This Bowie concert was recorded from a World Tour that he did in 1978. The material is from his Low, Heroes, and Station to Station period, but has some classic tunes thrown in as well.
DVD-Audio Like David Live this DVD-Audio also has three tracks, one DVD-A in 5.1 Surround Sound, DTS in 5.1 Surround Sound, and PCM stereo. All are sampled at 48 Khz in 24 bit depth. In plain English, the sound is excellent.
Songs / Performance First, if you've just read my review of David Live, which was recorded a scant 5 years prior to this one, this is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SOUND. One of the reasons that David Bowie is one of my absolute favorite artists is because he is constantly changing. Its really nice to listen to this and David Live back to back, because the whole tone of the concert shows Bowie for that period in time, and that period only. The band has a polished techno industrial sound, years before it became popular. Its just not the same sound at all as on David Live. Yet, he sounds fantastic.
The concert begins with that heavy industrial kind of sound with songs from Low and Heroes.
The whole show starts with the eerie ominous notes of Warzawa. They just zoom around the stage. The tune is purely instrumental for a long period until Bowie starts to sing. He sounds distant and strange. (which for this particular song is exactly how he should sound). After this song fades out, the familiar opening sounds of Heroes fills the stage. I, I would be king, and you, you would be my queen, for nothing could keep us together, but we could beat them for ever and ever, we could be Heroes, just for one day . Bowie sounds vaguely subdued on this song until about 2/3rds of the way through the song when he begins to scream out the lyrics instead of just singing them. What in the World; Be My Wife; Blackout; Sense of Doubt; Speed of Life; Breaking Glass and Beauty and the Beast complete the first half of the concert. The sound for this portion was all very polished synthesizer heavy music, and it sounded great!
The band on this concert is Carlos Alomar on rhythm guitar, Adrian Belew on Lead guitar (yeah, the King Crimson Adrian Belew), Dennis Davis on Drums and percussion, Simon House on electric violin, Sean Mayes on Piano, George Murray on bass guitar and Roger Powell on keyboards and synthesizers. Belews guitar style is very noticable on this concert, he has a way of making his guitar sound like anything but a guitar.
Fame from Young Americans starts a subtle shift in sound to the slightly more pop and accessible sound. Then Bowie goes back to Ziggy, and presents five songs in a row from that classic album; Five Years, Soul Love, Star, Hang On to Yourself and Ziggy Stardust. This set sounds slower and has more traditional sounding instrumentation. Although the songs sound sort of the same as they did on the studio album, yet they don't. The shift in the instruments was subtle, so I couldn't quite place the differences, yet I knew that they were there.
Art Decade brings the sound back to the Low sound that dominated the first part of the concert. The song has an ethereal quality about it that seems like it would be fitting for some artsy sci fi movie. For the record, its an instrumental song. Jim Morrison has an indelible stamp on the song Alabama Song but when Bowie covers it, he certainly makes the tune his own (as Bowie does with any cover, just get his album Pin-Ups for proof.) I've never heard this song sung quite the way Bowie interprets it. Station to Station is next. Strange sounds like a machine warming up fill the concert hall. It spins and moves around until it is blasting full force, like a giant turbine floating around the hall. Then a howling sound joins it. A lone note wails from Belew's guitar and then bass comes in with subtle piano. More and more instruments join into the fray. The return of the thin white duke throwing darts in lovers eyes, where are we?, one magical moment such is the stuff that dreams are made of.
Stacatto guitar riffs mark the entrance of Stay and the concert closes with TCV15. It was a great song to end the show with.
Final Thoughts and comments on the Mix
The audience wasn't as noticeable in this concert, and you could really only hear them in between songs on occasion. The surround mix places you near the stage, with the sound coming almost as a wall of sound from the front three speakers. Although you could always tell where Bowie was, it was difficult to place or identify the other instruments. That, I am certain, was deliberate, and most likely the way the show sounded. Although Bowie was in Boston for this tour, I was only in the eight grade, and I didn't get to go. Of course I didn't ask to go either, only discovering Bowie half way through high school. I've seen Bowie live four times, he always sounds great, and always sounds different. This show was no exception. The DVD-audio is a nice improvement over the original Ryko disc 2 CD set (although that was pretty darn good itself, Ryko does a great job). The DVD-Audio was mixed by Tony Visconti.
Summary This was a well performed concert, with a terrific sound engineering job. Like David Live it captures a slice of Bowies ever changing concert persona, and does a fine job. The only reason I don't give this concert a full five stars, is that sometimes it was so produced sounding, that it was easy to forget that it was a concert. Since its a DVD-Audio and not a DVD I don't get to see the performers to remind me that it was live. Picky perhaps, but I still give Stage a solid four stars. I think if it was a DVD with a 5.1 DTS mix, I would have given it a full five.
If you enjoy DVD-Audio's please read some of my other DVD audio reviews:
Eric Clapton & B.B.King - Riding with the King // Alice Cooper - Welcome to My Nightmare // Dire Straights - Brothers in Arms 20th Anniversary Edition (Dual Disc with DVD-Audio on DVD side) // The Doors - L.A. Woman // The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots // Fleetwood Mac - Rumours // Foreigner - Four // Alicia Keys - Songs in A Minor // Metallica - Metallica (the Black Album) // Santana - Supernatural // Britney Spears - In the Zone //
Steely Dan - Two Against Nature // Neil Young Harvest // On the Beach // Hawks n Doves // Road Rock Volume 1
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