It’s a 45-minute ‘best of the best.’
“We were trying a lot of stuff. They were slightly different sets. We rehearsed a bunch of stuff. After listening to what was recorded, we picked what sounded best.”
It seems as if Foley were born to be a musician – a travelling musician.
“My family was very musical,” said Foley. “My father was a guitarist, and my brother also played guitar.”
Foley became interested in blues music from listening to the Rolling Stones and then played her first gig at age 16. After high school graduation, she relocated to Vancouver where she formed The Sue Foley Band and toured Canada.
“I started playing live a lot when I was living in Vancouver,” said Foley. “When I was 21, I moved to Austin.”
Foley signed with Antone’s Records in 1992 and recorded her first four albums for the legendary label – “Young Girl Blues,” “Without a Warning,” “Big City Blues” and “Walk in the Sun.”
“Antone’s was a big deal at the time,” said Foley, who has received several nominations at the Blues Music Awards in Memphis, Tennessee. “Even in Canada, we were aware of what was going on in Austin.”
Over the years, Foley has also recorded albums for Shanachie, Ruf, Blind Pig and her current label, Stony Plain (the home of her last three releases).
On another Facebook post, Foley wrote, “Women’s History Month Tour…..I’m hitting the road celebrating the pioneers of guitar — one voice, one instrument, one story at a time. Come out and be part of it.”
Upcoming shows at the Elkton Music Hall are Stanley Jordan with special guest E. Shawn Qaissaunee on March 12, and Patterson Hood and John Moreland on March 13.
Video link for Sue Foley — https://youtu.be/hqH0hAbhAmg.
The show on March 14 in Elkton, which has Diamond Jim Greene as the opening act, will start at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $30 for general seating and $48 for premium reserved seating.
Upcoming shows at the Elkton Music Hall are Stanley Jordan with special guest E. Shawn Qaissaunee on March 12, and Patterson Hood and John Moreland on March 13.
Uptown! Knauer Performing Arts Center (226 North High Street, West Chester, www.uptownwestchester.org) will host Better Than Bacon on March 12, the Uptown Studio Annual Future Stars Benefit on March 14, Seamus Kennedy on March 15 and Whiskey Rovers on March 17.
Kennett Flash (102 Sycamore Alley, Kennett Square, 484-732-8295, http://www.kennettflash.org) is hosting “2026 Kennett Flash Jazz Jam” on March 12, The Baker’s Basement with special guests Strays and Misfits on March 13, Superunknown (Acoustic) on March 14 and Belfast Connection on March 15.
On February 26, the Colonial Theatre (227 Bridge Street, Phoenixville, thecolonialtheatre.com/events) will host Rick Wakeman & Son on March 13.
Jamey’s House of Music (32 South Lansdowne Avenue, Lansdowne, 215-477-9985,www.jameyshouseofmusic.com) will present Vernon Papers on March 12, Fairfax Road Show and Red Means Run on March 13, the Clarence Spady Band on March 14 and the Blues Muthas with Steve Shanahan on March 15.
