Midge Ure
Saturday 1st March 2014 @ Olympic
Concert Room, Holiday Inn, Belfast
10th United Airlines Belfast Nashville
Songwriters Festival
★★★★
Most music fans
would agree that arena and stadium shows just can’t rival the intimacy and
sweaty passion of smaller venues. I’d never been to a venue of smaller capacity
than about two thousand, so finding out about a series of small gigs taking
place across Belfast through a leaflet I’d picked up was a lucky coincidence.
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| iPod camera quality Travis Is a Tourist |
I booked tickets to the Belfast-Nashville Songwriters Festival (or ‘BelNash’ as it’s known) on a whim. The week-long event involves veteran singer-songwriters such as Donovan sharing the stage with up-and-coming acts, from both the local area and over in the States. The festival takes place each year at various small venues across the city, such as the Empire Music Hall and, oddly, the Holiday Inn.
For a mere twelve pounds each, my Dad and I went to see Ultravox frontman Midge Ure at the Olympic Concert Room at the Holiday Inn, certainly the smallest and most unusual place I’d gone to a gig. What was stated on the tickets as the Olympic Concert Room appeared in fact to be one of the hotel’s conference rooms lined with chairs in front of a small stage; the informal, makeshift feel of this gig really added to the atmosphere.
Forget the disastrously overpriced merchandise stalls and ridiculous ‘no lids’ drinks regulations of big-budget arena shows, concert-goers of this sold-out gig simply bought drinks from the bar (a beer-in-plastic-cups kind of affair) and took a seat wherever they wanted in the general admission hall.
Supporting Midge was local act Travis Is a Tourist, a lanky, dark-haired lad, whom the crowd – of a variety of ages – warmed nicely to. Marrying heartfelt vocals and guitar playing, Travis sounded not unlike fellow Northern Irish bands Snow Patrol and Silhouette.
A basket of reheated chips later, and Glaswegian synthpop pioneer Midge Ure took to the stage. For me, there were so many things that were great about this gig. Firstly, Ure’s voice is powerful as ever and it filled the room above some drunken natter and soared to demonstrate his falsetto. The set struck a perfect balance between Midge’s solo and Ultravox material, as well as his work with other musicians and cover versions of his favourite songs. Highlights included 1996 solo single 'Breathe' (Ure managing to hit some seriously high notes), and songs such as 'Lament', 'Dancing With Tears in My Eyes', 'Hymn', 'Love’s Great Adventure' and 'All Stood Still' among others, encompassing the band’s string of hit albums in the eighties. What worked so well was how Ure managed to capture of electronic essence of his career on an acoustic guitar and the true genius was that it just worked. I was able to check off having heard another one of my favourite songs live when Ure played 'Fade to Grey', the song he co-penned in 1980 for Steve Strange’s Visage.
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| Midge Ure performs in an intimate setting |
Ure’s
relaxed rapport with the audience really added to the live experience, with Ure
describing BelNash as a “really unique festival” as it celebrates the art of
the songwriter. In-between-song banter was littered with witty anecdotes from
listening to records during his teenage years to in Glasgow to the background
on where, when and why a particular song was written. Ure is a funny guy, and
was happy to make jokes of his commercial failures and to
reply to people in the audience.
Ure closed his set with, of course, a mighty rendition of Ultravox’s biggest hit 'Vienna' and his 1985 solo hit and only number one single 'If I Was'to a mass singalong. Leaving the gig and dashing back to the car in the rain, I couldn't help but think what a musical powerhouse and talented man Midge Ure is, and how a gig as unusual and as unanticipated as this one turned out to be one of the coolest I've ever been to.
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