THE BEFORE BIT
With gallery tickets for tonight, realising the importance of securing front row gallery seats, and aware of the routine from the previous night, we arrived early enough to be first in the queue. As a queue formed at the side door in the alley, an old guy out for a walk stopped, apparently surprised by the sight of the queue. (Cultural note - Irish people are not hot on queueing).
"Who's playing here tonight?"
After we told him, he reflected for a few seconds before nodding his head.
"No wonder there's a queue".
Exactly.
Once the doors had opened and we had sprinted up the stairs, we settled ourselves down peering over the Gallery rail.
THE CONCERT BIT
As with the night before, drum and bass sounds were played over the PA as the stage was set up. At 9.20 PM, Changes was played, and got a rousing cheer. As it faded, Bowie strolled on to the stage, acoustic guitar in hand, and launched into "Quicksand", with the band joining him later for the chorus.
Tonight was obviously "show a bit of flesh" night, with Reeves arriving in a kilt, while Gail Ann had a handkerchief she decided to wear as a skirt on, and a lace top over a red silk bra.
After Quicksand came The Man Who Sold The World in the now familiar reworked version.
"Waiting For The Man" saw the arrival of Iman in the same box as the previous night, and she immediately launched into her aggressive chair-dancing routine. Unlike the previous night when Bowie didn't pay much attention to her, tonight he looked up at her a lot and sang all the mushy lines to her.
After that, Bowie told the crowd that one of his favourite books was "Brendan Behan's Dubliners. Or is it Joyce?" before asking if his nose was brown.
The bluesy "Drifting" introed Jean Genie, with Reeves in fine fettle.
"I'm Afraid Of Americans" was accompanied by the video show, and at the end Bowie tried to appeal to any anti-American instincts in the crowd. "Johnny's an American. Well, good for Johnny [voice dripping sarcasm]. Let him stay there".
During the band intro, Bowie again slipped and called Reeves "Reeves Guitar" (he had made the same mistake the night before). Unlike the previous night though, he had a ready made excuse tonight, telling Reeves that it was obvious the reason he kept calling him Reeves Guitar was because, for him, Reeves was synonymous with the guitar. Reeves made a "Yeah, right" face after which Bowie made a comment about his legs, and then showed his own tattoo to the crowd, saying "And it's not the type that comes off. At least not for three days".
Battle For Britain was up next, and the Fashion, accompanied by the now familiar porn video show. Appropriately enough, it was at this point that probably the most talked about audience incident arrived - a young woman at the front removed her dress and threw it on stage. Rather than returning it quickly, Bowie played with it, and held on to it for the next ten or fifteen minutes, during which time the owner of the garment danced around topless. Bowie also used the dress as a prop to good effect. Singing the lines "Dance with me/Don't dance with me" to Gail Ann, he leered "But wear this".
This song drew an extremely enthusiatic reaction from the crowd, and Bowie said "Thank you very much", which he then repeated several times with different intonations and emphases. He continued this (periodically saying or singing "Thank you very much") throughout the next song, which was "Fame". This song also drew an unexpected reaction from Reeves. Gail Ann's development since she started working with Bowie has been dramatic. When I first saw her (Dublin '95), she looked like a terrified mouse in an ankle-length white dress. Now she is undeniably a show-woman. Reeves is also starting to exhibit signs of latent theatrical tendencies. Okay, his stock in trade is still the circular stomp around the stage as he wrestles with his squealing guitar, but tonight he also did what looked like a deranged hula hula dance which had his kilt swaying from side to side.
Next up was Outside with Gail Ann on lead vocals, then came a rousing version of Stay. Looking For Satellites, Under Pressure, Heart's Filthy Lesson, the perennial crowd-pleaser Hallo Spaceboy, Scary Monsters kept things going along at a fair old rip, before Bowie 'finished' with Little Wonder. During Little Wonder, Bowie made my son Paddy's night, er, week, er, year, er, life by returning his wave and pointing at him as he delivered the lines "You little wonder/Little wonder you". Sometimes it's an advantage to be the youngest person there.
Bowie and the band went off then, but we knew they'd be back, as the road crew did a very unconvincing "Taking the gear off but not really" charade up on the stage. The crowd kept their side of the bargain by screaming for an encore, and of course Bowie and the band obliged. In fact, with the encore eventually stretching to eight songs, nobody can say they didn't get their money's worth.
The encore kicked off with "Pallas Athena", a number which has had more than its fair share of knockers on the current tour. It also has its admirers too, including my wife Mireille (it's actually her favourite from the current set) and presumably Bowie himself, who gave it a vote of confidence by choosing it as the bonus track for the current SYIT single.
This was followed by "Dead Man Walking", done on this night as per the Moby remix. The crowd was unusually and eerily quiet during this, leading me to suspect it was going down like the proverbial dead balloon. However, a huge roar and ovation went up at the end, so it seems the silence was more of the reverential variety than the "what the Hell is this?" type.
"The Last Thing You Should Do" sounded as good live as ever, with Bowie improvising and inserting words from Sound & Vision ("Blue, blue, 'lectric blue/That's the colour of my room/Where I will live") to highlight the similarities between the two tunes. Next came "White Light White Heat", as rousing as ever, and then "O Superman". This last one is a real watershed - most Bowie fans seem to love it, but many non-fans and journalists (particularly in the UK) seem to think it's awful.
Technofied "V2 Schneider" pumped along with aplomb, and then came a surprise - a rousing version of "The Voyeur Of Utter Destruction (As Beauty)", with Reeves hitting top form.
Iman left at the end of Voyeur, signalling the end was nigh, but not before Bowie gave us "Moonage Daydream", which he ended by putting his trademark hand 'space mask' to his face as the crowd generally freaked out in a lunar era daydream.
THE AFTER BIT
Dublin crowds are notoriously blase with celebrity (Bono can pretty much walk around the streets sans minders and without getting hassled by anyone other than the occasional tourist). On his first trip to Ireland for a concert in 1987, Bowie was reportedly stunned to find he could walk up and down Dublin's main pedestrian street without being approached by anyone. But Bowie's performance here both nights was so awe-inspiring that normally sensible people crowded in the alley at the side of the theatre to watch him leave.