“Halloween Jack is a real cool cat”
It’s often reported that David Bowie began a seven-night stint at Radio City Music Hall, NYC, on 28th October 1974. However, it seems likely that it was actually only five nights that commenced forty years ago this very evening.
As you can see from our press ad for the gigs (which was printed in early October, 1974) there were just three shows announced initially, and those were on the first three days of November. Due to the demand for more tickets, a further two shows were slotted in before November on October 30th/31st.
These five dates were also confirmed by the double-sided one sheet tour programme, pictured bottom right in our montage. The picture above that was taken on November 2nd and if it seems very familiar, that’s because it was used upside down last year for the promo CD of Where Are We Now?
Research among serious collectors has failed to turn up tickets or reviews for October 28th/29th, though such things exist for the five nights from October 30th to November 3rd.
There was a David Live advert which included the 28th/29th dates, but it’s worth remembering that even the dates for the July David Live shows at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia were wrong on the sleeve.
Along with aforementioned advert, it’s thought that the October 28th/29th dates were presumed to have taken place when a bootleg tape of one of the shows was erroneously labelled the 28th. And, as we all know, if a mistake is repeated frequently enough, it becomes fact.
This second leg of the Diamond Dogs tour, which started on October 5th, became known as the ‘Soul’ or ‘Philly Dogs’ tour, due to the shift away from the Diamond Dogs material in favour of tracks from the upcoming Young Americans album.
Check out setlist.fm for the reported setlist for Halloween night on October 31st, 1974, and have a look at the support set from the Mike Garson Band while you’re there.
Even setlist.fm repeat the October 28th/29th error, using the identical setlist for the 31st.
If somebody out there has proper evidence (review, ticket, etc.), that our theory is wrong, our researcher will eat their Bipperty Bopperty Hat!