As one continues the often tedious trawl through the archives, I came across a cache of old things I’d half-forgotten even existed. For instance, a USB floppy disk drive together with a collection of around 20 3½-inch disks. Disks? Discs? Who remembers such antiquated ephemera?
Lo and behold, I discovered a ton of articles I’d written in my fair hand that were never even published. A fair few were reviews for Mojo and Record Collector magazines that were usually ‘killed’ for political reasons, but the vast majority were features I’d stockpiled for a David Bowie magazine I used to be editor of entitled Crankin’ Out.
Some of the surplus go right back to its inception in 1993 right through to 2001, when it became clear that self-publishing in old school print terms was not quite the way to go if you wanted to actually try make a living. I’ll try and upload what I can, although the more ‘pertinent’ pieces I’ve been keeping back for a much bigger project further down the line.
Until then, newly discovered in that vault marked ‘unused’ is a submission from a then nascent author David Buckley, who was readying his first book — no, not Strange Fascination but 1996’s The Complete Guide To The Music Of David Bowie (happily, I proof-read both anyhow). We’d first met in 1991 on his home turf in Liverpool and, indeed, met again straight after the show you’re about to read about: an Outside tour stop at the Sportovní hala ČSTV in the capital of the Česká republika, Praha, where the Spaceboy singer was supported by Ivan Král, an old Iggy cohort who co-wrote the so-so track Bang Bang which later appeared on Never Let Me Down.
Indeed, it’s a sort of two-headed DB birthday bonanza, what with Dr B’s 60th falling today, 6 January, followed by the late Dame’s anniversaire falling two days later on the 8th.
Should old acquaintance be forgot? You’re about to find out.
THE OUTSIDE TOUR PRAGUE February 3 1996
Bowie fans based in Munich were at a definite disadvantage this time around. Bavaria was no-go area as far as the Outside tour was concerned, so those wanting to see Bowie had a long journey.
Sadly, Morrissey had long since cried of back to his Mum with a poorly tummy and a crumbling fan base. The muted reception given to Mozza on the few gigs he played on the tour came as something of a surprise. One would have thought that an hors d’oeuvre of psycho-sexual mini-dramas courtesy of one of Britain’s finest lyricists would have pleased Bowie fans a lot more than it apparently did.
But just what is Bowie’s own fan base at present? If an act like Morrissey bombs, this would suggest that Bowie fans are far more conservative in their musical tastes than Bowie (or myself for that matter), would want. It was this particular question – just who is Bowie now relevant to – that dogged me throughout the Prague gig.
The last time I’d seen him was four years earlier with Tin Machine, and the pain inflicted by a particularly long version of Stateside still lingered. Mercifully, in Prague, Bowie, if not his audience, was simply wonderful. The first thing to say about the gig was how brilliant the band was. On previous tours Bowie has tended to get things badly wrong in this department. The Adrian Belew band on the Sound + Vision tour was too limited and simply too small to flesh out Bowie’s grandiose back catalogue, and the previous two tours had been marred by some gruesome stadium lead guitarists.
This time round, everything was right. The band played brilliantly, with Garson’s quirky jazzy piano runs set against Alomar’s pristine, understated guitar work. What made the show work on a musical level was the tension between these two instrumentalists. Given their head the former might have turned the show into an evening of avant-garde jazz (hey wow! great!), whilst the latter could have reasonably been expected to get seriously funky. However, working in tandem, both set an intriguing limit to the performance.
Quite what would happen should Bowie ever give both them musical heads might easily prove to be unlistenable (and that’s not taking into account what Gabrels might conjure up in the meantime). Gabrels’ playing was considerably more constrained than it was in Tin Machine, and therefore all the more effective. But, although I think he is, at times, an excellent player, there’s still something about his style that seems too wedded to the sort of ’60s rock sensibility that I find tiresome. He always promises something truly off-the-wall but hasn’t quite delivered as yet. But then my problem is that I simply find 99% of guitar solos incredibly boring and a relic from the past anyway.
I do hope the rumoured scaling-down of the band for this year’s festival tour is just a rumour. When Bowie tries to come on like Iggy and the Stooges it just doesn’t work. The lighting, by the way, was constantly innovative, particularly the electrical storm for the brave and effective opener The Motel, and the trippy, neo-psychedelia for Hallo Spaceboy.
[Bowie‘s scenes in the Spaceboy promo video were filmed in Prague]
Bowie, despite proclaiming that his voice was shot, sang wonderfully and looked brand spanking new. Just what he does to keep so young-looking is a a complete mystery, but anybody almost two decades older than me and with almost twice as much hair is a constant source of irritation/admiration. He seemed totally at ease with the choice of material, roughly half from Outside and half assorted oldies (of which Look Back In Anger and a funky Nite Flights were stand-outs).
However, it was obvious that a large section of his audience wasn’t that thrilled at the absence of bone fide hits. It’s true that nobody should have entered the auditorium in the hope of hearing Space Oddity, but the lack of crowd-pleasers led to the most muted reception I’ve ever seen at a Bowie concert.
I think that it is this aspect of Bowie’s live presentation, his relationship with his back catalogue, which will constantly bug him through the years, despite what he says in interviews. By blasting away a portion of his past, Bowie concerts have no light or shade. The excellent material from Outside (and in Prague I was particularly impressed with the way tracks like Hearts Filthy Lesson and Hallo Spaceboy were given an added power and menace on stage) would sound even stronger if it were pitched against a selection of oldies which vivified the audience.
Bowie is still playing large halls and arenas and, one fears, will soon have to make a decision to either make concessions to his audience or scale down operations further and play in much smaller venues. And Bowie is still playing oldies anyway, just not those, with the rather naughty exception of White Light White Heat, that didn’t feature on the 1990 tour. I’m sure Bowie would have preferred to play, for example, Station To Station, Be My Wife or Sound And Vision than the showbizzy Under Pressure, which, one suspects, must be causing him great gnashing and grinding of teeth to go through with every night.
If Bowie sticks to his guns and draws future set-lists from non black-balled songs then he’ll keep hardcore fans like you and me happy, but will struggle to retain his position as a top-league rock star. Bowie claims indifference vis-a-vis how many records he sells, but his career shows he’s always mixed commercial work with his more ‘difficult’ material (the Pet Shop Boys remix of Hallo Spaceboy is a recent, and obvious, example).
And there’s often more actual drama and subversion in the most simple of pop songs than there is in avant-garde rock. In trying so hard to be relevant and arty, Bowie is in danger of losing sight of the cultural power pop can have. Back in 1979 Boys Keep Swinging, with its parody of gender-bending, had considerably more cultural clout than anything else off Lodger, despite being its most accessible track by a country mile.
All in all, though, I think Bowie in the ’90s is getting it right more often than wrong with each year that passes. His music is as boldly interesting now as it was pre-Let’s Dance and a commercial/critical re-birth seems always just round the corner. And this show, more than any other I’ve attended, must have been closer in spirit to those of his ’70s heyday than any I’ve seen.
David Buckley, Munich
Edited (very slightly) by Steve Pafford
Ouvrez Le Chien: David Bowie live ’95 review by Carlton P. Sandercock is here