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On this day, 1 August 1980, pop/synth band Ultravox played Cardiff’s Top Rank on the band’s Vienna UK tour.
Released in June 1980, the Vienna album produced the band's first UK Top 40 hit with "Sleepwalk" reaching No. 29, while the album itself initially peaked at No. 14.
A second single, "Passing Strangers", failed to reach the Top 40, only reaching No. 57, but the band achieved a substantial hit with the third single, the album's title track.
Accompanied by a highly distinctive video (inspired by Carol Reed's 1949 film The Third Man), the single became Ultravox's biggest ever hit, released in January 1981 and peaking at Number 2 (kept off the top spot by John Lennon's "Woman" and then Joe Dolce's "Shaddap You Face").
On the strength of the single, the album then re-entered the chart and reached No. 3 in early 1981. A fourth single from the album, "All Stood Still", peaked at No. 8. in 1981, and "Slow Motion" from Systems of Romance was also re-issued, reaching No. 33 the same year.
Ultravox were then revitalised by Midge Ure, who had joined the band as vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist. He had already achieved minor success with semi-glam outfit Slik and Glen Matlock's The Rich Kids, and in 1979, he was temporarily playing with hard rock band Thin Lizzy on their American tour, replacing Gary Moore.
Ure and Billy Currie had met while collaborating on Visage, a studio-based band fronted by New Romantic icon and nightclub impresario Steve Strange.
Setlist
Quiet Men
Passing Strangers
Face To Face
Mr X
Western Promise
Vienna
Slow Motion
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Private Lives
New Europeans
All Stood Still
Sleepwalk
Astradyne
Kings Lead Hat
