Diamond Dogs Tour

Diamond Dogs Tour
Bowie performing at the Charlotte Park Center in Charlotte, North Carolina on 5 July 1974
Tour by David Bowie
Associated album	Diamond Dogs
Start date	14 June 1974
End date	2 December 1974
Legs	3
Shows	73
David Bowie tour chronology
Ziggy Stardust Tour (1972–73) Diamond Dogs Tour (1974) Isolar - 1976 Tour (1976)

The Diamond Dogs Tour was a concert tour by David Bowie in North America in 1974 to promote the studio album Diamond Dogs (1974). The end of the tour was also called The Soul Tour, which included some songs from the forthcoming album Young Americans (1975).

Tour preparation and details

Bowie during Diamond Dogs Tour on 5 July 1974 at Charlotte Park Center

Two months of rehearsals were required to get the tour ready, in part due to the elaborate set & props required for the show (reported to cost $275,000 per set,^[1] or about $1,300,000 today).^{[ 1]} Originally the tour was planned to appear in a city for 5 nights before moving on to the next city, but that plan was abandoned early on. The tour started in June 1974 in Montreal, Canada as the "Diamond Dogs Tour" (although producer Tony DeFries demanded the tour be referred to as "The Year of the Diamond Dogs" when speaking with the press). Bowie recorded radio and television commercials for the tour, which played in advance of the tour's arrival in each city.^[2] The tour took the month of August 1974 off, during which time Bowie began recording his follow-up studio album, Young Americans. On 10 October 1974, after the tour had resumed, Bowie abandoned the extravagant theatrical set and re-branded the tour "The Soul Tour," which would continue through the end of the North American leg in December.^[1]

In 1987, Bowie recalled how difficult the tour was early on before changing it into the 'Soul Tour', saying "I was in a bad state of mind to have attempted that. It was pretty exciting, but I was so blocked [laughs], so stoned during the entire thing that I'm amazed I lasted with it even that one trip across America before I ditched it."^[3]

Set design

The set for the theatrical "Diamond Dogs" tour, which was built to resemble a city (called "Hunger City"),^[2] weighed 6 tons and was incorporated over 20,000 moving parts including a variety of props (such as streetlamps, chairs and catwalks). The props themselves weren't ready for use until a mere 6 days before the show opened, which led to a variety of technical problems during the tour: a movable catwalk collapsed once during the tour with Bowie on it.^[2] In 1990, while preparing for this Sound+Vision Tour, Bowie recalled the difficulties faced by the show, saying it "was good fun and dangerous, with the equipment breaking down and the bridges falling apart on stage. I kept getting stuck out over the audience's heads, on the hydraulic cherry picker, after the finish of 'Space Oddity.'"^[4]

Other props worked as expected: for the song "Big Brother", Bowie sang from inside a multi-mirrored glass "asylum," emerging during the next song ("Time") from a giant hand.^[1]

The show in Tampa, FL, was performed without any of the stage props because the truck driver driving those components was delayed after being stung by a bee.^[1]

In 1987, while preparing for the Glass Spider Tour (which picked up theatrically where the Diamond Dogs Tour left off), Bowie recalled about the extraordinary nature of the set he used during the Diamond Dogs tour, saying "We had four skyscrapers on stage, with bridges that went backwards and forward and would go up and down. The whole things was built on a city pretext. I had dancers working with me and it was choreographed and was a real fantastic musical event. I thoroughly enjoyed working like that.^[5]

Live recordings

The 14 & 15 July shows were set to be recorded for a live album, but Bowie refused to pay the musicians more than scale wages. This led to a revolt by the band, who refused to play until they were paid $5000 a piece. Bowie acquiesced only 20 minutes before curtain time.^[2]

Band

Tour dates

Songs

Notes