this is such a cool album with great solid renditions of old Bowie tracks. such a great band. i believe it was the week of his appearance at Glastonbury. i saw that on tv and i was like, "wow". that dude is super cool.

I'm annoyed I didn't get the BBC sessions when this came with it. Haven't seen it in a wrecka stow for ages

I love this one too!!!

All great versions!!

Gotta put this on sometime today... BTW, I don't know if this has been reported here, but bowienet says the man will get a Lifetime Achievement Award from the grammy people. Well deserved!

i love this live performance

i just don't like the female backing vocalists really.

dawntreader said:

i don't either, but i can tolerate them. everything else on that performance is so great, i can overlook the backup singers.

I can still dig the music, but I really despised the video footage.

Novabreaker said:

i've only seen photos. he looked like robert plant.

It was shot on just plain broadcast video instead of proper film, which made it look very cheap. The setting was dull, as were the lights and the camera work, Bowie's own look was unusually uninspired and he didn't really do much that night. And what could be worse than hundreds of "invited guests" - BBC's 50-something excecutives with their wives stealing all the front seats - attempting to clap their hands to "Hallo Spaceboy" and smile in front of the camera when enjoying a very special live performance from a rock'n'roll legend...

I got loads of TV performances from that same period (he actually did a lot) and they all beat the BBC special on visuals hands down. Most of those TV appearances were extremely good musically too. Finally got several good versions of "China Girl". It's one of the best songs ever, but you know the album version sucks goat's ass.
[Edited 1/16/06 7:06am]

still have never seen the video of this.

Novabreaker said:

Tell 'em!

calldapplwondery83 said:

the album version is funky and sexy as hell, it just got overplayed and everyone's sick of it now.

I've always wondered just how 'live' this
album is..It sounds like it had some major post-production..

Martinelli said:

well, there are some tracks floating around of second takes that they did during the taping of this show...screw-ups and re-tries and stuff like that...i'm sure they sweetened it a little bit for the CD since bowie had throat problems the night of this performance, but i'm sure it's a lot more true to the show than a lot of other "live" albums.

Bowie sings live smashingly most of the nights. Especially when the monitoring is good he'll be able to pull out a fantastic performance. The show I went on the "Reality" tour was so well engineered I thought I was listening to a record just being played loud. Well, "well engineered" all the way up to the last song when his ear monitor broke and he had to start "Ziggy Stardust" once again. He was miffed and left the stage at the end.

i'm always amazed at how good the bowie concerts i've been to have sounded. the least "on" i've seen him was when he was in indianapolis for the reality tour...he gave an amazing show, though he was in a pretty foul mood (especially for him).

Love this CD. A fantastic live album with a great tracklist! One of my favorite live albums ever!

Novabreaker said:

I agree, I think he hit a new peak on the Reality tour..