I just got this and I am BLOWN AWAY! I can't believe I hadn't heard this until now. I have most of Bowie's other 70s output, but not this one until now.



And his guitarist! Earl Slick. Just amazing. Well, the whole band really.


Anyway, I didn't have a lot of Bowie live before this, so I'm really excited.

Well, you MUST get "Stage Live" (from the 1978 tour)! His vocals are beyond amazing on that one! Station to Station.... Moon of Alabama...
"Heroes"....

And yes, this one of course is great as well!



Hmm, Bowie in the 70s...

calldapplwondery83 said:

Really? Ok, it's next on my list.

The band is ultra tight on Stage. The music has this slightly cold and metallic sound and feel, but it's not lifeless at all. Anx can propably say something more about this one.

Yeah, this album is a classic. The live version of "Ziggy Stardust" with the keyboards on the intro is beyond cool.

calldapplwondery83 said:

indeed i can.

'stage' is my favorite bowie live album, though they're all really good. 'ziggy stardust: the motion picture' is a great document of the ziggy era, 'bowie live' is a fascinating account of bowie's plastic soul/heavy drug phase, 'bowie at the beeb' is a great latter-day live album with lots of fan favorites, and...uh...i know i'm leaving more live bowie albums off this list, but screw it, those are the biggies.

but 'stage'. it's awesome. thing is, it's a very 'artificial' live album. very overdubbed, very tweaked. but it's meant to be. it's supposed to be very artificial and cold, but it still shines through as a great, soulful bowie album, recorded in the midst of the berlin albums with eno and bowie's playful post-drugs years with iggy pop. a great time to be david bowie. a reissue of 'stage' came out within the last year or so with more music on it, and a more proper running order of the concerts. check it out. it's great stuff. his vocals are to die for, with one of the best versions of 'heroes' out there. yum.

Anx said:

I went through a bowie binge a couple of months ago and picked up The BEst of Bowie (2 cd) and Stage. I still havent sat through all of stage, but I think I shall tonight.

Echoing the others feelings, you will like "Stage". I bought it a year ago and was blown away by the arrangement of his Ziggy work in the Brian Eno era. Heroes takes on a new feeling when you listen to it.

David Live is good too. I didn't like "Panic in Detroit" live. Mick Ronson's guitar work was menacing and sharp. Earl Slick(?) did a good job, but it had a "Diamond Dogs"/Philly Soul feel to it.

i hate to say this..but i kinda enjoyed bowie on drugs..lol
i mean i really doubt that a coked out whitney houston could ever written something as good as station to station.
also i think bowie exaggrated a tad on his whole druggy venture.
of course this is disputed.

weepingwall said:

after reading enough books on the man, i don't think his druggy venture was exaggerated at all. plus, he fell off the wagon a few times in the late '70s through the '80s. it almost seems like it took iman to straighten him up once and for all.

She should have them taken him off the cigarettes, too.

Anx said:

The way he sings the "you" in the "you will be my queen" is so amazing. I think he never did that again after that tour, might be wrong though. I think his vocals were at his all-time peak from 76-80. He sounds like he's about to tear down the recording studio with his voice on Scary Monsters.

calldapplwondery83 said:

if there were some kind of alien pact in which one person on the planet could be exempt from health issues arising from smoking, it should have been applied to david bowie. he made smoking look cooool. i don't think he's smoked since lexi was born, so i guess better late than never.

Anx said:

I was doing a bit of research about this album online yesterday, and yeah, a lot of people had said they had really horrible versions of it for years before it was remastered. Now it's all cleaned up, but I have nothing to compare it to since I never heard the original.

Anyway, this thread was started during my first listen to it. Hearing "The Width of a Circle", my face was like this once it got halfway through ----->

I have to listen again now.

I'm probably in the minority, but this is my favorite Bowie live album:

JediMaster said:

i like that album a lot, though at times the backing singers are a little "rah rah" cheerleader for my taste, and i think they massacred the arrangement of one of my favorite bowie songs, "always crashing in the same car". other parts of it are sublime, though.

JediMaster said:

There is pro-video footage of that one, and I NEED to get that. I mean, my life depends on it!