A review from http://archive.awrc.com/n/ghost.html For some reason Gary Numan has always been reasonably well served by live albums - there seems to be one for pretty much every period of his career. Ghost, is a record of the 1987 "Exhibition" tour which promoted the Beggars Banquet compilation of the same name and covered the gap in his output between the demise of Numa Records and his period on IRS. It was originally released as a double LP on the original Numa label back in 1987 but it's only with the relaunch of Numa last year that it has found its way onto CD (initially intended only as a fan club release but eventually being put on general release instead).
The material on the original double LP was just too much to be fitted on a single CD and rather than sacrifice two or three tracks to make it fit Numa have been sensible and gone the 2 CD route. The small increase in price (assuming you buy from a reasonably sane retailer - I've seen it going for everything from a decent 13.99 to a ridiculous 17.99) is worth it to keep the concert in its entirety. The songs included cover Numan's entire career, from 1977's "My Shadow In Vain" through his glory days of 1979/80 (represented by hits like "Are `Friends' Electric?", "Cars" and "We Are Glass") into his Numa era with material from Berserker (the title track), The Fury ("Tricks", "Call Out The Dogs") and Strange Charm ("I Can't Stop", "The Sleeproom").
Most of the early material can't miss (at least for a fan) and even the choice of later material is quite good, without too many of those wailing female backing vocals that have afflicted Numan's work since the mid-80s like a recurrent dose of an unpleasant sexually transmitted disease.
The other main elements of a good live album are the execution of the material and the atmosphere. Where Ghost will hit and miss is largely on the former - if you want your live concert to feature new, exciting and different versions of favourite songs, don't bother as this album rarely diverges from the studio arrangements - get one of the other live albums instead. If you like hearing your favourite songs performed live but otherwise unchanged though, Ghost makes a good live greatest hits collection. The album also scores well on atmosphere with the Numanoids seeming unusually friendly and boisterous and Gary himself in cheerful and talkative mood. It's not exactly loaded with emotion but it's fun to listen to. When compared with the later The Skin Mechanic live album it sounds much less claustrophobic and benefits greatly from not having a female fan screaming in your left ear for almost the entire duration of the concert (something that spoils the recording of The Skin Mechanic entirely for me). I'd hesitate to compare it with the earlier Living Ornaments live double set though - while it might be comparable to Living Ornaments 80 it just doesn't come close to Living Ornaments 79 which remains, to me at least, the definitive Numan live album.
It's difficult to review this album without commenting on the packing and presentation. While they've put it in a rather nice slimline double jewel box it retains the original ghastly cover photo, a live shot of Numan looking shocked and pained rather as if he's suffering severe constipation or (as has been suggested) has just had a bottle inserted in a particular orifice. Don't let the cover photo put you off - the contents aren't quite as painful as it might suggest.