Midge Ure @ City Winery, New York, NY 8/11/24

 

Bill: Midge Ure

Venue: City Winery, New York, NY

Date: 8/11/24

Door: $35, guest list +1

Headliner: Midge Ure

Latest Release: The Gift (Early Versions) (Chrysalis Catalogue, 2024 RSD)

Last Studio Album: Fragile (Hypertension, 2014)

Active: 1969 (Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, Scotland)

Bands: Stumble (1969-71), Salvation (1972-5), Silk (1976), Rich Kids (1978), Visage (1978-82), Thin Lizzy (1979),  Ultravox (1979-86, 2008-13), Band Aid, Solo 1982-Present

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Having really not known much of Midge Ure's career save for the inescapable Ultravox song "Reap The Wild Wind" in it's day, to see him live was a bit of a curio for me.  Since my friend Danny won a pair of tickets and gave one to me, there was no time like the present.

While Ure was at the forfront of New Romanticism at the dawn of the 80's, he has clear roots in Hard Rock (contributed songwriting on Thin Lizzy’s Black Rose and helped finish that tour), Punk (joined Sex Pistol Glen Matlocke in the Rich Kids and turned down being a Pistol in 1975) and Glam (he covers Bowie's "The Man Who Sold The World" and Roxy Music seems another clear influence.  You could even say there are prog overtones on Ultravox's first release with Midge after John Foxx's departure, Vienna.  During the show, Ure noted when he went to visit WLIR the alt-rock station in Long Island in 1979, he previewed a cassette of the album that met to stone cold silence due to the opening 7-minute instrumental "Astradyne" which he played with his duo on double keyboards.  Danny saw Midge about 5 years ago and noted at that time he only played guitar whereas this show he switched from guitar to second keyboard while his keyboardist also had a the dreaded mac power book on stage for programming.  Sometime this made for a bit of a thin sound.  There was more going on for sure, but I couldn't help but wish Midge was augmented with a full band. 

Earlier today I went through videos of his most played live tracks.  Ure has a massive catalog and almost every major track has a video.  He noted that in the early days of MTV, most British bands had produced videos but had no outlet.  In America it was the opposite.  The Quartet album in 1982 produced a huge radio hit as well with "Reap..."  After Ultravox, his lone Billboard charting solo album was Answers To Nothing in 1989 which produced a minor charting hit (#95) with the song he opened the show with, "Dear God."

For the encore he closed with the title track from his last studio album which although a decade old he still considers "new" like most of his audience.  He finished with the opener from his first solo album The Gift entitled "If I Was."

Absolutely worth checking out.