Midge Ure fragile after gruelling US tour
In one of his regular chats to aspiring musicians, Scottish-born synth-pop songsmith Midge Ure was struck by the fact he didn’t have much of relevance to share.
The world in which he scored hits with Ultravox, Visage and as a solo artist – plus co-wrote Band Aid’s 1984 charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas? – was done and dusted. Top of the Pops and Smash Hits magazine have made way for Pozible campaigns and Facebook groups.
Talking to the kids at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts last year, Ure had the brainwave of embarking on a five-week North American tour where he did everything: booked the flights, accommodation and vehicles, sorted out the venues, sold merchandise and counted the money.
“It was gruelling to say the least,” the 61-year-old chuckles from Glasgow a week after completing the tour.
After frequently discovering he’d left a vital piece of equipment at the previous venue hundreds of kilometres away, Ure solemnly swears to never take a tour manager or crew member for granted.
[|“I knew they worked hard, but the amount of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s is just ludicrous,” he says.]
Sometimes the obstacles weren’t of his creation, such as when the CDs he hoped to sell were still at Heathrow when he was kicking off the tour in Seattle.
“If I was a struggling musician, the couple of hundred dollars that I make each night selling CDs could be the difference between a tour that loses money and a tour that makes money,” Ure says. “It’s stuff like that I’ve never had to think about before.
“I videoed the entire thing on a GoPro camera, which I’m editing together now and I’ll put up on the internet for people to see.”
It will be business-as-usual when the father-of-four, who lives in Bath, England, tours Australia solo and acoustic next month.
While his previous visit in 2013 followed Ultravox’s comeback album Brill!ant, this time Ure will focus on Fragile, his first solo album since 2001’s Move Me.
The electronic song suite focuses on a decade-old crisis sparked by the death of his father, his battle with the bottle and “generally realising that I’m not superhuman”.
“I found myself 10 years ago falling apart at the seams,” Ure says with typical candour. “I found myself with a series of events that was just too much to deal with. In amongst all that was me getting in trouble with a bit of alcohol and finding myself losing it completely.”
How will the new songs hold up on acoustic guitar?
“I don’t have any qualms even attempting to do some of those songs on acoustic guitar,” Ure says, “because if I can do Vienna and Dancing With Tears In My Eyes on acoustic guitar I can certainly do the stuff that’s on Fragile.”
[|Midge Ure ] plays the Showroom at HBF Stadium on April 8. Tickets through Ticketmaster.
