Enjoying some downtime in Portugal – and trying (but failing) not to spark envy by mentioning the glorious weather there – Midge Ure spoke about how much he is looking forward to bringing his brand-new tour to Hull. The singer-songwriter, whose whole life has been wrapped up in music, will be trying something a little different when he arrives at Connexin Live this November.
His visionary A Man Of Two Worlds Tour is marked down as an immersive concert experience that blends classic tracks and fan favourites with instrumental pieces to create a “continuous musical narrative”. Such was the demand for the opening leg of the tour that new dates – including Hull’s – were immediately added.
The acclaimed musician and producer will be sharing his inspired double album, that goes under the same name as the tour, and represents his first new material in 12 years, with Hull fans. He said: “My first love is getting out on stage with a guitar or keyboard or behind a microphone and it’s always been that way.
“A lot of musicians get fed up and walk away but I just can’t see me ever doing that. It’s part of me.
“I’ll be there in Hull living the spirit of Mick Ronson,” he said of the gig that will take place on Sunday, November 22. Midge recalled being in Hull as a headline speaker at Biz Week back in 2017, and going in search of Mick Ronson’s statue.
“I couldn’t find it; I was completely useless. I need a Sherpa or someone to lead me there.”
It could be that Midge might get a chance to try again when he arrives in the city in November. “Back in the day, the Ultravox days, Chris [Cross] the bass player and myself would drive ourselves to gigs. We didn’t want someone nannying us.
“These days, all of the band and the crew arrive in a big bus, you wake up in the town where you’re going to be playing and you’ve got all day to go out and explore. It’s not unusual to find us in a coffee shop, or in a junk shop, or in a guitar shop.
“If you see someone and you think, that old man looks like Midge Ure, then it’s probably me.” On the launch of A Man Of Two Worlds, Midge said: “Almost every album I’ve made over the past 40-plus years has featured at least one instrumental track.
“For this album I wanted to explore that further, showing two sides of what I do. The Man Of Two Worlds Tour reflects this idea, combining instrumentals I’ve written over the years with songs, album tracks and fan favourites side by side, taking the audience on a journey.”
He said the “tour of two halves” – it ran through May and June and picks up again with nine dates in November – had received a “great” reception so far. “You do put your heart and soul into it… everything you do to bring it all together.”
Midge said it was “wonderful” to give an audience who might have been attending a venue for 40-plus years an opportunity to experience the place in a different way because of how this new show is being staged. The Scottish-born singer of 80s hits such as Vienna and Dancing With Tears In My Eyes is no stranger to wider East Yorkshire, having played the former Beverley Picture Playhouse (now the home of Brown’s department store) no fewer than five times.
His was the last show before the curtain came down forever on the venue in December 2002. Although that was nearly 24 years ago, Midge recalls it well.
“I remember that night and my friend Troy Donockley [composer and multi-instrumentalist most known for his playing of Uilleann pipes] came along to play. The management said, ‘that’s it, we’ve gone, we can’t pay you’ but we said we were playing anyway.”
The singer honoured his acoustic set for “expenses only” and a report at the time carried a statement from his then manager, Bernice Hardman, who told the Hull Daily Mail: “Midge said it can be Beverley’s Christmas present.
“He didn’t want to let people down. It is one of his favourite venues. I know it’s not the most glamorous venue but it has a special place in his heart.”
Midge said: “It was a real pity that it went. It was a great grassroots venue and we need these places; people who are up and coming need to cut their teeth in front of an audience.”
On learning that the venue was now a shop, Midge said: “I hope my career doesn’t get that bad that I have to play in a department store.”
The tour follows a remarkable run of live activity in recent years for Midge, including a sold-out 70th birthday celebration at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2023 and an extensive UK tour in 2024. Few artists can claim the creative longevity of Midge Ure, from his glam rock days with Slik, through the punk-tinged energy of The Rich Kids to defining the sound of the 80s with Ultravox and Visage.
His role in co-writing and producing the global anthem Do They Know It’s Christmas? with Bob Geldof – “something that became so iconic, so huge” – and helping orchestrate Live Aid remains one of the most significant moments in modern music history. Midge said: “When you hear Do They Know It’s Christmas? playing in supermarkets from October, as we undoubtedly will, it’s still doing its job.
“Although it’s not the best song in the world, as a record it did a magnificent job when it sold that Christmas [1984] and it’s still doing it.” Royalties from airplay continue to generate funds for the Band Aid Trust that has raised and spent more than £145m towards eradicating hunger and poverty in Ethiopia and beyond since 1984.
Midge, who will be 73 by the time he gigs in Hull, says he is “still young in my head”. He finds the fact his music is globally known extraordinary.
“I still feel like a kid,” he said. “I find it strange that I can walk into a room of [music linked] people and Elton John will give me a wave and Eric Clapton will come up and give me a hug; they are all people who are idolised and for them to know me is ludicrous.”
Midge does not know what might be next on the horizon. “You don’t know what’s going to happen; you don’t know what call you might get with someone suggesting something.”
What he does know is that, as a “bit of a workaholic”, he is learning to relax a bit more. “I am always, always recording or writing; I’ve always done that.
“I can now chill out a little bit, I can sit down in a square with a coffee and a book and get lost in someone else’s world.”
Tickets for A Man Of Two Worlds at Hull’s Connexin Live are on sale now.