MIDGE URE is undoubtedly a man comfortable in his own skin. Now nearing 60, the Scottish singer-songwriter played an intimate acoustic set to an appreciative and packed audience at the Arc.

Reflecting on a career with the likes of Slik, Visage and Ultravox, he played a mixture of crowdpleasers, newer, perhaps lesser-known tracks from his solo catalogue and covers of songs that influenced him.

There was plenty of enjoyable banter – Ure joking that some of the audience might have his DNA as a result of a mid-1970s appearance on Teesside with his first band Slik.

When a fan shouted out a track she wanted to hear – Ultravox’s Dancing with Tears in My Eyes – he replied, tongue-in-cheek, that he would play what he wanted. It later got a well-received airing.

And when introducing the song Breathe, it came with the cheeky admission that he now played the tracks with higher notes early on in his set to make life a bit easier on his vocal cords.

A stripped-down version of Visage’s Fade to Grey, which he co-wrote, was a pleasant surprise and the timeless Vienna also featured.

The themes were melancholic, reflections on love and religion uppermost in many of the lyrics.

While an artist accompanied on stage only by his guitar doesn’t make for the greatest spectacle, most in the crowd were rapt at being able to be so close to him.

Let’s not forget, this is a man who helped write and produce Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? and was in Thin Lizzy, one of his many shapeshifting incarnations.

Ure’s debut solo single and a No 1 to boot, the atmospheric and reflective If I Was provided a fitting end to the show.