Jill Sinclair's verdict: five stars

This was the first of only four UK gigs to combine the sleek, electronic style of Ultravox with the pomp and grandeur of Simple Minds.  And it was the first time both bands had appeared on the same bill since Live Aid – even then they were on different continents.

Ultravox played first, with their classic 1980s, Midge Ure fronted line-up coolly delivering a resume of their career.

A virtuoso performance of Vienna was a predictable highlight, although rather thrown away in the middle of the set. Ure missed a trick by not letting the audience sing along, instead asking them for a rendition of Flower of Scotland for his English and Canadian friends.

Headliners Simple Minds never knowingly underperform. Jim Kerr was sure-footed and relaxed as they opened with Waterfront.

“I can’t tell you how good it feels to be back in Glasgow,” he said by way of introduction to Broken Glass Park.

This was a greatest hits show to accompany a compilation album and there wasn’t an ounce of slack in the running order.  Wall to wall classics were performed with steely accuracy by Kerr, Charlie Burchill  - whose birthday it was - and their session musician stalwarts, awash in sumptuous lighting and stalked by cameras filming for a DVD.

“You’re my partners in crime” Kerr told the audience. “I want to show the world what makes Glasgow audiences great.”

'They finished with an emotional version of Alive and Kicking and it’s a fact worth celebrating that both Simple Minds and Midge Ure left Glasgow as gauche young hopefuls, with rather uncertain futures and that, despite some well documented ups and downs, they took to the stage here, quite properly, as elder statesmen of Scots rock.