Monument - The Soundtrack...

Introduction

It's not long now until the reformed Ultravox consisting of Midge Ure, Billy Currie, Chris Cross and Warren Cann kick off their new tour in Edinburgh on April 10th. So what better time to get a reminder of the boys playing in their prime with the re-release of live album and video Monument, taken from their 1983 tour in support of the George Martin produced album Quartet.

Monument as a name meant and means several different things. It was first used as an instrumental track that became the b-side to the single Hymn. It then became the name of both the live album and live video that became the recorded document of the tour. Finally it is now the name by which the official Ultravox tribute band is known, and they are rather good too (I watched them at an after wedding party in Oxford recently).

The original Monument VHS release was a rather expensive but short release with one studio track and five live tracks contained therein. The Monument stage set is quite impressive, containing as it does the same Peter Saville design that appeared on Quartet and the majority of the singles from that album. The band set up is also quite impressive with a number of synths on stage, so many in fact that Danny Mitchell and Colin King from support band Messengers were roped in as part of the main attraction on synth and backing vocals.



Kicking off the DVD is the instrumental track Monument which is used to introduce the film and feature studio footage alongside words from both Peter Saville on the design element and George Martin on working alongside someone other than The Beatles. Also features footage and photographs from Montserrat where Martin persuaded the band to decamp to for the Quartet album, so this also includes the obligatory shots of the band in swimming trunks (guess we have Duran Duran to thank for that…).

Immediately after this though we get the wind sound that leads us straight into Reap The Wild Wind and all is well with the world as we get to see Ultravox in their prime, albeit in a rather more shortened version than most fans would like.

Note: as is the norm for music DVD releases these days, this is a Region Free NTSC DVD.

Visual

This is no straight VHS to DVD transfer, oh no. The current Ultravox re-releases have all had involvement from Abbey Road Studios engineers and this is no exception. The DVD was restored by Abbey Road Interactive and audio resynching work was completed by Andrew Walter from Abbey Road Studios. So whilst the picture is still inevitably a little grainy, it is probably the best you're going to get and the LPCM Stereo soundtrack is rather superb.

As appeared to be the fashion in those early and innovative days of the promo video, it was felt that live performance wasn't enough for the modern audience and thus creative directors Midge Ure and Chris Cross included clips from their own promo video's (and they were the creative talent behind most of them) to complement the live performance. This bizarrely leads to the Passing Strangers video being used during Mine For Life, which does work even if if you're familiar with the band's output.

What detracts though is the over use of said video's. Whilst this may have been a bit innovative at the time, it now just looks intrusive particularly on Vienna where it almost feels as if the whole video is used.

The menu design is also rather good if basic and fits the overall Monument design.

Extras

Gallery - a nice selection of both studio and live photographs from the band's private collection set to the track Monument.

CD - the remastered album that accompanies the DVD has also been enhanced by the huge engineering talents at Abbey Road. Originally this album also only had 6 tracks, which was incredibly short for a live album (especially as one track was a studio track) and the first re-release by Extreme Voice/EMI in 1996 added in Visions In Blue and Passing Strangers to bulk it up a bit. For this re-release, The Song (We Go) has been added. This track appeared on Quartet and was the band's way to acknowledge the rather superb drum finale to the live version of The Voice.

Overall

It's just over a month to go before I'm off with lots of other die-hard Ultravox fans to watch the boys back in action, and frankly I can't wait. The re-release of Monument in this format then is a great way to build anticipation even further, being a live document of the group at their best. Sadly the reformed line-up almost certainly won't contain as much hardware as in on show here now that sampling and sequencing is the norm, and may not also include either Danny Mitchell or Colin King (but we hope it does, at least in the two Scottish dates and the filmed London date…).

It's rather unfortunate that this is the only official live document of the band in action as they were rather superb as a live act, mixing synths with traditional rock elements; not because of lack of quality, quite the reverse in fact, just that it is far too short to really do them justice. I only had the budget for the vinyl album back in the day, the VHS was around £60-£70 if I remember my Smash Hits coupon correctly, and despite loving the live tracks contained within felt it was a bit of a short sell when you considered the competition at the time in Japan's Oil On Canvas farewell live document which was a hefty double album in comparison.

Still, what we get here is amongst the best music of that period. Sadly Ultravox in this line-up had only one decent studio album left in them (Lament) but you wouldn't have guessed that from watching them. They were amongst the main innovators of the time, hugely successful in album sales if slightly disappointing overall in single sales, and Monument showcases that brilliantly. Midge Ure alternates between his centre stage synth and guitar, Billy Currie makes love to his keyboards and performs some superb solos that lesser bands would have relegated to guitar, Chris Cross enthusiastically bashes his bass guitar whilst up at the back Warren Cann does a rather accurate impression of Animal from The Muppets.



The highlight of this DVD, and of their live performances in general, is the live version of The Voice from the album Rage In Eden. The track culminates in Ure, Currie and Cross joining Cann in a rather stunning drum finale that is extremely powerful. It is in my eyes the best live track ever from anyone and watching it again on the big screen is quite emotional. I'm really hoping that they resurrect that finale for the new tour (and it would be the icing on the cake to have Midge Ure yell "our support band Messengers!" but I think that's taking hope a little too far), as the Monument tribute band have recreated that brilliantly themselves so other than old tiring muscles, there's no excuse really.

As usual with the EMI/Extreme Voice releases, the design is superb and special thanks should go to Cerise Reed, Rob Harris and Paul Hitchcock in particular for their dedication to the band, being responsible for all the past and current EMI releases (with more still to come). There's a thriving forum community as well that is gearing up now for an event that none of us ever thought would come.

Monument is a superb reminder of what was and hopefully will be.

Recommended.