Ultravox – U-Vox Tour – 1986

November 8th 1986 – Birmingham International Arena (NEC)

Supported by: Zerra One

Now this was a strange time in my life, alot was going on. I was finding my feet in the work place having started at Alliance and Leicester in April 1986. I was slowly building a really nice social of friends here to mix with my school and college mates.

I was starting to get some money together for the first time, but bands were stopping coming to Leicester on their schedules, meaning we were having to start travelling. Nottingham and Birmingham would become the main places to go and this gig was at the Birmingham NEC…..I would grow to hate this venue fairly quickly!

It was (and still is) just a big old warehouse like space with a poor acoustic quality and if you were unlucky – shit view at the back!

I hadn’t yet bought a car (very soon, in a month or so), so we had to get to these venues either by train or bus, bus being the cheaper option and often came with the ticket which was useful.

This would be the 4th time I’d seen Ultravox and my last. U-Vox was the touring album and it was a little bit ordinary by Ultravox’s standards. A couple of albums back the music press were scathing about all Ultravox music sounding the same, which seemed really unfair in our eyes, but this album did feel like they had come to a crossroads.

….and they probably had. Warren Cann, the drummer, was sacked early in 1986, so they toured as a three piece of Chris Cross, Billy Currie and Midge Ure. That in itself felt like something had changed.

Same Old Story would be the best of the singles, really good, but I could take or leave the other tracks, even this felt like a poor attempt to go mainstream and change style.

Zerra One

Even so, with a great band supporting in Zerra One and a great mix of old and new, this would be a great concert. We had decent seats on the flat so quite a nice view, but the overall sound was awful….something I would work out was the venue not the bands over the next few years.

Zerra One had done a great song for a Panasonic advert called Rescue Me and did a fantastic first album. Things didn’t move forward really though, even though their three albums were fantastic (Zerra 1 in 1984, Mountains and Water in 1985 and The Domino Effect in 1986), this Irish band didn’t make it sadly.

I sold most of my vinyl in 1990 to pay the deposit on my first house and these records proved very difficult in later years to get back on CD, so it was a big regret to lose them…..thank goodness Youtube came along 😉

Ultravox were their usual professional selves and performed a superb set, despite the weaker new numbers.

Midge was on form, but something wasn’t quite right and before the end of the year, the band would not complete the U-Vox tour and in 1987 they split up.

I’d see Midge again, but even though Ultravox reunited in 2088, I’ve not been tempted to see them again, instead, preferring to remember them as the main band that introduced me not only to their music, but to friends and the whole musical journey I would go on.

Just from what I read about their influences and those influenced by Ultravox, I would find music by Iggy Pop, Kraftwerk, Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, ealr Ultravox before Midge (John Foxx) and experimental electronic music to name but a few.

The music goes on and I often return to the early albums.

Set List

• Same Old Story
• The Voice
• New Europeans
• Sweet Surrender
• White China
• Dream On
• All in One Day
• Time to Kill
• All Stood Still
• Hymn
• Lament
• Vienna
• Passing Strangers
• The Prize
• One Small Day
• Love’s Great Adventure
• Encore: Dancing With Tears in My Eyes, All Fall Down