Ultravox

Duisburg is just a handful of kilometres from Düsseldorf. There's something disorienting about finding yourself at dusk among its half-deserted avenues, right after leaving behind the bustling energy of the Rhenish Altstadt. An unreal silence, a scattering of passers-by between the station and the long walk leading to the Theater am Marientor. A none-too-reassuring park runs alongside our pavement, shuttered shops line the opposite side. After about a kilometre, an elongated square with a kiosk to one side, and its four elderly regulars with the inevitable beer in hand. A young couple smoke and drink on a bench. It shouldn't be much further. We come out onto a wide two-lane road, at least this one we imagine has some traffic. Nothing of the sort. Just around the corner, on an illuminated billboard promising a string of unpronounceable cultural events, an unmistakable "Ultravox, Theater am Marientor" stands out: the long-awaited venue is right there, a hundred metres away.

And in an instant you're an enthusiastic kid again in the packed stands of the Palalido (1981), a self-satisfied older teenager among the seats of the Palatrussardi (on the last Italian date with the "Vienna" line-up, 1984, a few months before Live Aid), a disgruntled young man realizing Warren Cann was missing from the drum stool (it was 1986), and finally an inconsolable widower in 1993, when Billy Currie had the terrible idea of trotting out the band's name, padded out with session players, for a forgettable last Milan live show at the Shocking Club. Then nothing. A river of conflicting memories, as is only fitting for a band that, for better or worse, has been with me my whole life.

The theatre is a recent build, in the impeccable, understated style of German architecture, and finally out there you can appreciate genuine forms of social life. Not exactly spring chickens, if truth be told. Somehow, a guy in his forties who's come from Munich strikes up a conversation with me in English, and within five minutes manages to lay out (and get in return) his whole résumé as an Ure-and-co. concertgoer. I also more or less learn the reasons behind my failed interview accreditation, since the organisation's terse email hadn't explained them: the band spent most of their free time with fan club members, at least those willing to shell out the hundred-odd euros required for the "meet & greet" package. Too bad: we'll try again on home turf, should the band decide to play there in 2010, perhaps tacked onto the already-announced German tour next April.

The inside of the theatre lives up to expectations: red velvet everywhere, brass handrails and balustrades, a stage that's elegant and just the right size, a muffled sound system that's even up to the task of the record playing in the background to help pass the wait: the self-titled debut by Klaus Dinger's La Düsseldorf, a choice of title I genuinely couldn't have improved on for the occasion.

The audience, composed and silent, fills three quarters of the venue (the whole stalls and half the gallery, about 1,500 people): not even a murmur, let alone the impatient whistling that usually precedes any rock show, just the watchful eye of the ushers ready to stop anyone attempting to take photos. Luckily, at least that ambition will fade as the show goes on, along with the insistence, even in the stalls, on keeping everyone glued to their assigned seat. Dim blue lights cut through the half-darkness. Twenty-thirty, and we begin.

A familiar ticking sound announces the entrance of the four, reasonably well dressed in a predominantly black colour scheme that, on its own, does nothing to hide Billy's extra pounds, nor Midge's bald head, though nicely offset by a cutting-edge pair of glasses. You don't even need the first keyboard chord to recognise "Astradyne": from that one-minute intro, back in 1980, began the multi-million-selling adventure of Ultravox in the Ure era, and from the drum hit that follows, developing its epic theme, comes my very present-day thrill at seeing them together again, on stage, after almost three decades.

"We were so young, we were too vain", Midge declaims after riffing away dutifully on guitar. Here too, the opening is enough, if not less, and the lyrics of "Passing Strangers" inevitably feel more relevant today than when they were written, all the more so given the realization that yes, time really does pass too quickly, "running through the memories like thieves in the night".

We might well shed a tear – after all, this is the kind of evening where you're allowed to be nostalgic without inhibition. And yet I'd rather shake off the emotion and stay anchored to what's actually happening, so I can catch the odd crack in the voice, or maybe some uncertainty in the drumming. Sure enough, something can be heard, and something has been lost along the way, though it fades into the background against a setlist that leaves you breathless, since "We Stand Alone" is merely there to prepare us to plunge into the icy waters of "Mr. X" (and here Warren Cann's spoken baritone, still intact, is just as merciless as Billy's violin sighs: "I'm still searching…"), and the finest vocal performance of the whole show, "Visions In Blue", hurls at you a fearsome trio pulled straight from "Rage In Eden", between the robotic sequencer of "The Thin Wall", the decadent aching beauty of "I Remember (Death In The Afternoon)" and the squared-off, litany-like march of the title track.

A thought goes out to the band's detractors, or at least those who dismiss them as "too commercial": they must have stopped, and rather carelessly at that, at the biggest hit singles.

In their live incarnation, the songs make room for the electronics if anything even more, so it's not unusual to see Chris Cross wrestling with synth bass lines, and Midge himself perched behind a keyboard to underpin Billy's unmistakable runs with riffs and key phrases, runs the band owes so much of its sound to.

The intimate lull of "Lament", with Midge once again handling the low register. Here he is again, guitar slung on, Chris picks up the bass, Warren pounds out the four-four with his trademark quick fills, Billy raises his chin and alternates his arms, in that stance of his that's half ironic, half solemn: "One Small Day", the crowd leaps to its feet and stays there for yet another assault on the neo-romantic heart of Mitteleuropa that is "All Stood Still". And standing still, right now, feels like quite an achievement.

Darkness wraps around "Your Name (Has Slipped My Mind Again)", Midge acts out despair while the repeated pad tests the silence, and its final beats double as the opening ones of "Vienna" for a medley that's a plunge into melancholy. The real test has arrived, it's the vocalist's Alpe d'Huez, which he first climbs with a resolute stride, only to rise up off the saddle once the octave turns steep, relying on craft where once he sailed through as easily as downing a glass of water. But that's fine too, with a final, broken cry that wisely stands in for the high note, and with Billy treating us to violin first, then the stately climb of piano and keyboard.

It's time to let the crowd sing, so make way for "Reap The Wild Wind", "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" (in this case too, I confess, I remembered more brilliant vocal runs) and, building to a close, "Hymn".

Two minutes later and the quartet is back on stage: "Sorry, I went to comb my hair." It's Midge, hamming it up before launching into "Sleepwalk", followed by the inevitable closer, "The Voice", whose coda, in its live incarnation, has long since been rearranged for four-way percussion. "Thank you, goodnight", curt as ever, just as he's trained us to expect. Thank you, Midge. Thank you, lads who've only aged just a little.

In Duisburg, not even the sunset is left to keep us company, the illuminated billboard now stands out along the wide two-lane road, the kiosk in the square is shut.

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