Metamatic Forums John Foxx Ultravox Earliest live shows

I put my anorak on now and then, and go rummaging off into the bowels of the library and the interweb.

In the course of things, I have turned up references to Ultravox! live shows that are earlier than listed in the archives.

January 28 1977 - Ultravox! supported Supercharge at Southampton University.

November ? 1976 - Ultravox! played at The Nashville, supported by Dust on The Needle.

I'm wondering if anyone has any memoirs of Ultravox! gigs, or any other references to similar that we might not all know about.

Sadly, I'm far too young to have seen them live

Apparently, Ultravox! supported Eddie and the Hot Rods at the Glasgow Apollo on Friday 19th December 1976.

Aaaah, now we know the secret who the guy from The Garden ( mentioned in the booklet) is!

Hi Scott! Nice you be here too!!

I believe that Ultravox visited my home town in 1978! They played a gig at the then "Top of the World" nightspot. The nightclub is still there, called Zanzibar now, but it has held various titles since 1978!

Like Birdsong, I am far too young to have been present at the gig!

Sarah

Thanks Sarah - they sure did.
6th February according to the archive:

http://www.metamatic.com/zLivedocs01/19780206.html

I've also just turned up a reference in a blog by someone claiming to have seen Ultravox! supporting BeBopDeluxe in 1976?

Any Bill Nelson fans cast any light on this?

I played a gig in Nov 76, supporting Ultravox, at the Nashville in London with my then band Radio. Band members were Ian North, guitar/vocals, Martin Gordon( Ex- Sparks) bass and myself on drums. In early 77 my brother Robin joined and the band eventually changed its name to Neo. I recently re-mastered some demos by the four piece Radio with the help of Morrissey guitarist Boz Boorer. If anyone knows the exact date of this gig please let me know. Ultravox played a blinder, by the way.

Interesting. Thanks Paul!

The gig I referred to (above) was reviewed in Sounds by Chas de Whalley on 20 November, but that's not the date of the gig of course. Ultravox were headline - is this the date that you played with Radio as well on the same line-up?
I suspect its a different gig altogether - which suggests Ultravox played at the Nashville at least twice in November 1976.
They also went on the "Freeze Out" Tour with Eddie and the Hot Rods (and Aswad) 'at the end of the year.'
I've only found two dates so far, both December.

In terms of other dates you might find a use for :-
Neo's first appearance on the Marquee's archive is July 2, 1977 in support of Gloria Mundi (Eddie Maelov's band) and they (Neo) apparently supported Ultravox! there on July 14th.

Hope this helps

Not an early one, but Ultravox's gig at Grangemouth Town Hall on Monday 9th October 1978 isn't listed in the archive. My brother was there... lucky sod.

Yes Andreas, I couldn't keep it quiet any longer. My guilt at receiving all those royalties was eating me up! Good to see you too, mate!

(P.S. I think you meant Systems Of Romance.)

De Whalley mentions in the Sounds ("Clowns") article that the Ultravox!/Dust On The Needle gig took place on a Tuesday night. Tuesdays prior to the publication date of the 20th in November '76 were the 2nd, the 9th and the 16th...

Narrows it down a little, I suppose. Given that Sounds was published weekly, the 16th is probably the most likely date.

Scott

That would be a logical deduction.
Good work!

I don't have the article, and I am toying with subscribing to rocksbackpages.com for this and others that haven't yet made their way into my world…

Scott - do you have the full text?
Perhaps you could email me?

I saw them in Birmingham in 1977 at a club called Barbarellas. It was a very famous punk club in those days. I think I saw them there at least three times there. SOme of my memories are,
-John wearing sort of wolly jumper. At the end of the show it was pulled all over the place.
-I remember John would pick up a rather large strobe light and hold it very close to his body and dance all over the place.
-Another time he came out in this very nice suit. I dont remember what song it was but at one point he was singing very serenely and someone gobbed on his left shoulder.
I think at one point the punks were pretty confued because "Young Savage" was almost a standard "kick the can" punk song so I think they expected all their songs to be rock-rock and YS.
I can also remember them walking off stage at the end of Distant smile ( I think) with all the feedback making this horrible moise (it might have been artificial life??) .

Fantastic anecdotes!

Thanks for posting

Saw the guys at the Roundhouse, they appeared alongside Boomtown Rats and The Stranglers...... i remember being totally pissed off cos johns mic went dead and there were no vocals going on, now this must have been either 77 or 78, but looking in the archive i couldnt see it with those other two bands playing.
I was there,I did see it, I just hope someone can confirm it, and as i seem to remember it was a sunday evening?...t was all so long ago but it was wonderful

Thanks for this.
I have only got a note of Ultravox playing a couple of times at the Roundhouse.
The last of these maybe the one you're referring to:

Late October 1978
Ultravox, Chris Spedding (formerly of The Sharks) and The Boomtown Rats headlined and (among others) The Klonez played too. But I can't find anything about The Stranglers being on the same bill?
Will keep looking though..

Ooh Err, that was probably it then, i did see the stranglers at the RH as well but it was a long time ago and i wasnt averse to ermm enjoying meself and getting a little twatted, (we all did back then lol) and not sleeping for 2-3 days at a time so maybe thats why its all overlapping. I do still remember the mic failing on john tho, i was livid cos id been looking forward to the gig for ages, and my best mate worked the bar at the roundhouse and got me in for nowt. Apart from the mic failing i can still to this day remember that raw sound and the pure energy jumping out of the band...magnificent!

Excellent.
Those youthful days.

I remember such stories so well.
Sleeping in stairwells...

Thanks for the anecdote!

I saw Ultravox ! at Eric's in Liverpool in 78 I mentioned this to John in Milan the other day ,and he said it was a great place for gigs. the support band "The Ded Byrds " had Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Holly Johnson in them .

August 21 1977

Oostende, Netherlands.
Ultravox! (with Livin' Blues and Water support prog rockers Caravan.

Can anyone confirm this?

http://calyx.club.fr/caravan/chrono.html

Reading Festival, 1978

What an impressive line-up.
One comment though:Foreigner

It was probably 'Fear In The Western World'. Bootlegs from '77/first half of '78 have Ultravox! open with 'I Want To Be A Machine', close the main set with 'The Wild, The Beautiful And The Damned', and play 'ROckwrok' and 'Fear In The Western World' as an encore.

Another gig not listed in the archive section was played at the City Hall, St Albans some time in 1977, prior to the recording of 'Ha! Ha! Ha!'. It's briefly reviewed in an article entitled 'Ultravox Brave Evil Rumours' by Paul Rambali which appeared in the NME on 13th August '77.

Does anyone have any idea of the date of the Marquee gig that gave us the performance of 'Young Savage' that appeared on the 'Live Retro' EP?

Rob?


P.S. Good to see Stevie Shears' guitar solo on TWTBATD from the Rainbow getting a full airing on the remastered 'Ultravox!'; it was criminally edited on vinyl...

My instinct tells me this was the last song to be added to the EP and comes from the classic show on December 31st 1977.
I have a boot of this (I think) so will check.
Otherwise, one of the three nights in June just after the single was released?

I don't have the Retro EP. Scott, would you agree with these other track dates?

TMWDED - Huddersfield Poly, October 6 1977
TWTWBATD - Rainbow, Feb 19 1977
My Sex - Huddersfield Poly, October 6 1977

that is amazing, Birdsong. ultravox! supporting be bop deluxe in 1976!

love bill nelson's music. a CD of his arrived just yesterday, the "sailor bill" CD. he's so prolific. too prolific, maybe. so very foxx-like in his trajectory. i always thought they had a certain similar way of seeing and expressing themselves via lyrics. maybe similar isn't the word. they're both from compatible music perspectives. maybe that's it.

about ten years ago, i had a fairly long chat with bill when he was in san francisco. he was very gracious w/his time. at some point, i got to the subject of john foxx. we talked about foxx for a while and bill really HEAPED the praise on -- on both foxx's music and the artwork and graphics. he even arched his eyebrows, smiled and shook his head, i remember. i asked him if they'd collaborate on music. there was some talk about foxx giving a reading at one of bill's "invisibility exhibition" things. anyway, the suggestion stopped him for a while. "i never thought of that," he said. "what would i do?," he asked. i wasn't sure what he meant. i've always thought that bill's e-bow would go well with certain people's voices and music, like foxx's.

Just to confirm I have recently had correspendence from the venue itself confirming that Ultravox did play a gig in support of The Police during their 1979 US tour

Details as follows:
Darby Gym, Grinell University, Des Moines, IOWA - 10 March 1979
This will be the show referred to by Warren in his interview with Jonas Warstad.

I KNEW I'd find it.

Off topic a little but I was suprised to see Jonas's name here on the Foxx site,He originaly set up the Billy MacKenzie fan forum I now help moderate before passing it on to Francois to concentrate on the Yello fan forum

Martin,

got to read this by accident again...excuse me for the late answer.
If it was Oostende, it isn't in the Netherlands.
Oostende is a city in Belgium (Flanders).
No idea if they actually played there

greetings from r'dam,
fons

that would be right. Oops. And me a cartographer

I'm 25 so evidently never saw Ultravox live (curses!), but I was delighted to find out a little recently about the gig in Scarborough (UK) on September 15th, 1978.

I happened to mention the band to a workmate of mine recently, who, it turned out, attended that gig. She told me what a cramped and dodgy venue the long-defunct Penthouse club was. Apparently, it used to be above Barclays Bank on Westborough (the main shopping street). It was eventually shut down for 'safety' reasons, as the ceiling in the bank was beginning to come down due to all that enthusiastic pogoing!

John and co were 'great' (no surprises there, then!) Not a lot of detail for you, Martin, but I thought you might appreciate the background information on the venue .

I've just answered my own question with this little factoid, thanks to an email from John Bollenberg at progressive.net:

When I looked into my archives, I found an original poster for the Luit festival in Oostende, Belgium as held in August 1977. On Saturday 20th August we got High Life, Tjens Couter (including Arno) and Kayak. On Sunday the bands were Water, Livin Blues, Ultravox and Caravan. Ultravox did not play because this was 1977 and Ultravox was still very much of a punk band rather than the polished Midge Ure band we all know from their worldwide hit "Vienna." The day prior to the festival these punkers had been in a fight and half of the band was taken into casualty.

Okay, Martin and John, we need to know the rest of the story! Who was fighting whom -- outsiders vs the band, or the band vs each other? What was the fight about, who wound up in casualty, and who got in the best punches?!

For my next trick...

Does anyone have stories, memories, evidence of an Ultravoxx gig at Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1977?

I really should get out more, but any info will be dutifully archived.
Thanks

Me again...

Just had an engaging tweet-up with a guy who has described to me his experience of seeing Ultravox at Stokvishal in Arnhem, Netherlands early in 1978.

Beginning of March, I reckon.

Super stuff - does it trigger memories for anyone out there?

When I was 18 back inthe Autumn of 1977 I was bundled into a car in Scunthorpe by my mates and driven to the Outlook Club in Doncaster to see Ultravox!
I was right at the front, wasn't a huge crowd, I could smell John's after shave. I remember the ultra voilet lights, Billy strolling from behind his keyboard with an electric violin (a first for me)and my first screeching guitar of Stevie's. I remember Hiroshima Mon Amour (no soft sax there!)was so loud and pulsating I had to retreat to the toilets and it still scared me. Back then, in my eyes, they could have been from another planet.
I live near Donny now and often walk passed the boarded up place and remember 33 years ago.Changed me.

Thanks for sharing Richard - nice story.
I don't suppose you have a picture of the boarded up Outlook?

I will always regret not seeing Ultravox! in the day

Sure, next time I'm in Doncaster I'll take a picture of the place for you. I saw an old tour poster the other week (might have been an old NME advert) that listed the Priory Hotel in Scunthorpe (Ashby to be accurate)as a gig in 1976.
Incredible if it happened, I worked just 100 yds away in '76 as a shelf stacker. I saw Motorhead there once in '76. Deaf as a post 2 days later. aah if I had a Time Machine!

We have a gig here listed on April 9th 1977 - anything earlier would be new to the archive.

Thanks for sharing. Anything you have on this will be very welcome

Hi Martin. Early Tiger Lily advert:-
http://www.songkick.com/artists/382783-john-foxx/posters?page=6 Lots of tour flyers For Foxx, Ultravox and Ure at songkick. Some great early ads from 77-78.

Stockholm, 1977.

Is this the Radiohuset "red vinyl" bootleg recording? The setlist is inconsistent with that.

Anyone know anyhting about this?

http://www.mp3mixx.com/album/john_foxx/ultravox_-_live_stockholm-2207555?partner=559&sub=

Hi Martin,

Just had a run through the samples of these tracks, and they're definitely the Radiohuset (red vinyl) gig, only the running order has been changed.

Regards,

Scott

P.S. Has everyone seen this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7pR-p2kxts

Yes definately Radiohouset and very poor quality too. Worse than the Dangerous Rhythm bootleg CD. I posted that link to Storms of things last August. Sadly there is no other footage from that gig availible as far as I know.

Name check for (early) Ultravox in this BBC6 news item about Eric's re-opening.

Who's that in the photo?

link

Mick Hucknall...?

Yeah I thought thattoo... he was in a punk/new wave band called The Frantic Elevators who were Manchester based but may have played Eric's..

ooops . .just saw he's mentioned in the article so highly likely ..

Ginger Power!

Found this:



here

I'll raise you with Marquee 26th May 1977.

You'll find an advert on this page.

http://www.zainegriff.co.uk/1976_-_1983.html

Interest to me becuase Zaine Griff played the Marquee 3 days later.

I always find it funny (and annoying) that so many of these live ads never bear the year, usually only day and month.

found on tumblr:



...doesn't even mention the month never mind the year...although we know it's NOT February.

Fantastic. I have seen a copy of this before

Thanks - this gig was 29th August 1975.

I don't suppose you know the original source of this piece? It LOOKS like Sounds, but that's no more than an educated guess

No I don't know where it came from.

Ultravox! feature quite strongly in the latest photobook by Mick Mercer

PUNK ODDS

http://www.lulu.com/shop/mick-mercer/punk-odds/paperback/product-20229992.html

Just ordered the Mick Mercer book as it contains rare pics of Neo which featured Robin and I,alongside Ian North, in its line-up.Thanks for the tip, Birdsong.

No worries Paul, nice to hear from you.

I'd like a copy myself but the budget won't allow it just now :-(