the fisting of life

Ahh! Bowie's very own 'pornhub' moment. If ever anyone could shove their fist up their arse musically (as far as the elbow) then this was it.
And all in its magnificent malignant grace. Did I mention Grace?

A non-linear hyper cycle..........

Hypodermic, Dave, not hyper! Hypo-cycle, then?

Art ritual murder.........

The Diaries of Nathan Adler............

And Brian Eno back on board!

Time for the Bowie fans to start whingeing.......

This is one of my favourite Bowie periods, where he returns to form. The tour was majestic.
N.B. I have most of these concerts, some on video. Many are of excellent audio quality (audience DAT or soundboard). If you want a copy, drop me a line.

There’s the grand finale of Thru’ These Architects Eyes, a majestic tour-de-force, which follows the equally-brilliant No Control and I’m Deranged. How about the jaunty I Have Not Been To Oxford Town, the obvious single? So, of course, it’s not. It’s a great tune, defying the non radio-friendly nonsense espoused at the time. Then we have the magnificent The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (As Beauty), with Reeves Gabrels pulling off one of the great guitar performances of all time. This was sensational live. Mike Garson is not to be outdone and in The Motel we have one of the greatest Bowie tracks ever. It was a showstopper on the tour. There’s also the avant-garde jazz of A Small Plot Of Land which no less a luminary then Donnie McCaslin chose to cover after Bowie’s death. Garson has always been Bowie’s go-to jazzer. Blackstar was not jazz. It was played by jazz musicians.

Two other great tracks are also standouts, The Heart’s Filthy Lesson (of which there are countless variants) and Hallo Spaceboy (which was a hit for the Pet Shop Boys), where Gail-Anne Dorsey gets a wrist workout on bass! 1. Outside is glorious stuff, all the more satisfying when it’s scorned and ignored by Bowie fans too. It has to go down as one of the cultural masterpieces of all time. The only shame is that the sequels never happened.

One reviewer was so out of his depth with this production that he considered Strangers When We Meet nothing more than a trivial ditty, which ought to have been a duet with Tina Turner on Tonight! Idiot. That has the same vibe as Heroes, but is less histrionic. Ridiculous analysis and evaluation.

To complement this musical pleasure-fest, the tours from 1995-1997 produced some of the most mesmerising performances from these awesome musicians. Some of the shows contained over 30 songs and lasted well over two and a half hours! Fortunately, many were captured on DAT and they are superb. Wonder how much of this stuff will make The Legacy boxes, eh?