David Bowie 2nd July 1983 Milton Keynes Bowl Serious Moonlight
Support Acts: The Beat, Icehouse
By 1983 David Bowie was of sufficient stature to play three nights at the Milton Keynes Bowl, which holds 65,000 people. The (quite colourful) ticket (see right) doesn’t tell me which day I attended, but I am pretty certain it was the Saturday, which was the second of the three gigs. My mate and I drove to Milton Keynes, which is around a 450 mile round trip. I’d been having problems with one of the brakes on my car, and unfortunately it just about locked after after around 100 miles, to the extent that I could only drive very slowly, leaving us stranded near the Wetherby roundabout. I phoned the AA who came out but could fix the car at the road side, so they told me to leave the car in a local car park, hide the keys in an agreed spot (!) and that they would come and pick it up and take it home for me. We were determined to get to the gig, so I phoned my dad, who drove down, picked us up an hour or so later and drove us to the Bowl.
I remember the day as being red hot; I recall little about the support acts, other than they were not that impressive. This was, in my view, not one of Bowie’s best performances. Bowie’s approach to the songs, and the band set up, was moving him away from being a rock star to becoming an all round singer/entertainer and broaden his audience. This worked in terms of making his music more accessible to a general audience, but lost something else along the way.
Although I enjoyed the show, I felt I’d lost the David Bowie I’d grown to love over the past 10 years. Don’t get me wrong; you couldn’t fault anything: the stage set, the performance, the band were all great. But it was David Bowie becoming an entertainer, a professional, (re)becoming Anthony Newley in terms of aiming for broad appeal; and Ziggy had become a memory. Although general consensus is that this was a great gig, I left somewhat disappointed, feeling let down. Two years later I saw Bowie in Wembley Stadium at Live Aid, and he was great again. However, there were further disappointments to come in the form of the 1987 Glass Spider tour (which I will comment on tomorrow) and Tin Machine (see my blog the other day).
After the gig we managed to find my dad who had been waiting in a local pub, having a pie and a coffee, and he drove us home. We must have got back around 4am, I would guess. The next morning my car was delivered to our house (thank you AA); I took it to the garage the next day to be repaired.
Setlist: Star; Heroes; What in the World; Golden Years; Fashion; Let’s Dance; Breaking Glass; Life on Mars?; Sorrow; Cat People; China Girl; Scary Monsters; Rebel Rebel; White Light/White Heat; Station to Station; Cracked Actor; Ashes to Ashes; Space Oddity; Young Americans; TVC15; Fame; Stay; The Jean Genie; Modern Love
Posts Tagged ‘punk’
14 Jan
David Bowie 2nd July 1983 Milton Keynes Bowl Serious Moonlight: Lets Dance!
13 Jan
David Bowie Friday Newcastle City Hall 16th June 1978
David Bowie Friday Newcastle City Hall 16th June 1978
There was great anticipation for the 1978 David Bowie tour. By 1978 he was a massive star across the world, and this time he played three nights at the City Hall, which was almost unheard of; I can’t remember anyone else playing three nights in the 70s. Tickets were available by post, so several of us applied for more than one night, as I recall. I managed to get tickets for a couple of nights. I passed one pair of tickets on to some friends and kept the tickets for the Friday, which was the last of the three nights. In hindsight I wish I’d gone for more than one night. Tickets were getting expensive by now, with best seats costing £6 which was quite a bit more than the 40p I have paid to see Bowie at the City Hall 6 years earlier.
This was one of the best Bowie gigs that I have attended. The set covered much of his by now classic back catalogue, the band was tight, and Bowie’s performance was superb. The show was in two sets, with no support act, as far as I recall. The first set consisted of songs from Low and Heroes which were Bowie’s most recent albums. I had the Low lp and had played and played it, so I was well versed in the tracks from that album. The second set consisted largely of songs from Ziggy and Station to Station. The programme (left and below) continued to follow the ISOLAR theme.
Setlist: Warszawa; “Heroes”; What in the World; Be My Wife; The Jean Genie; Blackout; Sense of Doubt; Speed of Life; Breaking Glass; Fame; Beauty and the Beast; Five Years; Soul Love; Star; Hang On to Yourself; Ziggy Stardust; Suffragette City; Art Decade; Alabama Song; Station to Station; Stay; Rebel Rebel. What I would give to relive a gig such as this, or to see Bowie on stage again, singing Five Years. Great days. Tomorrow I’ll try to remember Bowie’s Milton Keynes show, as part of the Serious Moonlight tour.
12 Jan
David Bowie Tin Machine Newcastle Mayfair Tuesday 5 November 1991
David Bowie Tin Machine Newcastle Mayfair Tuesday 5 November 1991
For my concert memory today I’m jumping ahead a few Bowie concerts to the Tin Machine era.
When I heard that David Bowie was coming to Newcastle Mayfair with his new band Tin Machine, I couldn’t believe it. Yes Bowie was stressing that “Tin Machine are a band” and that this was a new project, but hey come on, this was David Bowie coming to the Mayfair Ballroon, which he hadn’t played since the early 70s and pre-Hunky Dory days. The tickets went on sale on a Saturday morning, so I went through early to queue. I got there an hour or so before the box office opened and to my surprise there was hardly anyone there. So I joined the small queue and got my tickets without any problems at all. My daughter Ashleigh came along to the show with me. I hadn’t had the chance to hear the Tin Machine album, so didn’t know any of the songs (which was a mistake). I was hoping that Bowie would through in some classics, but suspected that he might not, and indeed it wasn’t to be. The place was full, and the set was all new Tin Machine stuff, and was thus totally unfamiliar to me. It was great to see David Bowie close up again in a small venue, but to be honest I found the songs weak, wasn’t impressed and we left before the end of the gig. This experience put me off seeing Bowie again for some time, and I missed the next couple of tours out (big mistake). On reflection, like many others I didn’t give Tin Machine a real chance. I had a fixed model in my mind of what David Bowie should be, and Tin Machine was just too much of a departure from his past. I should have gone to that gig with a more opne mind. Setlist was something like: I’ve Been Waiting For You; Goodbye Mr. Ed; Bus Stop; Under The God; A Big Hurt; Shopping for Girls; Stateside; I Can’t Read; Baby Universal; Sacrifice Yourself; Betty Wrong; You Can’t Talk; Go Now; Debaser; If There Is Something; Heaven’s In Here; You Belong in Rock & Roll; Crack City. Tomorrow I’ll go back again to the late 70s and the Low tour which came to Newcastle City Hall in 1978.
11 Jan
Iggy Pop and David Bowie The Idiot Newcastle City Hall 2 March Tour 1977
This was a strange one this. Looking back this gig was pretty important historically, and yet at the time (as is often the case) it didn’t seem so. Iggy wasn’t that well known in the UK at the time. I’d seen him on the TV (was it on the Whistle Test?) throwing himself into the crowd and spreading peanut butter all over his torso at a late 60s gig in the USA. I’d also read the reviews of his seminal, wild gig at the Kings Cross cinema (and regretted not going). I’d seen the Sex Pistols play the Stooges’ No Fun the year before, so knew a little about the Iggy legend and his impact on punk. Generally however little was known about Iggy, and ticket sales for this gig were apparently not going well. A few days before the gig the local paper, the Evening Chronicle, ran an article hinting that David Bowie might be guesting at the gig, presumably to try and boost ticket sales. So a few of us went along to the gig, partly out of curiosity to see if Iggy was as crazy as we’d heard, and partly to see if Bowie really did appear. Still, on the night the City Hall was barely half full. Support came from The Vibrators who were, as I recall, pretty hot at the time, and will have played tracks like We Vibrate and London Girls. Iggy took to the stage and was followed by his band, that included David Bowie, who walked up to a keyboard at the right of the stage without any acknowledgement to the crowd at all. It was very clear that this was Iggy’s show and Bowie was a sideman. The set was a mix of old Stooges classics and tracks from the Idiot lp, and was something like: Raw power; Tv eye; Dirt; 1969; Turn blue; Funtime; Gimme danger; No fun; Sister midnight; I need somebody; search & destroy; I wanna be your dog; Tonight; Some weird sin; China girl. As I recall Iggy was good, but not as wild as usual. He was back to play to a packed City Hall later in the year and went totally crazy, climbing all over the amps, rolling around the stage, with his trousers coming open. A few years later I caught him at Redcar Coatham Bowl (Glen Matlcock on bass, I think), he was smoking on stage and flicking lit cigarettes into the crowd (how times change…). Bowie stayed in the background all night and didn’t speak to the crowd. It was good to see him back on the City Hall stage, but I was hoping that they would perform some Bowie classics. I remember shouting for Moonage Daydream…..Anyway he came back to the City Hall as part of the Low tour the following year. Will report on that tomorrow.
10 Jan
David Bowie Empire Pool Wembley London 8th May 1976
David Bowie Empire Pool Wembley London 8th May 1976
A car load of us went to this gig, which was the last of a series of 6 shows at Wembley Empire Pool in 1976. These were Bowie’s only UK gigs and were his first in the country since 1973. We’d sent our postal orders off through the mail and had been allocated our seats; mine was Entrance 55 Row K seat 45. We were all very excited about seeing Bowie again, not quite knowing what to expect. There had been a lot written about these gigs in the music press and anticipation was high. I drove us down to London, and we stayed at my mate’s aunt’s house in Walthamstow after the gig, driving back the next morning. The drive down wasn’t without incident in that we broke down just past Wetherby, and waited for a friendly AA man who got us going again and on our way.
My memories of the gig are quite strong. The Empire Pool (now Wembley Arena; having been rebuilt) was a cold, cavernous shed. Arena gigs were still by no means the norm in those days and places like the Empire Pool hadn’t been designed with concerts in mind at all.
There was no support act, instead the avant garde black and white film Un Chien Andalo was shown before Bowie took to the stage. I still recall one segment, showing a razor blade cutting into an eyeball. The whole set up and lighting were built around a black and white concept. The stage was bathed in white light, and Bowie and the band wore black trousers, white shirts. The programme (left) entitled ISOLAR (I still don’t know what that means?…) was a newspaper with pictures and no text, very arty. This was a gig which, at the time, I didn’t quite get. It was just too different to the rock n roll splendour and sass of Ziggy for me. However, I would love to go back again now and revisit it. The set was a mixture of Bowie classics and tracks from the recent (then) Station to Station lp. These were performed in the white soulboy manner that Bowie was getting into at that stage. On the day I remember feeling some disappointment at what we experienced at that gig. Looking back it was pretty clever, great theatre, and a massive development from Ziggy. Wish I could go back and see it again (has anybody got a time machine?). Setlist: Station to Station; Suffragette City; Fame; Word On A Wing; Stay; Waiting For The Man; Queen Bitch; Life on Mars?; Five Years; Panic in Detroit; Changes; TVC15; Diamond Dogs; Rebel Rebel; The Jean Genie
9 Jan
David Bowie Ziggy Stardust Tour 1972 and 1973
David Bowie Newcastle City Hall 2 June 1972
Sunderland Top Rank Suite 5 September 1972
Newcastle City Hall 8 June 1973
In celebration of David Bowie’s 65th birthday, I’ve decided to spend the rest of the week recalling my concert experiences of him, which started in 1972 in the Ziggy Starduct era, and will take me to this last Reality tour which I caught in Dublin 2004.
My first experience of David Bowie in concert was at Newcastle City Hall on 2nd June 1972. 
I’d heard the new single Starman on the radio, and decided to go along and see what all the fuss was about. There was a lot of chat in the music press at the time about Bowie knocking T Rex and Marc Bolan off the top. So I wandered along to the City Hall and paid the princely sum of 40p entrance at the door for a seat toward the back of the stalls. The hall was by no means full, as I recall; the support act was a folk band called The JSD Band. I’d heard the Hunky Dory lp, and of course knew the Space Oddity single, but a lot of Bowie’s material was still unfamiliar to me. Although this tour is often refereed to as the Ziggy Stardust tour, the Ziggy lp was not yet released. In fact it came out a few days after the Newcastle gig on 6 June 1972. Bowie was great, wearing the full make up and Ziggy gear, as on Top of the Pops a month later when Starman hit the charts.
See attached the lovely flyer which my friend Jon recently purchased for me from eBay. The rear of the flyer is hand signed by David Bowie himself (who knows if this signature is genuine 🙂 but it is great anyway)
During early 1972 the setlist was something like: Hang On to Yourself; Ziggy Stardust; The Supermen; Queen Bitch; Song for Bob Dylan; Changes; Starman; Five Years; Amsterdam; Andy Warhol; Moonage Daydream; White Light/White Heat; Suffragette City; Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide
Bowie was back in the north east a few months later, at Sunderland Top Rank on 5 September 1972. Although Starman had been a hit, he was still by no means a massive star, to the extent that the gig was, as I remember, pretty poorly attended. The thing I remember about this gig was that, surprisingly at the time, David performed the show without any make up or costume at all. I am pretty sure that he wore a leather jacket and a pair of jeans. I can also vividly recall a few encores including definitely White Light White Heat and (I think) Waiting for the Man.
Pretty sure my mate Gilly and I missed the last bus and walked home after the gig, getting back very early in the morning, which wasn’t good as we we at school the next day.
Aladdin Sane was released on 13 April 1973, and by this time the demand for tickets was huge, to the extent that Bowie played a couple of shows on the same night at Newcastle City Hall. The setlist had developed to include songs from Aladdin Sane and was something like: Hang On to Yourself; Ziggy Stardust; Watch That Man; Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud; All the Young Dudes; Oh! You Pretty Things; Moonage Daydream; Changes; Space Oddity; The Jean Genie; Time; The Width of a Circle; Let’s Spend the Night Together; Suffragette City; White Light/White Heat; Round and Round. The production had also developed since he previous year. Bowie was wearing dresses and having several costume changes, and was accompanied by a mime artist. This tour culminated in a show at Hammersmith at which Ziggy announced his retirement. At the time I thought I’d seen David Bowie for the last time.
I never did get a programme for any of these concerts on the Ziggy tour. I just assumed (apparently wrongly) that there was no programme for these dates. However my friend John who now lives in the USA found one on eBay which he kindly purchased for me (see image). Now back in those days tour merchandise was pretty rare. Most concert tours did not have any programmes, posters or T-shirts. And often I would go to the merchandise stall, or see the staff (who I knew well) who sold the programmes as well as selling ice creams and ask if they had any programmes for sale. They would often reply “yes apparently there were programmes but they sold out of them after the London concerts” or something like that. It seems that programmes were often printed in a short run and soon sold out, often after only a few concerts. And by the time the Newcastle concert came there would be none left. I guess that is what must have happened in this case. Anyway thank you so much John for getting me this collector’s item. It is great to possess the real item and to be able to add it to my blog now!
7 Jan
AC/DC: Monsters of Rock Donington Park 1991
Monsters of Rock, Donington Park, 17 august 1991
Line up: AC/DC; Metallica; Mötley Crüe; Queensryche; The Black Crowes
This is the last of my ramblings on AC/DC and it brings me up to date with my concert memories of the band. The 1991 Monsters of Rock festival was the last time Iwas to see the band for almost 20 years; as the next AC/DC concert I attended was at Manchester MEN Arena in 2009. It was also the last time I attended a Monsters of Rock festival. That particular my daughter was getting into rock music, and her and her friends were big fans of Mettalica, and that was our primary reason for attending. So I drove her and two friends to the festival. Highlights for me were The Black Crowes, Metallica and AC/DC. I don’t remember much about the other bands.
Metallica had just released their “Black” Metallica album, which had been heavily played in our house. I hadn’t rated the band up until then, although I had seen them at an earlier Monsters of Rock in 1985, but that lp got me into them. My favourite track was Enter Sandman, which was the opening song at Donington that year. Metallica were at the top of their game at that time, paying some of the best heavy rock of the time. We made sure that we arrived in time to see The Black Crowes, as I’d heard a lot about them. I remember being impressed by them, particularly by their cover of Otis Redding’s Hard to Handle. My friend John lives in the US and is a massive Black Crowes fan, and he keeps me up to date on them. I really must get to see them again some day soon. AC/DC closed the day with a set which closed with one of the biggest firework displayed I’ve ever seen. I then spent some time finding the others, which was not easy in a crowd of 60,000+ people all of whom were aiming for the exits, and then we drove back home. AC/DC setlist: Thunderstruck; Shoot to Thrill; Back in Black; Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be; Heatseeker; Fire Your Guns; Jailbreak; The Jack; Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap; Moneytalks; Hells Bells; High Voltage; Whole Lotta Rosie; You Shook Me All Night Long; T.N.T.; Let There Be Rock Encore: Highway to Hell; For Those About to Rock (We Salute You). I’ll move on from AC/DC now, and will ponder on which concerts to reflect on this coming week. Back tomorrow.
6 Jan
AC/DC: Monsters of Rock Donington Park 1984
AC/DC at Monsters of Rock Donington Park; 18 August 1984
Line up: AC/DC; Van Halen; Ozzy Osbourne; Gary Moore; Mötley Crüe; Y & T; Accept
This was probably the best Monsters of Rock festival that I attended. I’d won tickets in the local newspaper (note “complementary” stamp on ticket at left), which was a positive to start with, so my mate and I went along free of charge for once! The weather was great, hot and dry, and the line-up was as strong as you could get in terms of heavy rock in the mid 80s. The bottle fights really took off this year, as I recall, with bottles of piss being lobbed across the crowd throughout the day. I have never been one for trying to get to the front at such events, and staying near the back of the crowd was definitely wise on this particular day.
I don’t remember much about Accept or Y&T. Motley Crue were OK, but didn’t have the scale of theatre and excess that I would see on their Theatre of Pain tour the following year (review to follow at some point). Gary Moore played some great blues guitar, as always. Ozzy was at the top of his game during this period in my view. At this time he was playing Mr Crowley, Crazy Train, along with Sabbath classics Iron Man and Paranoid. Van Halen were OK but, for me, had already lost some of the power and hunger they had in the early days when they supported Sabbath on their 1978 tour and on their first UK headline tour shortly after that (review to follow). As I recall there was a lot of talk about Van Halen blowing AC/DC off the stage, which just didn’t happen at all in my view. AC/DC were, as always, excellent and brought a great day to a close. AC/DC setlist: Guns for Hire; Shoot to Thrill; Sin City; Back in Black; Bad Boy Boogie; Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution; Flick of the Switch; Hells Bells; The Jack; Have a Drink on Me; Highway to Hell; Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap; Whole Lotta Rosie; Let There Be Rock; Encore: T.N.T.; For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)
5 Jan
AC/DC: Monsters of Rock Donington Park 1981
Monsters of Rock festival August 22, 1981
I’m continuing my AC/DC memories with thoughts on the 1981 Monsters of Rock Festival. The line up for this, which was the second Monsters of Rock event was AC/DC; Whitesnake; Blue Öyster Cult; Slade; Blackfoot; More.
I went along to this gig with a group of mates in the back of a Transit van with one of my friends driving us. We went primarily to see AC/DC, who were a favourite band of all of us, although many of us were also fans of Blue Oyster Cult. This was our first visit to Donington, and for me is for the first of several visits to the Monsters of Rock festival over the next 10 years. My recollection of the day is a very cold and wet one, with, as often the case for festivals in the UK, quite a bit of rain. The first couple of bands: More and Blackfoot weren’t anything special as I recall, but Slade went down well as they always did at a festival.
I’d seen Slade tear the place apart at the Reading Festival the year before, in common with many others in the Donington crowd, and that Reading comeback meant that they were now well accepted by the heavy rock fraternity. I also remember lots of cans etc being thrown across the crowd that day. The sound mix for Blue Oyster Cult was awful and they were a big disappointment for all of us; it didn’t go well for them at all that day. Whitesnake were on top form around this time with Coverdale in great voice, delivering classics like Mistreated and Ain’t no love in the heart of the city. AC/DC closed the day and were great, their show translating well to a massive open air setting. The AC/DC setlist at Donington was: Hells Bells; Shot Down in Flames; Sin City; Back in Black; Bad Boy Boogie; The Jack; What Do You Do For Money Honey; Highway to Hell; High Voltage; Whole Lotta Rosie; Rocker; T.N.T.; Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution; You Shook Me All Night Long; Let There Be Rock. Over the next couple of days I’ll do a write up on the 1984 and 1991 Monsters of Rock festivals, which will bring my AC/DC memories up to date. I’ll then move on to another band. I haven’t been there since 1991, but am planning to go to Download at Donington in June this year to see the reformed original Black Sabbath, unless they add any indoor shows before then.
4 Jan
AC DC: Whitley Bay Ice Rink Jan 14th 1986
January 14th 1986 Whitley Bay Ice Rink
Whitley Bay Ice Rink was a venue for concerts throughout the 1980s. I remember seeing quite a few gigs there including Rainbow, The Cure, Wham!, and The Jam. However, this gig draws a blank. I have a ticket and a programme, so I must have been at the gig. But I can’t remember anything at all about it. I can only conclude that this wasn’t a particularly memorable gig! By now AC/DC had graduated from clubs to concert halls, to arenas and festivals, with stadium gigs to come.
The Ice Rink was a vast, cavernous and very cold (naturally; it was, and still is, an ice rink!), and not the best place to see a band. It did however fill a gap in the North East venue map. The old Newcastle Odeon, with a slightly larger capacity than the City Hall, had sadly been converted into a multi-screeen cinema by the 1980s, and the Arena wasn’t built until 1995. Setlist: Fly on the Wall; Back in Black; Shake Your Foundations; Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap; You Shook Me All Night Long; Sin City; Jailbreak; The Jack; Shoot to Thrill; Highway to Hell; Sink the Pink; Whole Lotta Rosie; Let There Be Rock; Encore: Hells Bells; T.N.T.; For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)
Vintagerock's Weblog. 