THE BEFORE BIT
We arrived in Philly on October 2nd, and Mike Alford very kindly met us at the airport. One of the things I like doing in any new place is seeing how 'big' Bowie is there in terms of media presence, so over the next 24 hours, I watched a lot of MTV and VH1, and channel surfed on the radio. The morning of the first concert saw Bowie popping up on the local radio. That's about as good as it got as far as news on that front was concerned. The bad news was that not one of the five songs I heard on the radio were from the last 10 years (the five I heard were Young Americans, Heroes, Modern Love, Golden Years and Starman).
A trip to a few local record stores revealed Bowie CDs to be very poorly stocked, but even worse was a gander through the local press looking for a bit of hype about the gigs. Okay, so I wasn't expecting it to be front pages news like in Dublin, but this was Philly and I expected a bit more than an admittedly nice (if unashamedly retro) piece on what Bowie meant to different journalists (in a free newspaper), plus the following piece of poison buried in the Nightlife section of the Philadelphia Enquirer.
Steve Winwood, David Bowie
Direct from the ``How can we miss you if you don't go away?'' file come these two classic rockers with delusions about their staying power.
The all-time champ of the category is shameless trend-chaser David Bowie, whose shows tonight and Saturday at the Electric Factory have, for unknown reasons, both sold out. Bowie's most recent effort is Earthling (Virgin), which is more notable for its bald appropriation of techno's vibe than for its melodies. (And as a wise man once said, ``You can't hum a vibe.'') Bowie's latest grab at club cred, the single ``I'm Afraid of Americans,'' has been remixed by Nine Inch Nails.
-- Tom Moon
Tom Moon of the Moonie's, presumably.
All very disheartening. I guess what I'm really saying is that, as far as its treatment of Bowie goes, the America media sucks.
THE CONCERT BIT
After leading Mike astray, we eventually found our way to the venue at about 4.30, by which point most of the Teenage Wildlifers had arrived. It was overwhelming to meet such luminaries as Bonnie (thanks for the beer) and her charming husband Tony, Tura, Ramsey, PamE, Robot Monster, Frippertronic, Rock n Roll Grandma, Starling, Hel, Jim, Eran, Tin, Laura, June, Kaliman, Patti (thanks for the Guinness), Aquaria, Antoine, Josie and her fiance, Marden (thanks for the Fosters), Paul R and of course Evan in such a short period of time.
One thing was very noticeable was that the camaraderie among Bowie fans here was on a different plane from anywhere else I've experienced. The three hours until doors opened literally flew by. The venue itself is a converted factory, and as we stood outside we could hear the soundcheck in progress and peak in through an open window.
Once they let us in, we got to within ten feet of the stage. It was clear it was crowded as Hell - fire regulations must be a little less strict here than in Europe. It was also very hot, which made standing around for 2 hours waiting for Bowie pretty difficult. Again, the best thing was the sheer friendliness of Americans. When Bowie finally came on at 9.15, it was worth the wait.
He started in the now familiar "stride to the mike with an acoustic guitar and start Quicksand solo, with the band coming in during the song". He followed with two songs he hadn't done in Europe, "Always Crashing In The Same Car" and "The Supermen", both of which I had been salivating to hear him do live. Perhaps inevitably having hyped the thing up so much in my own mind, I was somewhat disappointed by the two songs.
He followed with a great version of "Waiting For The Man", followed by "My Death", another song he hadn't been doing in Europe on this tour. Gail Ann took her customary lead vocals on "Outside", after which Bowie and Reeves did their by now familiar old-blues-song-as-intro to "The Jean Genie" shtick. Then came another newie from Europe, "Panic In Detroit", and then my first hearing of the Trent Reznor's remix version of "I'm Afraid Of Americans".
I thought the version done in Europe was way better than this new version, which seems to have stripped out a lot of the driving aggression that made this song one of the highlights of all the European concerts I saw. However, as a remix, it sounds fine and hopefully will do the business.
Throughout the show, Bowie was extremely animated and witty. I wish I could remember more of his physical performance (what he does on stage these days, even if you stripped away the singing, is practically performance art) to convey this, but one thing that I do remember from this song is that Bowie adopted a "crucified Christ on the cross" pose as he sang the lines "God is an American", his head drooped off to the side as if dead. But when you looked closer, you could see he was chewing gum. Delightful.
Yet another song he hadn't done in any of the European shows I saw was "Look Back In Anger". To be honest, I'm getting a little tired of this song live, and I think it works better as a show opener. He then played a few more songs I had seen in Europe, ending up with the now customary show closer, "Little Wonder". I think this song is a very good one to end the 'show proper' (before the encore) on, very rousing. It worked a little better in Europe perhaps, where the song was a big hit single this year and one of the most played videos on MTV Europe, and therefore better known and loved by the less committeds, but it was fine here too.
One point I watched with interest was to see if the visuals for "Fashion" had been toned down for American consumption, and indeed they were a very watered down version of what I had seen in Dublin (which themselves were toned down from Paris).
The crowd were very enthusiastic throughout, and Bowie and the band seemed to be in great form, so I knew we'd get an encore. It kicked off with a great version of "Fame", which segued wonderfully into "Is It Any Wonder". The rest of the encore was pretty standard encore fare, ending with a show stopping "All The Young Dudes".
My only gripe about this show was that the entire dance set, which I had loved in Europe, had pretty much been junked.
This was a great show. Musically, the band were on top form, Bowie was in a great mood, and the crowd were enthusiastic. One of the interesting things for me on this tour was watching how different audiences react to the old material and the new. In London, it was the pre-1974 material that the crowd wanted, and they seemed to barely tolerate the newer stuff. In Germany, they reacted positively to old and new alike without any great bias one way or the other. In Paris, it was the new material that got the crowd going the most, and in Dublin, it was an approximate draw, with perhaps the new material shading it by virtue of the fact that even people who went there for the oldies were talking more about how brilliant the new stuff was afterwards.
Here in Philly, the crowd reacted equally positively to old and new material, and as an experience, being at a Bowie concert surrounded by American Bowie fans could only be topped for me by the shows I saw in my home town of Dublin.
I guess what I'm really saying is that American Bowie fans rule.
THE AFTER BIT
I was thoroughly wrecked by the end of this, the longest show I had attended on this tour, and I limped out, I heard a number of people opining that the show was too long. As far as I'm concerned, the longer the better, but I guess for the less committed used to seeing shows half this length, 2 hours and 45 minutes can be too long.
Where better to celebrate after a Bowie show than Doobie's, with the jukebox from Heaven and where we got to meet up with the usual Teenage Wildlife suspects? We also found out that you can't smoke cigars in an American pub, and you can't drink beer on the street outside a pub, which led to a strange shuttle between the cigar on the pavement and the Guinness on the bar for much of the night. Tony (Mr. Bonster) explained it to us - "In America, we're not allowed to do two enjoyable things at the same time".