Midge Ure has a new double album out, ‘A Man of Two Worlds’, symbolising his work in creating music both with lyrics and without. Whilst this balance was part of Ure’s DNA, and for Ultravox before he went solo, he has explored this further in recent years. Even back in 2023, when he played a one-off show at the Royal Albert Hall, he curated a set comprising fan favourites, more considered album tracks, and instrumentals.
The duality of Ure’s creative process has created the aforementioned album and the current tour of the same name. Part visual art installation, part celebration of electronic music, and part good old-fashioned fanfare, the tour has something for everyone.
In a break from his usual support band, the India Electric Company, the appetiser this time comes from Anglo-French experimental electronic duo Scenius. who say that they craft their own blend of synth pop, dark-wave, and post-punk, drawing inspiration from a variety of pioneers of the genre as well as contemporary artists. Scenius are Steve Whitfield from Leeds and Fab Nau from Angers. A minimalist presentation sets the stage perfectly for the main course. The IEC is still very much present, though, as Ure’s band. They have played his music for so long that it wouldn’t make sense to have any other session musicians learn the ropes for a tour of this nature.
Midge Ure’s career goes back to the 1970s, and anyone who uses a synth today owes him a debt of gratitude for being one of the early proponents of a musical form that had its doubters as well as its early adopters. Over those decades, he has refined a blend of electronic and acoustic instruments to create a sound that is more balanced, more subtle, and is now very familiar.
The set list for the show at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall was a perfect example of that balance, bringing the big chart hits such as ‘Vienna’, ‘Fade to Grey’ and ‘Dancing with Tears in my Eyes’ together with some excellent but less often heard tracks such as ‘Yellow Pearl’, ‘Hymn’ and ‘Monster’. There weren’t many from the new double album, so the whole collection together was more of a career retrospective, in line with his Catalogue tour of last year.
The India Electric Company’s Cole Stacey and Joseph O'Keefe were joined by drummer Russell Field to supply a tight performance, well-choreographed and perfectly supporting Ure’s work on guitar, keyboards, and vocals. To shift from their normal acoustic folk-pop sound to create the stark backdrop to much of Ure’s more architectural style, especially for this tour, is a feat of musicianship in itself. The overall effect was coherent and convincing, and fans were delighted with the result. Many were even dancing, if you can believe such a thing. The Man of Two Worlds tour continues across the UK until early June, moves to other countries for the summer, and returns to the UK in November.
Peter Freeth
Images: Peter Freeth
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