Midge Ure on music, memories and coming back to Tyneside
The Ultravox frontman talks The Tube, Band Aid, new music and why North East audiences have always felt a little like home
“Basically you’re Scottish with an English accent.”
Midge Ure laughs when describing his deep affection for North East audiences.
The musician has been crossing the border to play Newcastle since the earliest days of his career in the 1970s and his ties to the region run deeper than regular tour dates.
Some of his strongest memories of the 1980s centre on The Tube, the groundbreaking music programme filmed at Tyne Tees Television, and one particular phone call which would help shape music history.
Ahead of his return to The Glasshouse on June 5, Midge is talking about A Man of Two Worlds, his first album of new material in 12 years and the tour which accompanies it. But before long, our conversation drifts back to Newcastle.
Growing up, I was surrounded by stories about The Tube. My mum and dad, Geoff and Andrea Wonfor, were part of the founding team which created and made the show, turning a Tyneside telly studio into the centre of the music world every Friday night from 1982-87.
For Midge, who has Zoomed in from his home studio in Portugal, it remains one of the most memorable programmes he ever appeared on.
“I’ve got such strong connections to The Tube because, for a start, it was one of the few programmes you could perform live,” he says.
“Everybody else said, ‘Oh, you can’t’, because the cameras get sound waves on the screen and it all goes wobbly. But The Tube... it was anarchic in its own way. So they kind of broke the mould and did things others wouldn’t.”
He remembers it as a place where musicians could take risks and audiences could discover new artists.
“We knew U2 were doing well in America, but nobody quite understood it until The Tube went out there and did that film (U2 Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky).”
Then comes the story which neatly ties Newcastle to one of the defining moments of 1980s music.
“I was in The Tube dressing room chatting to Paula Yates, who was hugely pregnant at the time - and the phone went,” he recalls.
“That was Bob talking to her and eventually me about Band Aid for the first time. So yeah, that was a pretty massive moment.”
And that’s how a dressing room on City Road became the starting point for Band Aid, Live Aid and one of the most ambitious charitable movements popular music has ever seen.
Forty years later, Midge found himself revisiting that period through Just For One Day, the stage musical inspired by Live Aid (coming to Sunderland Empire from June 8-12 next year).
“It’s quite an emotional thing to see,” he says. “There are really poignant moments when it just regurgitates just what it felt like at the time.”
While undoubtedly a defining point in Midge’s career, his integral involvement with Band Aid and Live Aid was hardly the only one.
Over five decades, he has moved effortlessly between musical worlds: finding early chart success with Slik, embracing new wave with The Rich Kids alongside for Sex Pistol, Glen Matlock, helping shape the New Romantic era with Visage and Ultravox, and building a solo career which has outlasted many of his contemporaries.
And his new release offers a clear demonstration that he’s still looking to tread new territory.
A Man of Two Worlds combines songs and instrumentals which were largely written side-by-side during lockdown. The resulting double album reflects a side of his work many casual listeners may not know.
“Almost every album I’ve made over the past 40-plus years has featured at least one instrumental track,” he says. “For this album I wanted to explore that further, showing two sides of what I do.”
That desire to challenge himself also shaped the live show.
“The anti painting-by-numbers feeling,” is how he describes it.
“If you carry on doing the same thing all the time, it’s bound to become tedious and repetitive.”
Rather than simply rolling out a greatest hits set, he plans to weave instrumentals, album tracks and classics together into what he describes as a continuous journey.
“I’m going to play at least half of the show complete with no breaks,” he says. “It’s just going to segue from instrumental into album track, into a single of some description, to another instrumental and take people on a journey.”
That doesn’t mean fans need worry about missing out on the songs which made him famous.
“They might know Vienna. They might know If I Was. They might know Dancing With Tears In My Eyes,” he says.
“I think you have to be fair to them. They’re paying good money to come and see you.”
After decades in music, it’s clear he still relishes the connection that comes from stepping onto a stage.
“You can’t dismiss that immediacy you get with an audience,” he says.
And nowhere more so, it seems, than in a part of the world which has always felt a little bit familiar.
“It’s like playing home,” he says. “It’s the same character. People are funny. People are witty. People are kind, warm. I’m looking forward to seeing them again.”
Midge Ure - A Man Of Two Worlds Tour is at The Glasshouse on Friday (June 5). Visit the website for tickets.