On Monday of last week, I was checking through my email and I stumbled onto the fact that Midge Ure was going to be in town on Saturday of the same week. I don't know how I missed hearing about this. I get regular emails from the venue he was going to be playing at. I guess I just read the subject line in those emails and delete them rather than looking through them more thoroughly. But Midge's name was in the subject and I got very excited. I've never seen him before in concert (in any way, shape, form or band) and he's someone I'd love to see. He's also someone I thought for sure I'd never have a chance to see. He doesn't tour the US very often and if he did, I can't imagine him coming to a little backwater town like Woodstock, NY to play. But he did. I made the decision right then and there that I was going. I figured I'd be going alone since Ken has been sick as a dog fighting the flu. And even if he wasn't, he barely knows Ultravox, let alone any of Midge's solo stuff. I told him I was going to the show and he decided that the had to go. He had to go because of his co-dependency and not because he's been dying to see Midge. He really has a problem letting me do things I really want to do without him. He figured I'd have more fun if I went with someone. While that's true, it's not necessarily the case with something who has the flu. But he decided to go and so we went.
Woodstock is about 50-55 minutes from where we live. We decided to hit up a Mexican joint that's not far from the theater before going to the show. So we left the house a little earlier than I would have liked to to get to Gypsy Wolf. It's great food and I love when we have the chance to go there. As we were finishing up, friends of ours were just arriving. That rarely happens here at home, let alone when we're an hour from home, but it did. Our friend Sara was out with her boyfriend for a pre-birthday dinner. (Her last dinner in her 30's, she proclaimed!) That was a nice bonus.
Anyway, the theater is a couple doors down from the restaurant, so we headed there, but got there about 20 minutes before the doors opened. So we waited it out in the car. No big whoop.
The audience was on the smallish side. There couldn't have been more than 100 people there total. But the Bearsville Theater isn't a huge venue to begin with. From comments the opening band (Right The Stars) made, this crowd was huge compared to the previous night. They played for about 45 minutes and I didn't think they were half bad. Never heard of them before, but I'm looking forward to hearing more from them in the future.
Midge hit the stage at 10pm, with the opening band in tow. They were not only the opening band, but also Midge's touring band. And he was great. Just amazing. He was so on the mark last night. He apologized for the roughness of his voice as he woke up with a sore throat, but it didn't sound out of the norm to me.
The setlist was a career spanning greatest hits. He did a lot of solo stuff, he did a nice selection of Ultravox songs and he also threw in a Visage song and ended the show's encore with a solo acoustic version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
The highlight of the show for me was hearing him perform "Vienna" live. It's one of my all-time favorite songs and one of the most perfect pop songs ever recorded. I took a video of him singing it with my phone and have included it at the bottom of this post. I snapped a few crappy cellphone pictures as well.
It was an incredible concert. I'm so glad I went. I'd really be beating myself up if I missed this once in a lifetime chance to see him. Even Ken thanked me for this show. He said he knew two songs, but loved every single one of them and was so happy he went, flu or not.
The set list for last night's show was as follows:
Love's Great Adventure
Call of the Wild
Breathe
Fade To Grey
Cold Cold Heart
Answers To Nothing
Just For You
No Regrets
Vienna
Dear God
One Small Day
Hymn
Dancing With Tears In My Eyes
If I Was
Encore:
Do They Know It's Christmas?
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