Tracing David Bowie’s live evolution from Ziggy Stardust to the Glass Spider Tour

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON AUG. 14, 1987

By Steve Newton

When David Bowie’s Glass Spider Tour hits Vancouver this Saturday (August 15), it will be the latest in a succession of immense theatrical spectacles that Bowie has been bringing to the world for the last decade and a half.

North American audiences first became aware of Bowie’s live persona in 1972, when he turned himself into a space-age androgyne by the name of Ziggy Stardust. Zany costumes, heavy makeup, and a highly sexual stage show (with a lithe Bowie simulating fellatio on muscular Mick Ronson‘s guitar) brought him to the attention of rock fans yearning for something wild and different.

Bowie caused a real stir, and the reaction to his role-playing was always volatile. (During his first trip to America, a furious redneck in a Texas bar aimed a six-shooter at him because he was wearing a dress.)

Two years later, Bowie mounted a production based on his Diamond Dogs album (which, with tunes like “1984” and “Big Brother”, was loosely based on George Orwell’s novel, 1984). The tour incorporated a rock opera-style stage show format with several sets and costume changes, but Bowie found this presentation too unwieldy, and scrapped it part way through a world tour.

In the mid-to-late ’70s Bowie started recasting himself as what he called a “plastic soul” singer, and he was back on the charts with disco-influenced tracks like “Fame” and “Golden Years” (a song which Elvis Presley was planning to record just before he died in ’77).

At this point Bowie began a musical collaboration with guitarist Carlos Alomar, which continues today. With Alomar on rhythm and the masterful Earl Slick on lead guitar, Bowie reappeared on the concert scene once again, this time as the diaphanous “Thin White Duke”, spoken of in the title track of his Station to Station album. Singing in front of a white-on-white wall of floodlights, wearing black waistcoat and white dress shirt, he was the aloof, chain-smoking prince of primordial funk.

And just when he had nearly typecast himself as rock’s resident alien, he re-emerged in 1983 as a blond matinee idol in a linen suit, smiling away and singing love songs to a mass pop audience for his “Serious Moonlight ” tour. That tour introduced him to stadiums, and led to the Glass Spider production Bowie’s Vancouver fans will see Saturday.

The 27-song, two-hour show–featuring a huge, 60-foot-wide translucent spider under which Bowie, his five-piece band, and five dancers will do their thing–is being dubbed as the most complex, theatrical stage show in rock history. Looking at the stats, you can understand why: the total cost of the stage is said to be $10 million (U.S.), it costs $1 million (U.S.) a week to keep the show on the road and it involves 150 people (including performers, construction crew, electronics specialists, and 40 truck drivers). The Glass Spider Tour will include 100 shows, and be seen by some six-million people in 15 countries during its six-month run.

Bowie’s American fans have been flocking to see the show, and at his tour openers in Philadelphia July 30 and 31, the Thin “Rich” Duke grossed $1.7 million U.S.–the biggest concert take of the month. Vancouver fans have already snapped up roughly 30,000 tickets to the weened show, so it looks like the warnings of a Portland, Oregon noise-control officer are going unheeded.

“It will cause harm,” Paul Herman told Portland city council members. “It will also bring pleasure, but it will cause harm.” (Somebody should have invited Paul to David Lee Roth’s show at the Coliseum last year.)

Musically, Bowie will be backed by a band that includes guitarists Carlos Alomar and Peter Frampton (remember him?), drummer Alan Childs, bassist Carmine Rojas, and multi-instrumentalist Erdal Kızılçay–basically the same group that played on Bowie’s latest LP, Never Let Me Down, from which most of the night’s material will come.

Fans of Bowie’s previous songs can also expect a set that includes most of the following: “Heroes”, “Rebel, Rebel”, “Fame”, “Big Brother”, “Fashion”, “China Girl”, “Let’s Dance, “Modern Love”, Loving the Alien”, and “Time”. (Don’t worry, Frampton’s “I’m in You” won’t be making an appearance.)

Bowie himself describes the Glass Spider Tour best: “This tour has taken six months to prepare, design, stage, and rehearse. I doubt whether I will ever be able to tour anything this complex again. For me this tour is a coming together of all the performance and theatrical elements that have fascinated or amused me all my working life. It’s loud, physical, colourful, dreamlike, and it rocks.”

Here’s the interview I did with Peter Frampton on the day of the Glass Spider show in Vancouver, and my review of the concert as well.