IT is June 28, 1983, and the man newly referred to in these pages as pop’s most enigmatic, most unfathomable artist pauses for a few moments at the side of the stage at Murrayfield, Edinburgh, before beginning the show.
David Bowie had embarked on his Serious Moonlight tour in mid-May, in Brussels, and by the time it was over. in December, it would have made its way across Europe, north America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, winding up in Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong.
Bowie’s fascinating career had been neatly summarised the day before Murrayfield (main image, taken by Joseph Campbell) by our music writer, David Belcher. “He is the 70s and 80s answer to Sinatra, Elvis and the Beatles”, Belcher observed. “He was, on one LP in the late 60s, Anthony Newley. He used to be David Jones. He was in the early 70s ‘the thinking fan’s Marc Bolan’ ...
“He used to wear a dress. He said he was bisexual. He was Ziggy Stardust. He was The Thin White Duke. He was The Man Who Fell to Earth. He was the man who launched a thousand enviable haircuts. He is an institution, like Harrods. He is David Bowie. Who is he?”
Belcher traced his long spiritual relationship with Bowie: a February 1973 concert at a London venue, for example, the place crowded with more than one hundred orange-haired Ziggy clones of both sexes. The joint, as they say, was jumping. When he came on -- whoosh -- 700 people shot forward to the stage like human skittles but instead of a crash there was a crunch of glass as drinks shattered underfoot all over the floor”.
Then, in 1978, when Bowie played four nights at the Glasgow Apollo, “hundreds of people” kept “a silent vigil outside the Albany Hotel after every performance”. Cine-camera footage of part of one concert, minus audio, can be seen on YouTube.
Belcher’s review of the Murrayfield concert itself opened: “Change has always been the most constant element of David Bowie’s career, and last night, rain-lashed and windswept, we witnessed his latest re-invention of self: the debut of the slim, tanned, colonial boy. It would appear to be the role he has been searching for. It has been a hard act to perfect, but now Bowie is himself”.
In November 2003, another mammoth tour - the A Reality Tour -- brought Bowie to Glasgow’s SECC (above, photographed by Colin Mearns). It was the final stop on the long European segment. “Glasgow got to hear a career-spanning repertoire”, our reviewer said. “Gone were the overblown pretensions of previous years, replaced instead by a minimal stage-set and a friendly Bowie, laughing and joking. From T he Man Who Sold the World to a sprinkling of songs from the new album, it was two-and-a-half hours of straight-up rock ‘n’ roll”.
Bowie died on January 10, 2016, aged just 69.
Read more: Herald Diary
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