Midge Ure has certainly had a full career in the music business. He has been a member of The Rich Kids, Visage, Thin Lizzy and Ultravox, as well as having a successful solo career. He was also co-writer for the single Do They Know Its Christmas and co-organiser of Live Aid and Live 8 with Bob Geldof.
This tour is entitled Something from Everything and is a show case of songs from every album he has been involved with. Midge did comment “If we leave an album out, please don’t come and tell us after. We hate that”. Ure was backed by Joseph O’Keefe and Cole Stacey who are known as The India Electric Company. The duo was also the support act for the evening. With just 3 people on stage only playing mandolin, acoustic guitar, violin and occasional keyboard, could the songs we know and love come to life? They sure did.
Midge’s voice is still as rich and impressive as ever. He started the set with the beautiful Ultravox songs I Remember (Death in the Afternoon) and Flow. At this point you just knew it was going to be a special evening.
Solo songs If I Was and Star Crossed followed and though over 30 years separate these songs, it shows Ure’s song writing quality has not diminished.
Ultravox songs were naturally the hit of the evening with The Voice, Lament, and Dancing with Tears in my Eyes and more. Who would have ever thought we would see a “clap along” to an Ultravox song? It happened with Reap the Wild Wind. Amazingly it also happened with Visage’s Fade to Grey which was one of the highlights of the evening. Stripped of its synthesisers, drums and electric guitar it sounded like a whole new beautiful song.
Vienna naturally got the loudest applause from the audience and Joseph O’Keefe’s violin solo was nothing short of stunning, with Midge Ure letting Joseph have centre stage.
So did we get a song off every Midge Ure album? While I am not up with every bit of his work, I think he missed The Rich Kids album but I’m not going to complain.
Something from Everything gave Midge the chance to play some of his favourite songs and also for us to listen to his back catalogue. Albeit the songs were stripped back to bare essentials, but that didn’t detract from the evening. In fact it made it a very special evening for those of us who attended.
Words & Photo Geoff Jenke
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