CityLife

Ultravox

Ultravox
Apollo
April 8, 2010

In British music, heads of state travel one of two ways. You’re either the Rolling Stones, delivered to the stage amidst gold plated luxury - or you’re one of the others. Ultravox’s stage set at the Apollo, looking like a large bed sheet with assorted sections of scaffold, says volumes about their relative status in the hierarchy of heritage acts.

That production values, or simply touring budgets, deserted the band when mainstream success did is a good theory; but another is that they just stopped caring to concentrate on the music instead.

Dodgy backdrop aside, a shaky start welcomed Midge Ure and three other original band members to Manchester as loud vocals, even louder keyboards and drums that sounded like stones in a tin can all jostled for space during New Europeans. The cacophony calmed down in time for Passing Strangers as the sound engineer appeared to regain control.

The songs rattled along in quick succession, most following a fairly simple song writing blueprint of the 80s, their most successful period of chart fitness. Synthesised instruments swarmed over pulsing percussion, leaving Ure to take up sole frontman duties and dress the gaps in between with endless guitar solos and sky scraping vocals.

Where Ultravox get really interesting is during the instrumentals. No offence to Midge, but the studied darkness that engulfed the venue for the machine-like computer pop of Mr X showed just how deep into the synth genre the band were. If a trip back to the Eighties was the aim then the awkward chord changes and spoken lines buried amongst simple melodies took everyone to a groundbreaking time when transistors and electrodes shunted guitars into the wings.

Except for the hardcore of fans, the main event was always going to be Vienna. Sounding as unique a piece of pop music as it ever did, Ure reaches that impossibly high note with minimal strain. The applause that came after every attempt offered out of collective appreciation or maybe just a shared relief that he had remembered to breathe.

The soft rock of Dancing With Tears In My Eyes put a cherry on an occasionally engaging performance and helped to prove that maybe Ultravox did do more than one decent song.