Not many records cause such a stir that an artist can simultaneously be at the top of the album and single charts and at the same time be facing a ban from the Musicians' Union.

But that was what Gary Numan faced in 1979 when he released Replicas, his second album under the name Tubeway Army.

It was the collection of songs that started his 30-year career, all the while supported by a faithful army of fans - the Numanoids.

This show sees Gary, who now lives in a rural village near Heathfield in East Sussex, reprise the whole album in full.

"When I tour I don't really do much old stuff," he says. "I've got a real chip on my shoulder about nostalgia and the whole Here And Now tours.

"A couple of years back I did three big tours of the UK, Europe and the USA and got to meet lots of people after my shows. I realised there was quite a lot of discontent about the fact I don't do any old stuff. It felt like I had been sticking two fingers up to people who had been with me for 30 years."

His initial idea, in 2006, was to do a tour based around his number one 1980 album Telekon. "It was an acceptable compromise," he says. "I wanted to see if the fans would go for it and see if I could stomach it.

"It was nowhere near the horrible experience it could have been for me, and when I went out touring after it with all-new material there was no grumbling."

This year is a double anniversary for Gary, as 2008 marks not only 30th anniversary of the making of Replicas but also his 50th year on the planet.

"I thought it would be perfect to do another of the album tours," he says. "The 30/50 thing is a big milestone, so it made sense to do that album. Replicas is the album that started it all, it gave me the life I have had and the career I have had."

Record label Beggars Banquet has even decided to re-release the Replicas album in a new tour edition, with a bonus disc of demos recorded around the time.

"I didn't have anything to do with it," says Gary. "They went through the archives and found all this other stuff that I have no memory of whatsoever. It is definitely me, and definitely early versions of the songs but my memory of it is so sketchy it is almost non-existent. It was a bit weird."

The big contrast to the re-release of the album is the critical reaction.

"It has been re-reviewed in lots of magazines," says Gary. "It is getting fantastic reviews compared to when it first came out."

Replicas was first launched onto the UK music scene in the dying days of punk.

Gary's band, Tubeway Army, had been punks, with a bleach-blond 20-year-old Gary "Valeriun" on vocals, Paul Gardiner on bass, Sean Burke on guitar and Gary's uncle Jess Lidyard on drums.

The band split in the early summer of 1978 following a disastrous gig at the White Hart in Acton with The Skids, when a fight broke out in the crowd.

Gary changed his name to Numan, which he apparently picked from an advert in the Yellow Pages, but continued to work under the band name. In November 1978 he released the punk-influenced album Tubeway Army, which he had written that summer. But his head had recently been turned by what was going on around him.

With the rise of synth-led new wave band Ultravox, David Bowie's double-whammy of Berlin albums, Low and Heroes, and the growing influence of electronic German band Kraftwerk, Gary became fascinated with electronic music. This fascination came out when he went into the studio in December 1978 to record Replicas.

"Replicas was the first one written from the outset to be electronic," says Gary.

"The Tubeway Army album was sort of electronic - I had gone in with punk-driven songs and grafted the electronics on top.

"Replicas was written on keyboards, whereas the album before had been written on the guitar. It was a move towards the electronic music that would be my future."

With its mix of out-of-this-world sounds, science-fiction subject matter and Gary's disconnected persona, the album struck a chord across the UK.

Lead single Are Friends' Electric? was a smash hit, with its nagging synthline as later sampled by Sugababes for their 2002 number one single Freak Like Me.

The Replicas album also went to the top of the charts with its selection of classic songs, including album opener Me! I Disconnect From You, I Nearly Married A Human and the fantastic Down In The Park.

Part of Gary's connection with his then-teenage audience may have come from the timing of the album - but part may have been down to the singer's mild form of Asperger's Syndrome.

"Replicas was a mixture of stuff written in my late teens, so there is that teenage angst I'm misunderstood, poor little me' thing going on, and the fact I do have Asperger's which is very isolating thing to have anyway," says Gary.

"I think when you put those two things together it was almost unavoidable that I would come up with songs about alienation and being the odd one out. On top of that it touched on the whole technology fear that I think people have got.

"It was a time when home computers were becoming a reality and there was lots of talk about how technology in the home might affect people."

The initial reaction to Replicas was not all positive, though. The Musicians' Union even went so far as to attempt to ban Gary from performing live.

"Even though I was a member, my own union tried to ban me for putting people out of work," recalls Gary. "I had six people on stage rather than the usual four, and they were still trying to ban me. Their argument was that synths can make string sounds which would put violin players out of work.

"That would be true if there was a violin on my albums, but I was making noises a human can't make!

"I couldn't believe the reaction to it and the hostility it generated. There were journalists who thought electronic music was the devil's spawn.

"I thought the music was great, adding to what had gone before. I still had the guitar, bass, drums and keys, the conventional rock line-up. I wasn't trying to corrupt music."

Replicas was followed by the equally successful The Pleasure Principle album, the first under the Gary Numan name, which also soared to number one on the back of chart-topping single Cars, and the 1980 album Telekon, which ended what has been described as Gary's Machine phase.

In 1981 he announced his retirement with a series of shows at Wembley Arena, but returned to the music scene later that year with his Dance album. It heralded a move away from the purely electronic music, which made his name, to explore jazz, funk and experimental pop.

"My career has been up and down," admits Gary. "But it has been my fans' loyalty and support that has pulled me through the bad bits and made the great bits worth having. I'm really enjoying life."

There is also the gradual rise of the Numan legend, with bands such as Nine Inch Nails and Foo Fighters citing him as an influence. "It has really started to help my confidence," says Gary. "I've been talked about as being seminal. It's very unexpected and very welcome.

"The whole music business feels like a fantastic hobby, like when I first started."

  • Support from South Central
  • Starts 7.30pm, tickets £19. Call 01273 709709