Serious Moonlight Tour
| Serious Moonlight Tour | ||||
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 David Bowie on stage during the 1983 Serious Moonlight Tour |
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| Tour by David Bowie | ||||
| Associated album | Let's Dance | |||
| Start date | 18 May 1983 | |||
| End date | 8 December 1983 | |||
| Legs | 8 | |||
| Shows | 96 | |||
| David Bowie tour chronology | ||||
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The David Bowie Serious Moonlight Tour was thus far Bowie's longest, largest and most successful concert tour. The tour opened at the Vorst Forest Nationaal - Brussels on 18 May 1983 and ended in the Hong Kong Coliseum on 8 December 1983; 16 countries visited, 96 performances, and over 2.6M tickets sold.[1] The tour garnered mostly favorable reviews from the press.[2]
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Tour development [edit]
Bowie himself had a hand in the set design for the tour, which included giant columns (affectionately referred to as "condoms") as well as a large moon and a giant hand. Some of the musicians from his 1978 tour were re-hired for this tour, including Carlos Alomar, who was the band leader for the tour.[3] Earl Slick was drafted as guitarist a few days before the commencement of the tour due to problems with Stevie Ray Vaughan's management demanding a contract renegotiation.[4]
The band rehearsed for the tour in Dallas, Texas. Each band member wore a costume which was designed "down to the smallest detail." Two sets of each person's costumes were made and worn on alternate nights, and everyone got to keep one set at the conclusion of the tour as a souvenir.[2]
One song that was on the rehearsal's song list that never actually got to the rehearsal stage was "Across the Universe," which Bowie had covered in 1975 on his Young Americans album.[2]
Tour performances [edit]
On 30 June 1983 the performance at the Hammersmith Odeon - London was a charity show for the Brixton Neighbourhood Community Association in the presence of Princess Michael of Kent. The 13 July 1983 Montreal Forum performance was recorded and broadcast on American FM Radio and other radio stations worldwide. The concert on 12 September in Vancouver was recorded for the concert video Serious Moonlight, that was released in 1984 and on DVD in 2006.
At the Canadian National Exhibition Stadium - Toronto, ON performance on 4 September 1983, Bowie introduced onstage special guest, Mick Ronson, who borrowed Earl Slick's guitar and performed "The Jean Genie" with Bowie and band. Mick had only been asked to play the day before, and he later recalled:
I was playing Slick's guitar ... I had heard Slick play solos all night so I decided not to play solos and I just went out and thrashed the guitar. I really thrashed the guitar, I was waving the guitar above my head and all sorts of things. It was funny afterwards because David said, 'You should have seen [Earl Slick's] face...' meaning he looked petrified. I had his prize guitar and I was swinging it around my head and Slick's going 'Waaaa... watch my guitar', you know. I was banging into it and it was going round my head. Poor Slick. I mean, I didn't know it was his special guitar, I just thought it was a guitar, a lump of wood with six strings.[2]
The last show of the tour (8 December 1983) was the third anniversary of John Lennon's death, whom both Bowie and Earl Slick had worked with in the studio previously. Slick suggested to Bowie a few days prior to the show that they play "Across the Universe" as a tribute, but Bowie said, "Well if we're going to do it, we might as well do "Imagine."" They rehearsed the song a couple of times on 5 December (in Bangkok) and then performed the song on the final night of the tour as a tribute to their friend.[2]
Tour band [edit]
- David Bowie - vocals, guitar, saxophone
- Earl Slick - guitar
- Carlos Alomar - guitar
- Carmine Rojas - bass guitar
- Tony Thompson - drums, percussion
- Dave Lebolt - keyboards, synthesizers
- Steve Elson - saxophones
- Stan Harrison - saxophones, woodwinds
- Lenny Pickett - saxophones, woodwinds
- George Simms - backing vocals
- Frank Simms - backing vocals
Tour dates [edit]
The Songs [edit]
From Space Oddity
From Hunky Dory
From The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
- "Soul Love"
- "Star"
- "Hang on to Yourself"
From Aladdin Sane
- "Cracked Actor"
- "The Jean Genie"
From Pin Ups
- "I Can't Explain" (originally non-album single by The Who, written by Pete Townshend)
- "Sorrow" (originally by The McCoys, written by Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer)
From Diamond Dogs
From Young Americans
- "Young Americans"
- "Fame" (Bowie, John Lennon, Carlos Alomar)
From Station to Station
- "Station to Station"
- "Golden Years"
- "TVC 15"
- "Stay"
- "Wild Is the Wind" (originally a single by Johnny Mathis, written by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington)
From Low
- "Breaking Glass" (Bowie, Dennis Davis, George Murray)
- "What in the World"
From "Heroes"
- "Joe the Lion"
- ""Heroes"" (Bowie, Brian Eno)
From Lodger
- "Red Sails" (Bowie, Eno)
- "Look Back in Anger" (Bowie, Eno)
From Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
From Let's Dance
- "Modern Love"
- "China Girl" (originally from The Idiot by Iggy Pop, written by Pop and Bowie)
- "Let's Dance"
- "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" (originally from Cat People: Original Soundtrack, written by Bowie and Giorgio Moroder)
Other songs:
- "Imagine" (originally from Imagine by John Lennon, written by Lennon)
- "White Light/White Heat" (from White Light/White Heat by The Velvet Underground, written by Lou Reed)
Notes [edit]
- ^ Pimm Jal de la Parra, David Bowie: The Concert Tapes, P.J. Publishing, 1985, ISBN 90-900100-5-X
- ^ a b c d e David Currie, ed. (1985), David Bowie: The Starzone Interviews, Omnibus Press, ISBN 0-7119-0685 Check
|isbn=value (help) Unknown parameter|printed=ignored (help) - ^ Edwards, Henry; Zanetta, Tony, Stardust: The David Bowie Story, ISBN 0-07-072797-X Unknown parameter
|published=ignored (help) - ^ Nicholas Pegg, The Complete David Bowie, Reynolds & Hearn Ltd, 2004, ISBN 1-903111-73-0
References [edit]
- David Buckley, Strange Fascination: The Definitive Biography of David Bowie, Virgin Books, 1999, ISBN 1-85227-784-X
