Bowie serious moonlight tour on sky arts

DrCornelius

Unfortunately not a psa as it’s just finishing but what a show. I went to see it aged around 15 st Wembley (gift from parents) and remember being hugely impressed with Bowie and Earl Slick especially .

Watching it back now the whole show of incredible  - no films or sfx just brilliant musicianship and peak Bowie.

Probably his greatest tour imho - I appreciate his was changing the world during the Ziggy tour but for greatest hits this was hard to beat.

ICBM

That's 'peak Bowie' for me too. Let's Dance is still one of my favourite of his albums and is actually the first I bought, when it came out. Oddly enough my sister - younger than me by a couple of years - bought Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture at about the same time. For quite a while those were the only Bowie albums I had.

DrCornelius

I didn’t realise at the time that the only backing singers were 2 blokes too.  It sounded like 3 or 4 people (male and female) live , especially during young Americans which sounded amazing .

Keefy

I’m a long time (1975) Bowie fan and to me the Serious Moonlight tour punched well above its weight for what could easily have been a greatest-hits-spoiled-by-the-80s show.

Springywheel

That was a pretty good show, and I enjoy Let’s Dance a lot. Though I’d rather erase the memory of Bowie during the remaining years of that decade (I imagine he would too). Hardcore Bowie fans might find it laughable but strangely I feel his best period in terms of live performance was 1995-1996 during the Outside tour. There are several shows he did with NIN which are great too if you’re into industrial metal..

monquixote

I haven't got sky arts unfortunately, but I've seen this show before and I agree it's peek Bowie which means it's about as good as it gets IMO.

EricTheWeary

Annoyingly not on the NOW app, somethings shown on Sky Arts make it on, some don’t. 

monquixote said:

I haven't got sky arts unfortunately, but I've seen this show before and I agree it's peek Bowie which means it's about as good as it gets IMO.

Sky Arts is on Freeview now. They usually have a gig or music documentary Saturday nights eg this Bowie one, The Eagles concert, the King Rocker documentary ( about The Nightingales), there was a a documentary about Poly Styrene, Rush concert. 

guitars4you

Let's Dance is the album when I first came across SRV - I was led to believe SRV was going to be the support band and/or play with Bowie on many numbers, for the Serious Moonlight tour, so I managed to get some tickets  - Only to find out that SRV walked out over various issues at an earlier date - Not sure they actually did any gigs together anywhere on the tour 

DrCornelius

guitars4you said:

Let's Dance is the album when I first came across SRV - I was led to believe SRV was going to be the support band and/or play with Bowie on many numbers, for the Serious Moonlight tour, so I managed to get some tickets  - Only to find out that SRV walked out over various issues at an earlier date - Not sure they actually did any gigs together anywhere on the tour 

I had a feeling there was some contractual stuff going on - srv’s record company thought him backing Bowie in the band might diminish SRVs brand (I’m sure I read that somewhere anyway).

Im a huge Slick fan so it worked out well for me :-)

Springywheel

@DrCornelius  ;;;;As far as i'm aware the initial contract was for Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton to join him on tour, but somewhere along the line bowie's management changed their minds, so Stevie quit, not wanting to leave his band in the lurch. I don't think it would have worked anyway - I've heard some of the rehearsals with SRV and his pure blues style didn't quite fit. Slick might not be the better musician, but he was the better option in this case (as a side note, I love his guitar work on Station to Station)  

DrCornelius

Cheers @Springywheel ,thanks that’s interesting stuff. I heard some clips  on YouTube a few years back of them together and I’m guessing they were reversals as they were very loose (I agree with your assessment too !)

guitars4you

DrCornelius said:

guitars4you said:

Let's Dance is the album when I first came across SRV - I was led to believe SRV was going to be the support band and/or play with Bowie on many numbers, for the Serious Moonlight tour, so I managed to get some tickets  - Only to find out that SRV walked out over various issues at an earlier date - Not sure they actually did any gigs together anywhere on the tour 

I had a feeling there was some contractual stuff going on - srv’s record company thought him backing Bowie in the band might diminish SRVs brand (I’m sure I read that somewhere anyway).

Im a huge Slick fan so it worked out well for me :-)

Think also an argument between SRV and Carlos Alomour about who plays what - SRV played by ear/instinct and Carlos by dots and in charge of the arrangements  - Plus SRV and Lenny (wife) drug issues at the time - I dare say by now legend dictates all sorts of other stories

axisus

I'd love to see it but we can't get that channel.

I bought Let's Dance when it came out as I was already an SRV fan. I still think it's a great album.

I heard an interview with Stevie many years ago where he laughs and says that he blew the gig by insisting that he got the support slot. Bowie wasn't going to be dictated to! As it came from him I assume it to be true.

Gassage

I would put Sound and Vision alongside it- just for Belew's brilliance.

However, SM - I went to the NEC. It was beyond mind blowing. I bought pixie boots (Slick) and had a peroxide root perm the following day.