Glass Spider Tour

In 1987, David Bowie embarked on The Glass Spider Tour in support of the album Never Let Me Down alongside famed guitarist Peter Frampton.^[1] The tour was named after the album track "Glass Spider."^[2] The concert tour was the most ambitious by Bowie up to that date, surpassing the Serious Moonlight Tour of 1983 in terms of audience figures and number of performances. Demand for tickets to the tour was high, and it has been estimated by the conclusion of the tour a total of three million people had attended, beating Bowie's old record of 2.6m tickets sold for the Serious Moonlight Tour.^[1] The 3 September show at Sullivan Stadium in Massachusetts set a record for quickest sellout at that venue, a record matched by U2 and unsurpassed until The Who sold 100,000 tickets to two shows there in less than 8 hours in 1989.^[3] Bowie claimed that at the time, performing on this tour was the most fun he'd ever had on tour because it was the "most inventive" tour he'd ever been involved with.^[2]

Although not received well by critics at the time, the show laid groundwork for more theatrical rock events in years to come. In 1991 Bowie said "The Stones' show, Prince's show, Madonna's show... all of them have benefited from [this] tour."^[4] The extreme popularity of the time, however, had a negative influence in Bowie, who had said he felt apart from his true audience, and that led the artist to venture into underground trends in the next decade.^[5][6][7]

Tour development

Bowie indicated that he had two goals for this tour: to return to the theatrics that he had performed during his short-lived 1974 Diamond Dogs tour^[8] and to play less-well-known songs. Comparing the upcoming tour with his previous outing, Bowie stated:

"[In 1983] the promoters were coming around and saying, 'Listen David, we moved you from this 10,000 seater up to this 30,000-seater' ... and it grew and grew and there were 60,000-seaters coming up. ... Let's trim back on the theatrics and really go for giving them songs that they've heard on the radio for the last 15 years or so - songs they probably didn't realize when added up are a great body of work coming from this guy. ... Whereas with [The Glass Spider] tour coming up, I feel I've established that. What I now want to do is have the songs work for the performance. ... Certainly there will be obscure songs on it, at least for the general public. There will be songs from albums that weren't huge albums, but now those particular songs actually fit a section of the show. So when you put three songs together, you can create a vignette that works. It has a beginning and a conclusion and deals with one subject."^[8]

Bowie elaborated on the risk he was taking with this tour:

"The songs have to to work within the show-not the show working for the songs, if you see what I mean. That's why it's so different. And that's why it's so exciting, because that's the way I really like working. I mean, I like devising a show. I've got a show book that is almost like the bible you have when you're working on a play. It's written and structured with various thematic devices. Unfortunately, it's in revue form, because none of the songs were written for the show. That's the ultimate, of course. If this works the way I hope it does, then the next step for me will be to write a piece specifically for arenas and stadiums, which is almost like taking a musical on the road that has one narrative form all the way through, with a cast of characters, and is written for epic theater. I'm testing the waters with this tour."^[8]

Song selection

All but 2 songs ("Too Dizzy" and "Shining Star (Makin' My Love)") from his album Never Let Me Down were played live over the life of the tour. Songs performed during the tour were "chosen because they fit the performance"^[9] and fit Bowie's goal to make a show that was a lot more theatrical and had strong dramatic content. "You'll be surprised what you can do with a 6-piece rock band and a stage and a couple of lights," he replied when asked how he was going to make a rock show "dramatic".^[10]

Several songs that Bowie had anticipated playing on the tour were ultimately dropped before rehearsals even started, including "Space Oddity" (which Bowie described as "a constant"), "Ricochet" (from the album Let's Dance), "Joe the Lion" (from the album "Heroes" and which Bowie would eventually play live during his 1995 Outside Tour) and "Don't Look Down" (from the album Tonight).^[11]

Bowie was looking to avoid playing some of the songs that he was burnt out on playing after the long Serious Moonlight Tour, saying "I'm not doing 'Star' again. That was quite hard. I don't think I'm doing much Ziggy material on this tour! [laughs] Probably use a lot of that mid-70s material, but not the more ponderous things like "Warszawa." I tried that, and that was a bit yawn-making. There was one I was humming to myself the other day: [sings] 'Baby, baby, I'll never let you down' -- oh lord, what's that one? Jesus, I can't remember it. ... 'Sons of the Silent Age!' [snaps fingers] Ah! That's right! Thank god I could remember it! So that for me now is a new song. I've never done that one onstage."^[11] "Sons of the Silent Age" was ultimately performed every night of the tour.

Press tour

In announcing the tour, Bowie embarked on a series of promotional press shows covering 9 countries in 2 weeks, in which the tour details were announced together with a live performance of songs from the Never Let Me Down album. He used the opportunity to educate the press on his album and the tour, and the multiple dates allowed him to correct misinformation. At the London Glass Spider Press Conference, he used the occasion to clarify that "I didn't say 'lights, costumes and sex,' what I said was 'lights, costumes and theatrical sets'" in response to a question about what the audience could expect when seeing his new live show.

Set design

The tour's set, a giant spider, was over 60 feet high and included giant vacuum-tube like legs that were lit from the inside. One entire set (of which there were 3) took 43 trucks to move. To start the show, Bowie was lowered from the roof to the stage floor while seated in a chair and for the first encore (the song "Time"), Bowie emerged from the top of spider's head, nearly 40 feet above the crowd. That particular part of the encore was occasionally cut from outdoor shows when bad weather made the perch atop the spider too precarious to perform.^[1]

Opening acts

The opening act for the tour varied from country to country;^[12] in North America the tour was supported by Duran Duran. The opening acts in Europe varied, and included such acts as Big Country, Erasure and Nina Hagen. The tour also played festival dates, on one occasion with The Eurythmics headlining one night and Bowie headlining the next.^[1]

Performance notes and tour incidents

On tour, the band typically performed a roughly 2-hour long set of 24 or more songs (though the setlist rarely varied from night to night).^[1] Bowie and his band were joined on stage by five dancers who were choreographed by Bowie's long-time friend Toni Basil. Originally Bowie had hoped to have Édouard Lock of La La La Human Steps be involved in the show, but they were booked with other commitments. Bowie later lamented that the Tour may have been viewed differently if La La La Human Steps had been involved: "It would have been a different ballgame."^[13] La La La Human Steps would provide the choreography for Bowie's next solo tour, the Sound+Vision Tour of 1990.^[13]

After the 6 July concert (about a quarter of the way through the tour), Bowie changed up the setlist, pulling some of the newer songs from the setlist ("Zeroes" and "New York's in Love") and replaced them with some older songs from his repertoire ("Jean Genie," "Young Americans" and the Velvet Underground standard "White Light White Heat").^[1] Some of the outdoor performances in Britain had to start early due to curfew laws (a problem typically avoided in other European shows), which reduced the impact of the lighting of the stage & set dressing, and bothered Bowie considerably.^[1]

The tour took a physical toll on Bowie. Not only did he grow thinner over the course of the tour,^[1] he found that he was exhausted before the tour even started:

I think [tours like this] are extravagantly dangerous to do because they're so fucking tiring. Just the pressures of organising the event, and it's no longer a show, it's an event. Even before you go out on tour, you're knackered. There's God knows how many people running around, and everybody's doing something and people are forgetting to delegate jobs to the right people, and it's a mass of confusion and somehow it's all supposed to come together.^[4]

The European performances were not without incident with a lighting engineer, Michael Clark, being killed at the Stadio Comunale - Florence after falling from the scaffolding before the show commenced.^[14] Mobs of fans kept out of the stadium venue in Milan on 10 June rioted and had to be controlled by police, and a fan trying to enter the Slane Castle backstage area by swimming the River Boyne drowned just before the show on 11 July. The 27 June concert, originally scheduled to be performed at Ullevi Stadium, had to be moved to Eriksberg because a previous concert (by Bruce Springsteen) held at Ullevi Stadium incurred £2.7 million (in 1987 currency) in damages.^[1]

During the North American leg of the tour, a 30-year-old woman claimed that Bowie sexually assaulted her at the Mansion Hotel after a show at Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas. A grand jury cleared Bowie of all charges a year later.^[15]

Contemporary critical reviews

The European leg of the tour seemed to garner mostly disfavorable reviews from the media.^[1][16] The US media seemed kinder, with the local paper in Portland, Oregon writing a review that said that the dancers, music, set and band combined into an "overall effect [that] could rightly be called spectacular. It is performance art and rock opera; it is a stunning assemblage worthy of any stage or arena in the world."^[17]

Live recordings

Despite stating during the Press tour that there would be no live album from the tour,^[9] the performances at Sydney Entertainment Centre - Sydney, Australia on 7 & 9 November 1987 were filmed and released on video as Glass Spider in 1988, with a DVD release in 2007 including an audio recording of the 30 August 1987 performance at the Olympic Stadium - Montréal, Québec. The 6 June 1987 Platz der Republik (Reichstag - City Of Berlin Festival) - Berlin performance was broadcast on FM Radio.

Commercial sponsorship

For the North American leg of the tour, Bowie agreed to a commercial sponsorship agreement with PepsiCo. He recorded a TV commercial with Tina Turner to the song "Modern Love." Bowie had the following to say about the sponsorship agreement:

We did a commercial sponsorship thing only for North America with the Pepsi-Cola company. As far as I'm concerned, what it's allowed me to do, having them underwrite the tour, is to be able to produce a far more extravagant show than if I were just doing it myself. It means that instead of just having 1 or 2 sets I can have 3 or 4 sets made, and they can travel independently and they can be far more complicated.^[18]

Tour legacy

Bowie ended up engaged to Melissa Hurley,^[19] one of the dancers from the tour, but the two split up without being wed after four years.^[7]

An autographed gold lamé leather suit worn by Bowie on the tour sold at a Sotheby's auction in 1990 for $7,000 (several times its expected selling price).^[20]

Critics have often compared later David Bowie tours to this one,^{[7][13][16][21]} commonly echoing this later review: "[Bowie] mounted a stadium-sized production combining the excitement of rock with the perils of Broadway. ... An incredible spectacle, but the effect was overwhelming. Each additional theatrical device served to distract, ultimately flattening the impact of the music."^[22] Ultimately, the entire tour was physically demanding and such a large production that Bowie himself admitted at the time that "I don't think I'll ever take a tour quite this elaborate out on the road again. It's a real headache to put it together,"^[2] and in fact Bowie has not toured with such an elaborate stage production since.

In 1991, while preparing for his second tour with Tin Machine, Bowie reflected on the Glass Spider Tour's theatrics and presentation, suggesting that many tours and acts that followed benefited from this tour:

I like lots of it, but ... the whole thing should have been a lot smaller. Three-quarters of it was really innovative, and I've seen a lot of it in other people's shows. ... One day, if you get the chance, get a copy of that show on video and take another look at it, because in the light of what's been done since, there's some interesting shit going on.^[4]

Tour details

Tour band

• David Bowie - vocals, guitar
• Peter Frampton - guitar, vocals
• Carlos Alomar - guitar
• Carmine Rojas - bass guitar
• Alan Childs - drums
• Erdal Kizilcay - keyboards, trumpet, congas, violin
• Richard Cottle - keyboards, saxophone

Tour dancers

• Melissa Hurley
• Constance Marie
• Spazz Attack (Craig Allen Rothwell)
• Viktor Manoel
• Stephen Nichols
• Toni Basil (choreography)

Band equipment^[11]

Peter Frampton played two natural-finish maple body Pensa-Suhr Strat types, hand-made by New York-based John Suhr. For the song "Zeroes," he used a Coral electric sitar, given to him in the late 70's and previously owned by Jimi Hendrix.

Carlos Alomar played on six Kramer American series guitars and one custom Alembic.

Multi-instrumentalist Erdal Kizilcay played Yamaha DX7, Emax, Korg SGI and Yamaha CS70 keyboards. He also played a Tokai Stratocaster, a Yamaha GS1000 bass and a Pedulla fretless bass. Additional instruments played included a set of Latin Percussion timbales and white congas, an cowbell, 6- and 8-inch Zildjian cymbals, Promark drum sticks, a Simmons SDS-9, a cornet and a 17th-century Italian viola.

Richard Cottle played on two Prophet 5s, an Oberheim, a Yamaha DX7, DX7-IID and KX5 keyboards as well as a Selmer alto saxophone.

Carmine Rojas used two Spector basses.

Alan Childs played on Tama Artstar II drums.

Tour dates

The songs

From The Man Who Sold the World

• "All the Madmen"

From Aladdin Sane

• "Time"
• "The Jean Genie"

From Diamond Dogs

• "Rebel Rebel"
• "Big Brother"

From Young Americans

• "Fame" (Bowie, John Lennon, Carlos Alomar)
• "Young Americans"

From "Heroes"

• ""Heroes"" (Bowie, Brian Eno)
• "Sons of the Silent Age"

From Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

• "Up the Hill Backwards"
• "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)"
• "Fashion"

From Let's Dance

• "Modern Love"
• "China Girl" (originally from The Idiot by Iggy Pop, written by Pop and Bowie)
• "Let's Dance"

From Tonight

• "Loving the Alien"
• "Blue Jean"
• "Dancing With the Big Boys" (Bowie, Pop, Carlos Alomar)

From Never Let Me Down

• "Day-In Day-Out"
• "Time Will Crawl"
• "Beat of Your Drum"
• "Never Let Me Down" (Bowie, Alomar)
• "Zeroes"
• "Glass Spider"
• "New York's in Love"
• "'87 and Cry"
• "Bang Bang" (Pop, Ivan Kral)

Other songs:

• "Absolute Beginners" from Absolute Beginners: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, written by Bowie)
• "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (from The Stooges by The Stooges, written by Pop, Dave Alexander, Ron Asheton and Scott Asheton)
• "Lavender's Blue" (traditional)
• "London Bridge Is Falling Down" (traditional)
• "White Light/White Heat" (from White Light/White Heat by The Velvet Underground, written by Lou Reed)

Rehearsed, but not performed:^[23]

• "Shining Star" (from Never Let Me Down)
• "Because You're Young" (from Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps))
• "Scream Like A Baby" (from Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps))

Notes

References

• David Buckley, Strange Fascination: The Definitive Biography of David Bowie, Virgin Books, 1999, ISBN 1-85227-784-X