Is it worth the money?
^Speaks for itself.
shareI've only seen it on tv, but even there the concert scenes are magical and you understand why a critic the year before, dubbed Bowie "the best rock performer in England today". Ronson's guitar playing, to single out just one thing, is amazing and takes the songs far beyond the albums ("Moonage Daydream"!). The Ziggy album does sound a bit thin in its aural image, doesn't it? Crisp and clear but not very rounded-out, a far cry from Black Sabbath or Pearl Jam: that must be why they wrote on the back of the LP cover "To be played at maximum volume".
What seems to disturb a lot of people is the dvd image transfer, saying the pic quality is poor - but the lighting at the Rainbow probably is a lot of the reason fro this. I recall a lot of scenes bathing in red flash light...
Yeah the picture is sometimes dark and as you say, bathing in red flash light, but I think almost every live show from the 70´s is like that if it´s recorded in the evening. This DVD is something you buy because of the music, and it´s definetly worth it. Bowie´s music was at it´s best in these times.
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For me, the fact that this does not have the quality of an MTV video makes it better, more authentic. In the early 70's there were very few good quality music videos and this has a great 'reality' feel to it.
I saw this tour when it showed in Phoenix. It cost me a whopping $3.50 and is my favorite Bowie show of the 6 I've seen. A year before this Bowie was a relative unknown in America; a year after this he was a superstar. This is the tour that made him an icon.
Bowie's panache and sense of presence on stage are simply amazing, and all the more impressive as he knew he was going to make that final announcement and (in effect) sack his band at the end of the show. I'm watching the dvd right now and it's truly a great concert.
shareBut, of course, he didn't sack his band after this show. Regardless of the announcement, the 'Spiders From Mars' went on to record the albums Aladdin Sane and Pinups, and Bowie dropped them shortly after Pinups.
shareAladdin Sane was already recorded. This tour was in fact to promote Aladdin Sane. I'm not sure if Pin Ups was recorded before or after this documentary was shot bit it was probably around the same time. And if you'll notice Mick Woodmansey didn't play on that record. It might have had something to do with Bowie abruptly making the break up announcement as this caused a lot of tension between the band members. Although there was the 1980 Floor Show in which Mick Ronson and Trevor Bolder performed with Bowie. Mick Ronson and Trevor Bolder played with Bowie on the 1980 Floor Show in late 73. Even still this film was the last time the complete line up of the Spiders From Mars would perform.
The new imdb format sucks and I hate it.
Yes, Bowie recorded Pin-Ups just months after this "farewell gig", but the idea of a cover album doesn't seem to have been spelled out before. I think he told Defries only days before he actually buried Ziggy and sacked the band at the Odeon, his record company (RCA) knew nothing about it.
George Tremlett's Bowie: Living on the Brink has some brilliant chapters on the whole era and reveals a lor behind the scenes here, great biography.
I wish there were more filmed shows from the Ziggy era available. This character is actually Aladdin Sane, not Ziggy. Not that the differences are huge, but Ziggy was a tiny bit cooler with his face paint for example. From what I heard this tour was totally awesome as a whole (not hard to guess), and they varied their set list a lot. What a dream come true if we had one DVD concert from the beginning and one from the middle of the tours as well.
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