Reviewed October 12, 2007
David Bowie : Glass Spider
by Ron Hollywood

directed by David Mallett

At long last we have David Bowie’s overblown over danced, over the top stadium tour from one of his weakest periods (by many standards, including Bowie himself) 1987’s Never Let Me Down. In between spoken word monologues from the six dancers, plenty of choreographed dance numbers, and a stage production where every and any prop one could think of was used to create some kind of visual effect, this was tour where there was so much to see and experience that one could forget they were at a rock concert. Aside from performing under a giant lit up spider all night it is hard to tell what the exact concept of this show is supposed to be. This was actually a very interesting show to watch and in DVD it really looks great. Director David Mallett has made everything very visually exciting to watch and captures all the best moments wonderfully.

Bowie descends from the spider’s body on a chair singing Glass Spider . Somewhere amongst all the dancing chaos guitarist, Peter Frampton, emerges and makes sure this is a rock show until the very end of the concert. He even shares lead vocals on Sons Of The Silent Age while Bowie has a dancer sway back and forth to his hand movements.

Bowie is not just a charismatic performer, but shows his true dramatic edge on Bang Bang and Fashion. This is where we see how the dancers on this tour are important and would have been sorely missed if not here. Watching these two songs over and over are certainly worth it.

Every once in a while Bowie and the band strip things down to the basics and perform with almost nothing going on except for themselves. This is evident on Rebel Rebel , The Jean Genie, and Young Americans. Near the end special guest Charlie Sexton is brought out to play guitar on two covers Iggy and The Stooge’s I Wanna be Your Dog and Velvet Underground’s White Light White Heat. This is great rock n roll and we almost forget about the dancers and production.

As soon as you get used to this being a rock show back come the dancers and things get topsy turvy all over. This tour really highlights the commercial phase of Bowie and might not please rock fans of his earlier work. Although you do get Bowie with angel wings performing Time atop the spiders head. I really do love this show for it’s production value and it certainly never gets boring.

This also comes in a deluxe edition which includes a two CD’s of Glass Spider tour. However some of the best songs from the DVD are missing and this is really a tour to see more than hear.

GALLERY
There is a gallery of 29 assorted live, backstage, black and white and color photos from the tour.

AUDIO
This DVD can be heard in one of three modes PCM Stereo, DD Surround, or DTS Surround.

1. Intro/Up The Hill Backwards
2. Glass Spider
3. Day-In, Day-Out
4. Bang Bang
5. Absolute Beginners
6. Loving The Alien
7. China Girl
8. Rebel Rebel
9. Fashion
10. Never Let Me Down
11. Heroes
12. Sons Of The Silent Age
13. Band Introduction
14. Young Americans
15. The Jean Genie
16. Let’s Dance
17. Time
18. Fame
19. Blue Jean
20. I Wanna Be Your Dog
21. White Light/White Heat
22. Modern Love

total running time 104 minutes

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