Gary Numan has shared that his brother, John Webb, died suddenly over the weekend.
The pair had spent Friday evening (November 14) together in Leeds, where Numan was playing the city’s O2 Academy as part of his 45th anniversary tour for the album ‘Telekon’. The following night, the ‘Cars’ singer broke down in tears during his Birmingham show, with fans expressing concern on social media.
During a rendition of his song ‘Please Push No More’, he paused and appeared visibly emotional. The Independent reported that his wife Gemma O’Neill came on stage to comfort him, while Numan himself said at the time that he’d been given “the worst news ever” that morning and would give more information once he had time to come to terms with it.
Taking to Instagram this afternoon (November 17), Numan posted a photo of himself with his brother. In the caption, he described the past two days as “the hardest of my life” and said he wanted to “explain why I’m struggling”.
“He had spent the evening with me at my ‘Telekon’ show, catching up, swapping stories, telling me about his newly found love of reading,” he said. “We talked about authors, music, the loves of our lives, children, our Dad, steam trains, aeroplanes, accidents, friends, enemies, just as much as we could squeeze in in the time we had.”
Explaining that they were enjoying catching up but that he had to leave for his Birmingham show the following evening, Numan said that he watched his brother walk away towards his car after they said goodbye.
“Sadly he never made it to his car, betrayed by his own heart,” he continued. “It will haunt me forever that we may have driven off not knowing that he was lying in a rainy street just yards away.”
Numan added that the post was “not a tribute” because “I can barely think straight enough to find the words for this let alone a fitting and deserving tribute to someone I loved more than the world, those words will come in time.”
He confirmed that he’s planning on continuing the tour “because my Dad thinks I should, because John’s lovely wife said John would want me to.”
The singer, who played Bristol’s Beacon Hall as planned last night and is set to play Cardiff’s Great Hall tomorrow, finished: “This is the worst moment of my life and I have no idea what to do, other than to continue doing the only thing I know how to do, the thing John was always so proud of. He loved ‘Telekon’. He was only 15 when I made it. So this tour is no longer a celebration of an album, it’s a tribute to John, my brother, the best brother a man could ever have.”
Webb, like his brother, was a musician himself and used to accompany Numan on keyboards in the early days of his career. He recorded his own music under the name Donovan Silver, too, and played bagpipes for the British Airwaves Pipe Band.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nme.com ’
