It all seems so long ago… *
David Bowie has just come off stage after the first of two shows at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in NSW. He played a similar set to the Brisbane show, except that he dropped Be My Wife and Always Crashing In The Same Car in favour of the very welcome return of 5:15 The Angels Have Gone, Fantastic Voyage and I’ve Been Waiting For You.
Our BowieNetter reporter in Oz, the very professional Charly, tells me that DB was again “very chatty”, and she’s currently on her way to an internet cafe to get her account of the evening down for your reading pleasure. Pop back a little later on to see what she has to say.
Meanwhile, here follows that 26-song set list courtesy of Charly:
Sydney February 20th 2004
01 Rebel Rebel
02 New Killer Star
03 Reality
04 Fame
05 Cactus
06 5:15 The Angels Have Gone
07 All The Young Dudes
08 China Girl
09 A New Career In A New Town
10 The Loneliest Guy
11 The Man Who Sold The World
12 Hallo Spaceboy
13 Sunday
14 Under Pressure
15 Life On Mars?
16 Looking For Water
17 Fantastic Voyage
18 Days
19 White Light, White Heat
20 Ashes To Ashes
21 I’m Afraid Of Americans
22 “Heroes”
(Encore)
23 I’ve Been Waiting For You
24 Five Years
25 Suffragette City
26 Ziggy Stardust
UPDATE: Here’s more from Charly via the magic of electronic mail…
Crutches and Hairdryers. By Charly.
So, it was cool being at Sydney Entertainment Centre to start with. Just one of those places I’d always wanted to be. David started again tonight with Rebel Rebel and New Killer Star as is fairly normal these days. A fairly enthusiastic response was echoed around Sydney Entertainment Centre. I was quite over-awed by it all, seeing Bowie live in Sydney – WOW! It’s an amazing city. After he’d finished with Reality, Fame and Cactus he brought in 5.15 The Angels Have Gone which was a welcome return to the set. Been a while since I’d heard that one live.
He then did All The Young Dudes which concluded with many arms waving in the air. David started talking about sticks, saying “let’s see the stick”. A little way behind me, someone was waving a crutch in the air and Bowie thought this was amusing enough to banter a little – “It’s a wonderful summer’s evening and the crutches are waving in the air. What an extraordinary country. I’ve got a bunch of crutches outside my window, and they’re all brown.” Nutter.
China Girl followed with rapturous applause echoing around the room. Bowie sang “Oh baby, just you shut your mouth – she says just shut the fuck up” Then, after the song he said, “it’s that time of the evening you’ve all been waiting for – yes, it’s the instrumental. This lead into my favourite track from Low, A New Career In A New Town.
He followed this by suggesting that “it was always a good idea to follow an instrumental with a song so slow you forget to breathe” – The Loneliest Guy! Afterwards the crowd cheered loudly and he said “go and get a copy, it’s really good. If you can’t get a copy I’ll come round your house and sing it again!” Hmmm…… like that’s gonna happen!
MWSTW, Hallo Spaceboy and Sunday brought the show on a little further where David decided to introduce the band by saying “People ask, you know, who are these guys that work with you on stage, and I say, you know why don’t you mind your own business.” Ha ha. The band intro ensued with David telling us all the different things Kat played, including the ‘hairdryer’!!!!
Under Pressure and Life On Mars caused great pleasure amongst the throng and Looking For Water was great to hear again, as was Fantastic Voyage. I love that one live. Excellent. He continued with Days and White Light White Heat, saying “I had to get that off my chest” after the latter. Ashes through to Heroes ended the show on a great high. So far so good….
The first encore was Waiting For You, not heard that one in a while. The final three songs were the usual show enders, but I still never tire of any of them. All Ziggy material and all bloody excellent. Bring it on for tomorrow.
Thanx yet again Charly. We’ll be hearing more from her after the second show at the Sydney Entertainment Centre tomorrow, Saturday 21st.
* This lyric quote may be a little misleading… it was actually less than an hour ago!