‘Yep, I’ll sing Vienna’

1980s pop influencer Midge Ure promises to dig deep into his eclectic and extensive back catalogue for his up coming tour Something from Everything, writes

MSteve Meacham.

idge Ure – one of the most talented pop musicians/ songwriters/producers of his generation – laughs when asked if he’s gone deaf from years of playing arenas at excruciating volumes.

‘‘That’s typical British tabloid exaggeration,’’ he says of reports that 40 years of playing guitar and keyboards with bands Thin Lizzy, Visage and Ultravox have taken a diabolical toll.

‘‘I have tinnitus, but it’s manageable.’’

Yet the man who was presented with an OBE by the Queen in 2005 for services to music and charity (he and Bob Geldof – ‘‘We’ve never been bosom buddies’’ – created both Band Aid and Live Aid) happily concedes he’s a recovering alcoholic.

He hasn’t had a drink ‘‘for 11 or 12 years’’, he says, which places his abstinence from the time he, his wife (actress Sheridan Forbes), and his four daughters were photographed at Buckingham Palace.

‘‘Alcoholism is one of those things that creeps up on you gradually,’’ Ure explains on the eve of his latest Australasian tour, Something from Everything, which has Ure performing at least one song from each of his 14 albums.

And what a back catalogue that is. He may be the only major musician who’s performed in three leading bands at the same time.

In 1979, his friend Phil Lynott, of Thin Lizzy, rang from a US tour begging him to fill in after guitarist Garry Moore walked out (again).

Meantime, he was reinventing Ultravox and simultaneously contributing to the New Romantic studio-based synth pop band, Visage, fronted by the late Steve Strange.

Then there were his solo recordings – including If I Was, which knocked David Bowie’s and Mick Jagger’s version of Dancing in the Street off the top of the British charts in 1985.

So the Something from Everything playlist is eclectic.

Yes, Ure concedes, he’ll be singing Fade to Grey, which he co-wrote for Visage and which helped define the New Romantic era – not least because of its hugely influential video.

And how could he avoid including Vienna, recently declared ‘‘the best British song of the 1980s’’, which he co-wrote as Ultravox’s lead singer/ guitarist/keyboard player? Or Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, which Ultravox performed before 80,000 people at Live Aid more than 30 years ago.

And he’ll deliver Do They Know It’s Christmas?, his most celebrated composition? Won’t he? ‘‘No, we won’t,’’ says Ure as he hums familiar chords down the phone line.

‘‘It’s not my best composition, though we did do it once as an encore, and the audience loved it.’’

Famously in October 1984, Ure was chatting with friend and breakfast star, the late Paula Yates, when Geldof, her boyfriend, rang and asked her to pass the phone to the Scot.

The single the pair wrote the next day involved a pantheon of pop stars including George Michael, Simon Le Bon, Sting, Paul Weller and Bono. This in turn led to Ure and Geldof creating Live Aid; Band Aid 20; Live 8; and Band Aid 30 between 1984 and 2014.

It’s a long, fraught journey to Buckingham Palace from the slums of Glasgow where James Ure was born (Midge is a teenage nickname).

For the first 10 years, Ure lived with his mother, father, brother and sister in a one-bedroom tenement with an outdoor communal toilet. Ure’s father earned just £6 a week yet somehow saved enough to buy the young Jim a second-hand guitar (‘‘I still have it’’). It proved to be his passport from poverty.

Ure’s new tour will also feature a Bowie song, probably The Man Who Sold The World, which he recorded in 1985 on his first solo album, The Gift. ‘‘I met Bowie several times over the years, including at the Kremlin, but my favourite memory is from 1980,’’ Ure says.

Before Visage, Strange and his partner had begun running ‘‘Bowie nights’’ once a week at Billy’s nightclub in London’s Soho as an antidote to punk. They then transferred to Covent Garden, opening The Blitz, which attracted a young Boy George and other embryonic pop stars. ‘That’s typical British tabloid exaggeration,’ Midge Ure says of reports that 40 years of playing guitar and keyboards with bands Thin Lizzy, Visage and Ultravox have taken a diabolical toll.

Part of Blitz’s mystique, Ure explains, was the dress code. Strange was the doorman, vetting who was dressed sufficiently ‘‘cool’’ to enter.

Once Fleet St cottoned on, photographers were stationed nightly to record who was refused entry.

‘‘It was all bulls...,’’ Ure says. ‘‘Nothing extraordinary was going on inside. But one night in 1980 Bowie walked in. All these cool people melted, went to pieces.

‘‘The next day, Bowie took Steve and others, all dressed in the costumes they were wearing, and recorded the video for Ashes To Ashes. Check out the video, they’re all wearing what they wore to Blitz.’’

Midge Ure will perform in New Zealand from March 16-23. See midgeure.co.uk/