IT HAS been more than a decade since Midge Ure made a major tour of the UK but fans will be pleased to know he is back.

The tour, Rewind, follows the release of his new album, The Very Best of Midge Ure & Ultravox.

Earlier this year, the Ivor Novello and Grammy Award winning artist, now 47, featured on the legendary This Is Your Life TV programme.

He said: "The record company thought of putting out an anthology of all my work once they'd seen This is Your Life and realised what I'd done."

Even his four daughters had not fully realised how much he achieved. He said: "My oldest daughter Mollie was at my parent's house in Scotland where they keep all my old platinum and gold discs.

"She's 14 and was looking at them and suddenly said 'you were above David Bowie in the charts'. It suddenly struck home that I'd done pretty well."

Ure is taking out a four-piece band for the November tour, where he will be performing hits from across the full spectrum of his 25-year career.

One of the first stops will be at the Fairfield Halls, in Croydon, on November 13.

If you're expecting the next paragraph to beat the drum about Midge's quarter-century at the top table of rock and pop, hold your horses, because we're very much in the present tense here.

Earlier this year, he played a one-man acoustic tour of the UK, taken part in an all-star tribute gig with the likes of Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher, and he did a sold-out gig at Adene's Grocery in New York with fans like Matt Dillon and Moby asking to be on the guest list.

In July came Move Me, his first album release since 1996's Breathe, the CD which became one of the biggest European hits of Midge's entire career.

l November 13, Midge Ure and support, Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, Croydon, 8pm, £11-£14, 020 8688 9291.

November 6, 2001 14:32