Back To The Eighties

You know when you haven’t done something for ages, you can forget how good it is to do.  A few weeks back I received a phone call telling me I’d won some tickets to see Midge Ure at Birmingham Town Hall.  I put it in the diary, lined up someone to go with and forgot about it until this week when I could see it there in the diary.  A bit of quick research on the Birmingham Town Hall site revealed that it wasn’t just Midge Ure we were going to see, but The Christians and Altered Images too, so quite a fest of 80s music really.

This made the evening out a lot more exciting as seeing three bands rather than just one artiste has got to be good, assuming the bands are high quality.  The advantage of a three band bill, as we found out is, that you will know almost all the songs.  With only a short time on stage each, it tends to be the fan favourites that come out with only one or two other songs per set.  This was perfect for us as whilst we liked all three bands we weren’t committed fans of any of them.

It’s difficult to pick a favourite out of the three, so I won’t.  I loved Altered Images and their quirky pop songs which started the evening on a happy note.  Clare Grogan has lots of energy and I enjoyed her banter with the audience.

The Christians had apparently had a few drinks (they told us so), but it didn’t impact on the music. Their set covered their biggest hits and got most of the audience up and dancing.

Of course, Midge Ure was the biggest act of the three and had the longest set.  I was surprised how many songs he’d written that I knew including some for other bands. He played a number of Ultravox songs, some of his solo hits and Fade to Grey (a Visage song that he’d co-written).

I think I’ll be looking out for similar lineups in the future.  It’s great to see some live music and getting to see three eighties bands in one night was quite a treat.