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Rock’n’old As Live Aid founder Midge Singer hopes to emulate fifth Beatle
will back off into my little studio and make music no one will ever hear.”
Midge is preparing a massive tour that will take in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the UK, celebrating the year th made him a household name.
In the previous decade he’d been in and The Rich Kids, and toured with Lizzy, but 1980 saw him come to the for The 1980 Tour will see him perform complete Ultravox Vienna album for the time, as well as highlights from the Visa album, as both came out in that pivotal yea at the turn of the decade.
The Band Aid co-founder will be on the road until next summer and says an international tour wasn’t intentional, but interest was so strong dates kept being added.
“If only everyone could have a 1980,” he continued. “That one year changed everything for me.
“There was a long build to it – putting Visage together, buying a synthesiser, managing the two styles of rock and electronic music, borrowing studio time between different projects.
“Then Ultravox fell apart and I joined the band, and everything became different when those two albums went into the charts.
“I was in a little flat in London at the time and it didn’t have a phone. Back then it took three or four months to have one put in, so I would go to the phone box every morning and night to call the office and find out how sales were going.
“They would tell me 40,000 albums were sold and another 20,000 were ordered. The next day those had been sold, too.
“I didn’t have two pennies to rub together at the time, so I couldn’t even celebrate!” Midge has a number of summer appearances in Scotland, including next week’s Rewind Festival at Scone Palace in Perthshire, but he’s already lookiconic ing forward to returning to the Barrowland Ballroom in October.
“It’s been a long time since I was last there – probably Stuart Adamson’s memorial gig, which was a while ago,” he added. “I have outstanding memories of the place, back in the days when the massive stacks of PA equipment would shake and rock back and forth due to the sprung dance floor.
“It’s a place where you can cut the atmosphere with a knife.”
Midge Ure, The 1980 Tour, Glasgow Barrowlands, October 13
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People will let you know when time is up, if the voice is too croaky or I’m forgetting guitar chords