Messengers

Once upon a time, a young man who loved synth-based New Romantic music went to a concert at the Kabuki Nightclub in San Francisco to see one of his ultimate favorite bands, Ultravox, fronted by the amazing singer-songwriter Midge Ure, on their 1983 Quartet/Monument Tour. It was a magical night but what remained an enigma for this young man was the opening act whose name he never did get: two men on synths who sounded eerily similar to Midge Ure himself. He really liked all he heard, and the lyric of one song in particular leapt out, a song about a Dancing Bear. After this opening act and before Ultravox took the stage, a friend of this young man said he thought perhaps the song was a metaphor for Russia.

Over the next many decades, the young man aged, but every now and then he would recall this concert and think wistfully of the mysterious opening act. If only he could find some information about them, maybe he could find their music. Eventually, there was an electronic medium that spanned the world and connected people in ways never dreamt of. He decided to cast a net out onto this electronic medium and immediately found what he had been dreaming of all those years.

The band he heard over forty years ago was Messengers, a Scottish duo of drummer Colin King and guitarist Danny Mitchell. Their music was produced by Ure, explaining the resemblance to that unmistakable, heart-stopping tenor and the soaring sound of Ultravox. He found their music on a worldwide electronic video encyclopedia called YouTube. In 2004, twenty years after recording songs for an album, the duo released "It's Been Twenty Years...Let's Try Turning Up The Volume." The now-older man reveled in hearing familiar sounds, in particular, "Art," "Departure," and "T.D.P." He is so grateful for finding these sounds, the sounds of his youth, sounds that inspire him to this day.

Thus, after decades of yearning and searching, the enigmatic melodies that had once filled the Kabuki Nightclub on that fateful night were no longer a mystery. They were brought back to life, rekindling the spirit and passion of a time long past, and adding a melodious chapter to the story of a man and his eternal love for music. And he lived happily ever after. The end.

And here is "The Dancing Bear" that stuck in his mind...

L to R: Colin King, Midge Ure, Danny Mitchell