Glass Spider Tour (1988)

Disc 1 (DVD)
1. Intro/Up The Hill Backwards
2. Glass Spider
3. Day-In, Day-Out
4. Bang Bang
5. Absolute Beginners
6. Loving The Alien
7. China Girl
8. Rebel Rebel
9. Fashion
10. Never Let Me Down
11. Heroes
12. Sons Of The Silent Age
13. Band Introduction
14. Young Americans
15. The Jean Genie
16. Let's Dance
17. Time
18. Fame
19. Blue Jean
20. I Wanna Be Your Dog
21. White Light/White Heat
22. Modern Love

Disc 2 (CD)
1. Intro/Up The Hill Backwards
2. Glass Spider
3. Day-In, Day-Out
4. Bang Bang
5. Absolute Beginners
6. Loving The Alien
7. China Girl
8. Rebel Rebel
9. Fashion
10. Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
11. All The Mad Men
12. Never Let Me Down

Disc 3 (CD)
1. Big Brother
2. '87 And Cry
3. Heroes
4. Sons Of The Silent Age
5. Time Will Crawl
6. Young Americans
7. Beat Of Your Drum
8. The Jean Genie
9. Let's Dance
10. Fame
11. Time
12. Blue Jean
13. Modern Love (Live)

Love Spazz Attack....Hate Peter Frampton

Right away this CD/DVD set loses two stars because of two words Peter Frampton. Peter Frampton plays guitar throughout the CD/DVD set and is constantly mugging for the camera. Simply put Framptons' guitar playing is not laid back at all, it is outdated and rocks in a nails on chalkboard kind of way. Now, for the flip side of this review...the guest list. Bowie is joined by five incredible dancers. One dancer clearly steals the show. The dancers' name is Craig Allen Rothwell AKA Spazz Attack. Spazz Attack comes out in a mummified getup on crutches and simply just has to be seen. I can't say enough good things about this Spazz Attack. This is the same dancer in an orange toxic suit from David Bowie's "Time Will Crawl" video. Since, Spazz Attack seems to have left his showbiz career in the 80's, this DVD serves as both an excellent document to Toni Basil's and David Bowie's over the top Glass Spider stage production and the dance craze of Spazz Attack. Even for the George Lopez show fans, Constance Marie is one of the dancers and is pretty cute. Hence, the highlights... I was intrigued to purchase the DVD/CD because of the set list which covers Thin White Duke era, Berlin era, and Scary Monsters era Bowie but,...again Peter Frampton populates each song with an overbundance of trashy guitar and is constantly grinning in a "Can you believe how good I am at guitar?!" kind of way. Regardless, Spazz Attack, Constance Marie, and David Bowie make it worth purchasing. Honestly, for a couple dollars more the CD/DVD edition is the way to go because it has songs not on the DVD and if you knock out your left speaker you don't have to hear Peter Frampton's dreadful guitar licks. November 17, 2007

DVD Audio Mix "What Happened Here" ???

The CD part of this is great thanks to Bob Clearmountain.

But to sum the DVD part of this up. What a mess. It's a wonder that no one listened to this back before it was released.
They forgot Peter Frampton In the Mix. Peter Mew credited, WHAT HAPPENED HERE?

By the old DVD version period, (It's great compaired to this) I was hoping for an upgrade! Sorry.

Will EMI fix I don't think so. September 27, 2007

Glass Spider Tour Didn't Age Well

I've been a huge Bowie fan since 1973 and still am, but this DVD/2CD package is a disaster. The staging and choreography are both pretty good, but the camera stays so tightly focused on Bowie that the size of the stage and the constant action around the star are rarely taken advantage of. This was a fun show when I saw it live in 1987, but I was able to shift my focus to the three-tiered 'wings' on either side of the stage when I got bored with the center stage action. The DVD viewer of course doesn't have that option.

The music CD's are much worse. A bland mix takes robs the music of whatever fire or enthusiasm might have survived the lazy arrangements, and little does. Blandly strummed electric guitars and plodding drum beats that sound like they were created by early-generation beat boxes (wasn't the drummer allowed to play the cymbals?) castrate some mighty fine songs here (Rebel Rebel, Scary Monsters, All The Mad Men, Big Brother, etc.) and make it painfully clear how crappy much of the newer stuff is (Day-In Day-Out, China Girl, Bang Bang, etc.). The real crime here is that obviously very little thought or energy was given to the music or how it was to be arranged or mixed or recorded.

My recommendation: if you're a die-hard fan like me and feel you must have this DVD in your collection, DO NOT was any exra money on the audio CD's. If you want a great Bowie DVD - both musically and visually - buy 2004's "A Reality Tour." Great staging and camera work, extremely clever arrangements, and a band that can sound chillingly sparse or roar like hellfire unleashed. Less intense but still fun - both musically and visually - is 1983's "Serious Moonlight" concert video. Another great band enhanced by a good mix (the guitars are consistently given a good share of the mix and have a real grit to their sound) and the addition of a horn section that adds bite to songs that fall rather flat in their "Glass Spider" incarnations ('Let's Dance' and 'Fame' among them).

Despite all the above, I'd still like to see other archived Bowie concerts. But in the future I'll probably rent first. As this DVD clearly proves, putting on a good show is both a musical and a visual task, and that show must be captured well sonically and visually in order to make a satisfying product. "Spider" fails more often than it succeeds. September 19, 2007

A Welcome Addition to the Bowie Catalog

This dvd confirms what I long suspected: The conventional wisdom has always been that Bowie had creatively dried out during the mid to late 1980s, and, though there's some truth in it, this dvd confirms that there was still a lot of passion in him. Certainly "Tonight" and "Never Let Me Down" rank among the lowest in his full catalog, but Loving the Alien and Blue Jean are classics, and "Never Let Me Down" (the album for which Bowie was touring at this time) has always struck me as underappreciated. Given the time-period and Bowie's propensity for theatricality, some of this concert veers too far to the bombastic and, at times, the cheezy, and sometimes the 80s synthesizer comes in when it really shouldn't - but get past that (or appreciate it as part of the package), and there are some real treats here.

I particularly enjoy watching the dvd alongside the Spiders from Mars, Serious Moonlight, and Reality Tour dvds, as it's great to hear these songs played in different eras, with the arrangements reflecting the time period.

Of interest with this version of the Glass Spider dvd is the inclusion of two cds of concert material. A number of the songs on the cds do not appear on the dvd (Scary Monsters, '87 and Cry, All the Mad Men, Time Will Crawl, Beat of Your Drum, and Big Brother). A pair of songs from the dvd do not appear on cd (White Light/White Heat and I Want to Be Your Dog). In truth, those songs aren't missed. White Light/White Heat was done better on other of Bowie's live albums, and I Want to Be Your Dog just doesn't quite work for me. So, trading those songs for Scary Monsters and Big Brother suits me just fine.

If you're not already a big fan, there are probably better places to start out (like the Spiders from Mars or Reality Tour dvds). For those who like Bowie's 80s output, though, I certainly recommend this. August 17, 2007

Finally

I have the VHS of this show. To this point I have been longing for a DVD release. When I saw this coming out along with a live cd, I placed my order. Finally, live David Bowie on CD. With the exception of the Ziggy Stardust soundtrack and a handful of dvd's including The Reality Tour, what else is there? The sound is impeccable, great mastering. I originally recorded the audio off the VHS to a cassette tape so that I could listen to it in the car, pretty pathetic. Now I have the cd's and am very impressed with the sound. The track selection differs slightly between the dvd and the cd, different shows. My only complaint, and it's minor, I wish the blistering version of Lou Reed's White Light White Heat was on the cd. Otherwise this is 5 stars. What else could it be? This is live David Bowie. August 10, 2007

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