Review for Ultravox: Return To Eden

Introduction

July 13th 1985 was the last time that the classic and most successful line-up of Ultravox performed together. The band had built a successful career since 1980 with their synthesis of rock and electronics but cracks were beginning to appear. Midge Ure had co-written arguably the greatest charity track ever and also had aspirations for a solo career, releasing number one single If I Was and hit album The Gift later that year.

Reconvening in 1986, Ure had already been convinced that less was more and tried to persuade the band to ditch their masses of electronics for a more simple band approach. This led to a major falling out that eventually saw Currie and Cross siding with Ure and resident tech-head Warren Cann being unceremoniously ejected from the band. Cann teamed up with Hans Zimmer and antipodean Zaine Griff for the rather special Helden album Spies that is still unreleased despite the original recordings being remastered by Extreme Voice a few years ago.



Ultravox, on the other hand, brought in Big Country's Mark Brzezicki on drums and released a rather lacklustre album that was officially titled U-Vox but is universally known to Ultravox fans as TDPT (the dreaded pink thing). The album was still a hit (I bought it…) and contained gems such as The Prize (I know I'm alone on this one…) and the orchestral-laden All In One Day, the latter inspired by Live Aid. Still, diminishing returns on single releases and a rather lacklustre tour saw the band call it a day.

Chris Cross went back to psychotherapy and spent the next couple of decades in obscurity. Midge Ure had a sporadic solo career whilst Billy Currie released two more albums that were actually quite good under the Ultravox name before a more low key career as a solo musican with the odd rant at Ure on his website after dental treatment. Warren Cann had long since decamped to Los Angeles and that was that other than a fledging internet site called Extreme Voice that still carried the torch for the band and slowly gathered recruits as the internet took form and people started to explore cyberspace in such of others who shared their passions.



Extreme Voice was not just a website though, it had close links to the band itself and was also instrumental in a number of Ultravox, Midge Ure and John Foxx re-releases including the first time that seminal album Rage In Eden had ever been seen on CD. With enthusiasm building and the odd thread for the missing Helden album, a second set of re-releases remastered by Abbey Road started to take shape in 2008, the tracklistins and designs of which got the band talking again and they all agreed that actually they had been quite good in their heyday.

Hints of a reunion then started to appear in late 2008 with a couple of youTube clips that really got Ultravox fans buzzing, although all agreed that it would only work as a proper reunion if Warren Cann was back on the drums.

And so it came to pass and the Return To Eden tour was a small-ish UK tour starting in Edinburgh in April 2009, and lo it was good. Very good in fact, coinciding with an updated Greatest Hits CD/DVD package that sold quite well. The show at The Roundhouse, London was filmed and has now been released as both a DVD/CD set and a separate highlights CD just prior to the band's return to the stage with the Return To Eden 2 tour…

Audio

A nice selection of soundtrack options with 2.0 Stereo, 5.1 Surround and DTS soundtracks available, I listened to the DTS soundtrack and it is very impressive. Midge Ure has already stated that there have been no overdubs on the soundtrack and you can hear the odd bum note in there whether it's Currie getting slightly lost during Astradyne or Chris Cross hitting a bum note on his bass synth. It sounds fantastic and immediately makes the bootleg I acquired of last year's show redundant.

Visual

Excellent visuals with a nice array of camera shots and angles with some quite tight editing, the now obligatory video panels looking more impressive from a distance on DVD than they did up close in the flesh - the only time they looked a bit poor here was during Rage In Eden where the RIE logo was slowly enlarged as the pixels weren't tight enough to render it sharply.

There is one layer change glitch but as it appears during the gap between two tracks it's not that bad. The lighting looks good and the picture is crisp and in focus despite some fans worrying about quality due to it being released in NTSC format.

Extras

The packaging is rather fine as a cardboard gatefold with imbossed white horses head logo and the famous Peter Saville interpretation of Herve Morvan's Cinémonde poster that only recently received permission from the artist's estate for it to be reused as cover art for the Rage In Eden cd re-release and therefore also for this tour. Also comes with a colour booklet containing a series of photgraphs along with the credits for the set.  Overall, quite classy artwork…

2 CD setlist - the full setlist split in two nine-track CD's, no difference to the DVD and the complete setlist on the night and just as impressive as a live document.



Building Eden: The Reformation Documentary - 35 minutes of documentary showing the initial feelers for reformation all the way through to mid-tour. This documentary footage is interspersed with vox pops of fans waiting for the gig at The Roundhouse, hello Rodney and Lavaocean (plus loads of others I didn't quite recognise…). The documentary is a fascinating document for Ultravox fans in that it shows Ure in particular feeling quite apprehensive about the reunion, which isn't surprising considering the way that Warren Cann was effectively ousted back in 1985. Billy Currie, despite his long-standing spats with Ure, admits that he put all the old antagonism away to attempt to make the reunion a success and the crucial first meeting of the complete band is a real joy to watch as years of discord melt away. The rehearsal scenes show just how little time they had to pull it all together and how intensive and boring this aspect of touring can be. There are also limited interviews with all of the band members, some conducted by Ure himself, and all seem to have really enjoyed the experience although psychotherapist Cross himself admits that the timing now is right and that an earlier attempt at a reunion wouldn't have worked.

The documentary also has quite an impressive set of subtitles to go with it (English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portugese and Japanese).

Overall

It's a good time to be an 80's fan in general with remastered reissues galore over the last few years (some better than others it should be said - New Order and Spandau Ballet, I'm looking at you), but a great time to be an Ultravox fan. In 2008 we were treated to the first of all the seminal line-up's albums impressively remastered by Abbey Road Studios and then the on-line community went mental over a couple of youTube clips that hinted at a reformation of the band.

Of course, Ultravox aren't the only band to reform into their classic line-ups with Duran Duran, OMD and Spandau Ballet amongst those others who have decided to tread the boards. Ultravox fans are a close knit bunch, as some of the flame wars will attest, and have over the years gathered together in small groups at other bands gigs, such as John Foxx (ex-Vox of course), Human League or Gary Numan. Last April we had the chance to do it with the band that brought us together and it was a huge success with many people attending more than one show; I did three last year and some with greater stamina than myself followed the band throughout their entire first tour for 23 years.



Some reunions can be a bit of a disappointment but I can honestly say that the Return To Eden tour was a triumph in both bringing the line-up back together and sounding even tighter than in their prime, as this release attests. The band are clearly that much older now but there have been no compromises with the sound design, with no re-workings of the tracks to account for age and maturing tastes of the band members. Of course they're using Mac's now rather than the banks of synths they used to take with them but every track sounds as impressive as back in the day, even Lament which sounds much better than when I heard it in Edinburgh last year although it was never a favourite of mine.

The tightness of the band on stage is something to behold with Midge Ure looking very much as if he both belongs behind a synth and also rocking out on guitar in a manner that he's never quite managed in his solo career. His voice also sounds much more powerful than it has in years, and despite his recent sartorial style being centred around a rather loud red shirt that made an appearance beneath a Paul Smith suit at the start of the tour, it was clearly peeled from his back for a rather more sombre black shirt for this gig.



Billy Currie is clearly having a ball behind his synths with the odd squelchy synth solo and milking the applause every time he came to the front of the stage to play violin, although he wasn't quite making love to his organs in the way he used to. Warren Cann still plays the drums like Animal from the Muppets but in a more restrained style this time, also getting the chance to take lead vocal on Mr X - even adlibbing with some German lyrics at the end of this track. As for Chris Cross, the loveable 'cockerney' is without doubt the most laidback member of the band, amply demonstrated with him either nonchalantly playing his bass one handed whilst also playing keyboards or by just playing his bass synth one handed with his other hand in his pocket. Cool, man…

I had an absolute ball on this tour, meeting up with friends both old and new, and losing myself in the power and the glory that was for me the best band in the world in their day. This DVD/CD set captures everything perfectly, even though the setlist order changed slightly from when the tour first kicked off, and I can still say hand on heart that Ultravox are still my favourite band. The setlist is quite superb as well. Despite my preference for White China in place of Lament, I have no real complaints about the setlist as it's very much a strong one. There's always a temptation to take the easy option of a Greatest Hits setlist for a reunion tour but Ultravox have shunned this for what is very much a fan setlist. Obviously there are still hits in there, but atmospheric tracks like Astradyne, Rage In Eden, Your Name (Has Slipped My Mind Again) and Mr X sit comfortably alongside more rockier tracks like We Stand Alone, I Remember (Death In The Afternoon), One Small Day, The Thin Wall and The Voice - the latter complete with the brilliant (albeit slightly more restrained this time) drum finale.



The timing of this release is quite apt with the Return To Eden 2 tour kicking off within days so this really is an appetiser for the tour to come. I'm only doing one gig this year but it's going to be a cracker at the Hammersmith Apollo on Sunday 11th April with a large pre-show organised with a performance from ex-support band and on-stage backing musicians/singers Messengers along with 80's synth tribute band Party Fears Three.

In the lead-up to the coming weekend's event, I shall be overloading quite severely on Ultravox and whilst I can't say that I won't watch Monument or any of the other live video bootlegs that I have ever again, this current live set is a superb reminder of not only how good Ultravox were but still are as a live band.

Recommended.