31. I was fortunate enough to see David Bowie in concert three times. The first time was for the Glass Spider Tour at Dodger Stadium in 1987. Siouxsie and the Banshees was the opening act. It was the biggest concert I had ever attended. It was an elaborate, over-the-top production and I loved it! It was the 80’s! (Oh, how I miss the glorious 80’s, when bands had style and didn’t just grow beards and act sullen.)
The second time I saw Bowie live was the 1990 Sound & Vision tour, also at Dodger Stadium. Lenny Kravitz was the opening act. I remember the big selling point for this tour was not only to promote the reissues of his entire back catalog, but Bowie proclaimed that it was the last time he’d play any of those old songs live. (Yeah, right. LOL!) I recently found a promo poster for the tour that advertises the exact show I went to at Dodger Stadium. It now hangs proudly on my wall.
And the last time I saw Bowie live was 2004’s Reality Tour, this time at the Shrine Auditorium. Macy Gray was the opening act, but we were late to the show due to horrible traffic and missed her entire set. This was my favorite Bowie performance of the three. The setlist was amazing. Our seats were even more amazing. We had front row balcony seats! Aaaaahhhh!!!! I could see him smiling through the entire show! Which brings me to the other reason this was my favorite concert…Bowie was in amazingly good spirits. He was feeding off the adoring crowd and seemed to be having the time of his life. I had never felt more connected to him than on that night. It’s still one of the best nights of my life.
Thankfully, two of these three concert tours are preserved on home video. The Reality Tour video, unfortunately, suffers from really horrible direction/editing and at times is almost unwatchable. But I also have a bootleg copy of this tour that doesn’t have the horrible editing problems. Yay! Now if only they’d release a DVD/Blu-ray for the Sound & Vision Tour…
Now that Bowie’s gone I look back at my life and wonder why I didn’t see him live more often. I suppose I could blame my finances, lack of awareness/information (no internet), etc., but I really wish it was more than three.
There are many, many live performances/clips I could have chosen to post for my #BowieCelebration entry about Bowie “in concert,” but I’m going to go with the most recent Bowie show I’ve watched: A&E Live by Request. It’s the full 90-minute telecast and since I didn’t have cable TV in 2002 I only discovered it recently. He seems to be in a silly mood during the show, probably because of the nature of the gig itself (people calling in to talk to him and request a song).