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Tripod, Dublin: Thirty years ago, synthesizer maestro Gary Numan foretold the arrival of a chilly dystopia, a future of crystalline surfaces, muted unhappiness and social disconnection. With heavy irony, the album that described it was called The Pleasure Principle. Today, crammed into the Tripod with an army of nostalgic, nodding and sometimes air-punching Numanoids, it’s easy to believe that its contentedly miserable prophecy has been fulfilled.

A taciturn presence, he is unlikely to say he told us so, and taking the stage in a conspiracy of black Doc Martens, military chic, kohl-lined eyes and liquorice-coloured hair, he seems no warmer now than in 1979. Indeed, the man who paired the glassy sound of Moogs with the alienating pinch of his voice knows there are pleasures in unlikely combinations.