Month: November 2002

IN THIS age of globalisation, thank God someone is standing up for those vital local differences. Best of Bowie isn?t just one album. That would be far too simple for pop music?s great innovator. It comes in 23 different editions, each tailored for a different country or region, with the track listing reflecting that area?s favourite Bowie tracks. Amazingly, only one track is on every single edition. Go on, guess. No, it?s not Space Oddity. Ecuador, Peru and Columbia don?t get that one. Appropriately enough, it?s Fame.

As for the UK edition, it goes without saying that the songs are superb. There?s clearly been some serious remastering going on in the earlier material, revealing new depths even to the hardened fan (I had no idea Trevor Bolder?s bass on Jean Genie was so … well … outrageous), while more recent tracks such as Little Wonder and Slow Burn hold their end up rather well. Three stars

Here is the complete story of a rock and roll pioneer whose accomplishments go far beyond music.

Alexandria also appears to have galvanised a commitment to fitness, exercise and meditation, and last year he even quit his 60-a-day smoking habit. ?She has probably reined in my natural negativity,? he says. ?I tend to have a certain kind of resignation about the way we live and how we are, which doesn?t buy into the idea we?re evolving or going somewhere. But I?ve forced myself to see things through my daughter?s eyes in terms of her survival and what kind of society she?s going to grow up in. So I?ve become very paternal and protective and that has started to affect my writing.?

He is certainly grateful for the many young bands who cite him as an influence, often telling their fans to go and buy some of his most notable recordings. ?The average age of a fan on www.bowie.net* is between 19 and 30, as it tends to be a younger person that uses the Internet rather than someone my age,? he says with a smile. ?But I couldn?t write anything specifically for today?s 18-year-old. At no stage has my work been particularly generational ? I sing broadly about things like isolation or the alienated in some way. That has been a godsend in a way, because my subject matter doesn?t have to change. I can carry on talking about the things that I feel and think about the most.”

Gamely dancing like a Cossack, he used his black leather jacket as a symbolic springboard to riff on existentialism (“If Simone de Beauvoir wore this jacket she’d look like a fat Patti Smith.”), and his performance was haunted by the ghosts of past personas. Singing Heathen’s “Slip Away” in white shirt and black trousers, he could have slicked back his silver hair and instantly become the Thin White Duke of Station to Station. On “5:15 – The Angels Have Gone” he slinked up to the mic – hands clenched on belt, intent look on face – and it was easy to imagine how he stalked the stage during his Jean Genie days. At the end of “Slip Away” he even whipped out the “Space Oddity” stylophone to play an elementary solo.

While Bowie appeared to have all his wits about him, his funny bone seemed a little out of whack. After ”Ashes to Ashes,” he introduced a ”special guest,” James Brown ? only it wasn’t the Godfather of Soul, just a tacky two-foot statue of ”the hardest working man in show business.” Bowie held the novelty item to the microphone and triggered a microchip that made it wail ”I feel good!” and (Bowie’s favorite) ”Oww! Oww!”

Later, Bowie brought the statue back on the stage, wrapped a large white towel around its shoulders and dragged it off in a parody of Brown’s show-stopping finale. Gotta love that British sense of humor.

David Bowie at the Orpheum Theater in Boston

Although he’s most often called a chameleon for his ability to shift and change his musical personas, David Bowie is, through it all, rock ‘n’ roll’s great romantic.With a stunning 2-plus-hour show Wednesday at The Orpheum Theater, Bowie cruised through many of his career phases and faces, and laced them all together with a reverence for the sublime and beautiful. The song list swirled around themes of love, fear and spirituality, working those ideas through grand song arrangements.

The show was the last stop on Bowie’s whirlwind tour of eight small East Coast venues to wrap up his live work in support of his latest album, ?Heathen.?The eminently stylish singer seemed at ease in front of the crowd of 2,600 at the Orpheum, engaging the house with between-songs banter that was equal parts sarcastic and genuine. In his current mode as consummate and friendly performer, Bowie was able to effortlessly combine the various tones that have shaped his work. There was nothing awkward, for example, in seeing Bowie swing from the debauched ?Three Penny Opera? cover of ?Alabama Song? to the cloyingly sweet ?Absolute Beginners.?

Just as Bowie was able to make the stylistic leaps, so too was his band. Guitarists Earl Slick, Gerry Leonard and Mark Plati, keyboard players Mike Garson and Catherine Russell, drummer Sterling Campbell and inimitable bassist and singer Gail Ann Dorsey perfectly followed their leader through every twist and turn he led them through (a trip lit by the luminous grin Bowie flashed all night). The concert opened and closed around Leonard playing an aching guitar solo, alone in a cone of white light. Leonard’s squalls first opened the show with ?Sunday? and then served as the closing to ?Heathen,? two contemplative gems from Bowie’s new CD.

The ?Heathen? CD also provided the night’s first real jolt of the sort of art-damaged rock ‘n’ roll for which Bowie is best known. But instead of igniting the crowd in such a way with a song of his own, Bowie ripped it up with a cover of The Pixies’ ?Cactus,? and the song sounded even more ferocious live than it does on ?Heathen.? After a one-two punch from the new CD, Bowie then took the crowd into older, more familiar turf with ?Breaking Glass,? ?Fame? and ?Ashes to Ashes.?

Bowie stuck to that flow of intermingling the new with the old, and his dips into the back catalog ran deeper than just the hits. ?Starman? from the ?Ziggy Stardust? album, ?Be My Wife? from ?Low? and the aforementioned ?Alabama Song? were prizes for diehard Bowie fans to savor. An unexpected high point in the show came with a raucous version of ?I’m Afraid of Americans.? The ?Heathen? CD provided plenty of fuel for the show as Bowie gave commanding performances around ?I’ve Been Waiting for You? (a Neil Young cover on the disc) and ?Slip Away,? a new song that sounds spiritually connected to the stuff Bowie was doing in the early ’70s.

But Bowie the pro wouldn’t risk ticking off the faithful by ignoring his hits. And he basked in the big numbers such as ?China Girl, ?Sound and Vision,? ?Fashion? and ?Rebel Rebel.? The singer sounded best on the dramatic pairing of ?Life on Mars?? and ?Heroes.? Both songs demand inspired vocals and the 55-year-old Bowie met the challenge head-on, rather than looking for easier-to-handle arrangements of the tunes.

In one last display of unfettered showmanship, Bowie served up a killer selection of encores, the sort of move that has the performer leaving the stage with the crowd howling for more. Bowie began his encore run with the punky ?White Light/White Heat.? From there, he went into the mass-appeal swell of ?Let’s Dance,? but dressed it up with an interesting acoustic introduction. The big closer was a note-perfect rendition of ?Ziggy Stardust.? And just as Ziggy sucked up into his own mind, Bowie drifted away with another successful performance to his credit.