TIME OUT: Dolce travesty rankles a Midge
HE'S definitely a jack of all trades, but it would be incredibly unfair to describe Midge Ure as a master of none – you don't get to have as varied and successful a career as his without talent.
And in the next few months the Scots singer will be appearing in Sheffield in two different guises.
The first of these is as a solo artist next Thursday (February 19) at the City Hall's Memorial Hall and then on April 15 he will be playing at the bigger part of the same venue with Ultravox, who have reformed to do their first live dates with their best-known line-up since the Live Aid concert in 1985 – a famous event Midge helped organise after co-writing Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas? with Bob Geldof.
Midge first tasted fame with proto-boy band Slik, who topped the charts in 1976 with Forever And Ever. It turned out to be a temporary pleasure. "It's weird having a number one hit yet feeling completely disassociated from it, like it was nothing to do with me."
He had earlier been asked to join the Sex Pistols but turned them down, although he later worked with their original bassist Glen Matlock in the short-lived Rich Kids. He has also been a member of bands with such contrasting styles as arty new romantics Visage and hard rockers Thin Lizzy.
In fact during the 1980s he performed on more hit records than any other artist. "I saw some statistics somewhere that said that,'' he modestly admits. "I'm not sure if it's true. I just concentrate on making music."
Things have been a bit quieter chartwise since that decade, although he has kept his hand in with a series of solo albums, production jobs and charity work – he is an ambassador for Save The Children and also co-organised the 2005 Live 8 shows, again with Geldof.
The Ultravox reunion came about when it was decided to reissue remastered versions of their albums with extra tracks. Midge met up with keyboardist Billy Currie and bassist Chris Cross and decided to do a few dates for old time's sake. The missing piece in the jigsaw was drummer Warren Cann. He had been sacked from the band in 1986 and walked out of the meeting without saying a word, then moved to Los Angeles. Luckily he was willing to let bygones be bygones, and will be flying over for the tour
"We haven't all been in the same room yet,'' says Midge. "But I'm sure it'll all click once Warren's back. We haven't met him for ages. He could have had a sex change for all we know."
Although Ultravox sold millions of records, they were never regarded as a credible act by the critics. "I can sort of understand it. We were pompous and grandiose. But we were doing it on purpose and some of it was tongue-in-cheek."
Looking back he feels they were underrated and mentions MGMT, Muse and Moby as acts who have owned up to being influenced by them.
In a way it's a shame that the main thing they are fixed in people's memories for is one of those weird aberrations that occasionally happen in the wonderful world of pop – when the title track of their Vienna album looked set to hit the top spot but was held off for several weeks by Joe Dolce's dreadful novelty record Shaddup You Face. The ironic thing is that it is now more famous because it didn't reach number one than it would have been if it had done so – possibly the biggest number two record of all time.
"Watch what you're saying when you refer to it as a big number two,'' he laughs. You can imagine that he would love to say (as the song has it) "it means nothing to me,'' but although he has been at number one both before and since – as well as with Band Aid, his solo single If I Was also did it – the rest of Ultravox haven't had that pleasure, so you feel that it still rankles slightly.
"It was one of those occasions when the public's taste just decided to defy logic," he says. "I've never met Joe Dolce and don't intend to. But nowadays Vienna regularly appears in polls of the hundred greatest singles ever and I'm still around. Where is he now?"
When he's standing on stage alone, as he will be doing next week. Midge finds it a totally different type of experience to appearing with a band.
He can build up a rapport with the audience and respond to requests. He will be covering most of his career including the Ultravox days – although Slik songs are not on the agenda.
As for the Ultravox shows, the sound will be the same as it was before – they don't plan to write any new songs together – but now created with much more ease. "When we used to tour in the '80s we had 26 keyboards on stage, whereas you can probably get the same effects on one nowadays. We'll have more breathing space now."
Buy The Star - Monday to Saturday - for local news, sport, features and ads. To subscribe CLICK HERE
READ MORE
Main news index
Your letters
Features
South Yorkshire's environmental news
Kids Zone
More business news
More Rotherham news
More Doncaster news
More Barnsley news
Latest sport
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Sheffield
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: East
