MY LOCKDOWN MIDGE URE
THE MUSICIAN SAYS THAT CONNECTING WITH FANS VIA HIS INTERNET SHOW HAS HELPED TO KEEP HIM SANE
MIDGE Ure, 67, is the former frontman of Ultravox and also enjoyed success as a member of Visage, Slik and Thin Lizzy, as well as co-writing Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? He currently presents The Space evening show on Scala Radio.
I spend a lot of time in my home studio – and me and my wife spend a lot more time talking about what we’re going to have for dinner than we used to. The biggest change is that I can’t tour anymore. I was doing a tour of Australia last year when this all happened and we were about to go to New Zealand but they’d shut their borders. Then everything else in my diary was cancelled. This is the longest time, since I started doing this professionally when I was 18, that I haven’t toured. It’s quite a strange sensation.
How has your working week changed?
During the first lockdown, lots of musicians were doing concerts from home via a webcam. I wanted to do something similar but on a bigger scale. I turned my studio into an internet broadcast studio – I’ve got three high-definition cameras in there now and an audio/visual mixer, and I set up my Backstage Lockdown Club. It’s on Patreon so people subscribe to it and there are a couple of live events each month, remixes of tracks and Q&As. I thought it was only going to last six months but I’m still doing it each week. I’ve spoken to musician friends and we’re all working on new albums, but with no deadlines there’s no reason to finish them. We’re all prevaricating.
Have you been going for your daily permitted walk?
Yes – I live in a quite little village so I go out and I don’t see a soul. It’s not my favourite thing. To go out specifically to have a walk for exercise doesn’t appeal to me – it’s like being told to do it.
Have you taken up baking or any other lockdown trends?
No baking – my wife’s tried all that and it hasn’t gone particularly well. She’s been cooking more, I used to do all of that, but we haven’t taken up macramé or anything. Most people go out to work for a living, so when the opportunity arose to spend time doing things such as learning a language or building a boat they went for it. But I think the novelty has worn off and people possibly won’t be doing that this time.
Yes – I can get very grumpy. I knew that in the 80s, if things didn’t go right I’d get very grumpy because I’m a perfectionist, but I mellowed out. I’ve been getting grumpy again – I get wound up about politics more than I used to. I get ratty about the number of u-turns the government has been doing. I can’t stand the garbage that’s being spouted out.
Which ‘non essential’ activity do you miss the most?
The music industry contributes billions of pounds to this country and there’s been very little help for arts in general. The money the government handed over a few months ago went to big organisations and most smaller venues didn’t see a penny. It’s been weirdly unfair. It’s not just the musicians. There’s a huge infrastructure around it: the lighting guys, agents, bookers, staff at the venue – there’s a mountain of people who haven’t had any help. The industry has been treated abysmally and unfortunately gigs will be one of the last things to come back. I’m missing touring.
Do you think this will change society?
It will change some industries – huge conglomerates with massive buildings in centres of cities, which cost huge amounts of money to maintain – they’ve realised a lot of work can be done online and they don’t have to keep flying people around the world to go to meetings. Maybe that will change. Their overheads could be cut a huge amount. Also they now know most people can be trusted to do their work from home. They don’t have to be in a big room sitting together to get the job done.
Are you confident the government knows what it’s doing with Covid?
Absolutely not. They don’t listen to what they’re being told. Why have all these experts advising you and then ignore them? It’s a dreadful situation for any government to find themselves in but this government seems particularly hapless. New Zealand are back up and running – they dealt with it brilliantly and we’ve done the opposite.