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Midge Ure to play acoustically at the Lemon tree on the 18th March


jester1470

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Midge Ure (plus support) plays the Lemon Treee on the 18th March, support by Lindsay Allison. It's quite ncie when you can just copy previous posts :p

Musical success is seldom measured in time spans of more than a few years, if not Andy Warhol's oft quoted "fifteen minutes", so the fact that by the time Midge's single "If I Was" went to No1 in 1985 he had already crammed several musical lifetimes into a 10 year professional career speaks volumes - Slik, The Rich Kids, Thin Lizzy, Visage, Ultravox and of course the most famous one off group in musical history Band Aid had by then all had the guiding hand of his musical navigation.

Then you have to take account of Midge's musical directorship of a series of rock concerts for The Prince's Trust, Wicked Women for Breakthrough and in honour of Nelson Mandela; a Lord Provost award for services to Scottish music; record production for Phil Lynott, Steve Harley and countless others; his video direction of memorable hits by the Fun Boy Three, Bananarama and others, or a whole swathe of landmark singles by Ultravox; TV, theatre and film music credits ranging from 'Max Headroom' to stage and big screen.

This year is the 20th anniversary of Band Aid, and unlike many other artists, his career has not only survived that epoch, but continues to go from strength to strength. Midge is the master of re-invention, secure in the knowledge that there will always be a market for a good song, sung with passion! Equally comfortable in a variety of formats, this time he has chosen to perform an intimate acoustic show combining a selection of his own hits from Vienna via If I Was to Dancing with Tears In My Eyes, with some of his favourite songs by other artists such as Queen, Travis and Fleetwood Mac.

The Uncovered show gives him chance to explore his musical roots and share some of the anecdotes and journeys that his career has followed. Like the man himself, it does what it says on the tin...

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Guest bluesxman

'Master of re-invention'? I must have missed the variation between all his electro-synth pop hits, it all sounded pretty similar to me, just spaced out by a few years. Band Aid is probably the only thing saving him from obscurity.

I don't have a particular dislike for the guy but he is definitely of a time, and that was the late 70's/80's.

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'Master of re-invention'? I must have missed the variation between all his electro-synth pop hits, it all sounded pretty similar to me, just spaced out by a few years. Band Aid is probably the only thing saving him from obscurity.

I don't have a particular dislike for the guy but he is definitely of a time, and that was the late 70's/80's.

Uh-oh... Now you've done it. You've incurred the WRATH OF THE JESTER...

Jester.jpg

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'Master of re-invention'? I must have missed the variation between all his electro-synth pop hits, it all sounded pretty similar to me, just spaced out by a few years. Band Aid is probably the only thing saving him from obscurity.

I don't have a particular dislike for the guy but he is definitely of a time, and that was the late 70's/80's.

There's quite a lot of variation, Midge didnt just do pop hits, he was asked to join the Sex Pistols, was in Slik, was in the Rich Kids with Glen Matlock, was also in Visage and Ultravox as well as stints in Thin Lizzy and a reasonably successfull career. He had his first hit in 1976 almost 10 years before Live Aid with Slik and his last one with (obviously not including Band Aid 20) Breathe, which was not so big here but very big in Europe in 1996. That's a career as a charting musician of 20 years which isnt bad by anyone's standards, in that time he also co-wrote the theme to Top of the Pops and did many other things. People forget that apart from Live Aid Midge also worked a lot with Phil Lynott and various other artists and there's not a lot of similarity between Thin Lizzy (where he didn't play keyboards but guitar, he's a pretty good guitarist) and Visage imo. i should also say if you think Midge is just about synth stuff come and see him unplugged with just a guitar. Surely going from someone who is known according to you for synth stuff yo doing a tour with just a guitar is pretty much a reinvention.

Cheers

Stuart

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Ultravox's greatest hits was 3 quid in Asda when I was in earlier. That's quite a bargain for anyone wanting to hear "the greatest song ever kept at no 2 by Joe Dolce" - 'Vienna' and other classics such as... er... um.....

anyway, I think "Vienna" should be on there.

It was kept off the number 1 spot by 2 songs - it was no 2 for 4 weeks, one was Joe Dolce the second was Imagine by John Lennon, Lennon had just been shot so it catapaulted over the top of Vienna and was number 1 - which doesn't make as good a story so people dont mention that song as keeping it off the number one slot, Vienna actually outsold both songs who were number 1 ahead of it surprisingly. Their other big hit was 'Dancing with Tears in my eyes' and they had 14 hits in total.

Cheers

Stuart

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Didnt Midge do very well witha song called Breathe? In the not so distant past?

That was 10 years ago Hoglet, showing your age ;) It was a huge hit in Europe selling a few million copies if I recall, didnt do so well here, it was used as the soundtrack to a Swatch advert in italy which is where it all took off.

Cheers

Stuart

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Guest bluesxman
There's quite a lot of variation, Midge didnt just do pop hits, he was asked to join the Sex Pistols, was in Slik, was in the Rich Kids with Glen Matlock, was also in Visage and Ultravox as well as stints in Thin Lizzy and a reasonably successfull career. He had his first hit in 1976 almost 10 years before Live Aid with Slik and his last one with (obviously not including Band Aid 20) Breathe, which was not so big here but very big in Europe in 1996. That's a career as a charting musician of 20 years which isnt bad by anyone's standards, in that time he also co-wrote the theme to Top of the Pops and did many other things. People forget that apart from Live Aid Midge also worked a lot with Phil Lynott and various other artists and there's not a lot of similarity between Thin Lizzy (where he didn't play keyboards but guitar, he's a pretty good guitarist) and Visage imo. i should also say if you think Midge is just about synth stuff come and see him unplugged with just a guitar. Surely going from someone who is known according to you for synth stuff yo doing a tour with just a guitar is pretty much a reinvention.

Cheers

Stuart

Aye, all I was saying is I don't see that much variation between his hits as implied in the original post. If I was, Dancing With Tears In My Eyes and Vienna were all synth pop hits. As was the theme from Top Of The Tops. Visage were synth pop were they not? I'm unfamiliar with the work of Slik, and why you would want to highlight being in a band with the one who got booted out of the Sex Pistols is beyond me....being asked to join the Sex Pistols isn't the same as actually being in the Sex Pistols really now is it so we can't claim that as a variant to his usual material.

As I said I don't have a beef with Midge, I find his stuff fairly inoffensive but uninteresting to me. I imagine it would be an interesting gig to see to hear familiar songs done differently but no doubt there will be at least a 15 quid charge to get in. Would not be surprised by a 20 quid plus charge given the status of ol' Midge as the lesser known driving force of Band Aid because he didn't swear on telly.

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Guest DustyDeviada

Well I would recommend this if you haven't seen this show before, he tells lots of great anecdotes between the songs, which is probably more entertaining than the music if I'm honest, but it's a good night out none the less.

I don't know why he keeps going on about the Vienna/Joe Dolce thing thoug, If I Was was number one, so was Band Aid, how many number one singles do you need? I'd be happy with just the one. ;)

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  • 2 months later...
Guest DustyDeviada

That will be a great gig, have a good one Alan. Susan's due tomorrow, so my chances of being allowed out to the Lemon Tree on Sunday are slim to zero unfortunately.

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Guest DustyDeviada

Hah, well, the due date is tomorrow, but when it will actually appear is anyone's guess.

Lots of people name their kids Aaron as that was Elvis' middle name, so I think I'll name my kid Freuder, after Mark Knopfler's middle name.

But only if it's a girl, obviously.

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Hah, well, the due date is tomorrow, but when it will actually appear is anyone's guess.

Lots of people name their kids Aaron as that was Elvis' middle name, so I think I'll name my kid Freuder, after Mark Knopfler's middle name.

But only if it's a girl, obviously.

Well if she does have it tomorrow, she'll be in the hospital so you can sneak out ;)

Cheers

Stuart

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ure believe it or not! well according to wikepedia....

Midge Ure OBE (born James Ure on October 10, 1953 in Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, Scotland) is a rock and roll guitarist, singer, and songwriter from Scotland, who had particular success in the 1970s and 1980s. His stage name, Midge, is a phonetic reversal of his real name, Jim.

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