Ultravox

Mon 27 Apr 2009

Back together and taking on Plymouth

Ultravox

• Midge Ure – Vocals/Guitar
• Chris Cross – Bass/Synthesizer/Vocals
• Billy Currie – Keyboard/Vocals
• Warren Cann - Drums

Ultravox

Another Phoenix from the flames resurrection continued at the Plymouth Pavilions on Monday night, resulting in the return of the sounds of Electronica created by the masterful, Ultravox.
For all Ultravox fans 2009 will be forever remembered as the year that all four members of the 1980s line-up, Warren Cann, Chris Cross, Billy Currie and Midge Ure, are finally reunited under the Ultravox banner for the first time since performing at Live Aid in 1985.

I, like many others know the chart successes of the band, but beyond that knew little of what else was to be on offer on the night, it transpired to be a mix of crunching guitar riffed jumo-a-long-to pop songs, mixed with some very electronic journeys into the far reaches of sound and noise which I am sure were meant to have very profound, deep meaningful messages attached to them (maybe not!) certainly those on stage seemed to be taking these bits very seriously, but for myself, these bits passed me by slightly.
The musical, Astrodyne, got the journey underway, and it was soon obvious that there were a great many highly knowledgeable, die-hard fans in attendance, although an all seated gig, it took only a slight invitation from Midge to get everybody up on their feet and dancing.

Ultravox

Main front man, Midge Ure sounded absolutely fantastic, some of the vocals were incredibly complex and he nailed every note, how history could have been different for Midge if accepted the invite to join the Sex Pistols!

The reception to the intro to the most anticipated song of the night was ecstatic, Vienna, was performed with a passion and feeling that I would have thought almost impossible to recreate when performing a song for the thousandth (at least) time, it really did bring a tingle to the spine, followed by the other chart successes, Dancing with tears in my eyes, and Hymn, the night was far too quickly over, hopefully it will not be another twenty years plus before Ultravox return.

Review by Greg Taylor
Photos by Chris Williams