'Good Evening, Newcastle!' David Bowie in Sunderland (1987)

 

Even David Bowie wasn't a fan of 1980s David Bowie records - but I was.

Accepted wisdom seems to be that Bowie was brilliant right through the 70s but went commercial (and crap) in the 80s. Bowie would later point to the mid 80s as his "low point". 

Balls.

Bowie singing "Heroes" at Live Aid was my Starman on Top of the Pops moment. I was 12 and instantly fell in love. He was a cool bastard and his Live Aid set was dynamite - I didn't have a clue what TVC15 was about but I taped it off the telly and listened to it endlessly.

We didn't have record shops in our town - the local Woolworths and Boots only had the top 30 singles and top 10 albums. 

To begin with, the only Bowie album I could find was a dodgy pirate cassette a relative had brought home from the Middle East: Tonight.  

 The pirates had padded out a 60 minute cassette with older songs, so for quite a while I thought When I'm Five and Let Me Sleep Beside You were recorded at the same time as Loving the Alien and Blue Jean. That's how much I knew about the Bowie back catalogue in 1985.

It was only when I bought a secondhand vinyl copy of Tonight (£2.50 from the Tuesday market in Newton Aycliffe) that I realised the album had 9 tracks.

I didn't read music magazines or newspapers, so I didn't know Bowie 'wasn't as good as he used to be'. But throughout 1986 I realised just how exciting it was to wait for a new Bowie single. Unlike every other pop or rock star, there was no way of guessing what a new Bowie song would sound like. 

Bowie released Absolute Beginners, Underground and When the Wind Blows as singles in 1986 and all of them were completely different.

I also managed to get some more dodgy cassettes from a relative. They were mainly compilations and I still didn't realise they were pirates. 

The tracklistings and the artwork were always messed up, but the music was the important thing.

I didn't think any of the 70s tracks were better or worse than the stuff on Tonight or the Labyrinth soundtrack - I just thought they were different. I loved Underground just as much as Life On Mars. For me, it's like Bond movies or Doctor Who. Just because you like Sean Connery or Tom Baker, it doesn't mean you have to hate Roger Moore or Peter Davison.

I'd always been told I had a short attention span, but there was so much Bowie music I never got bored. 

An interesting note: some of my school friends called me a 'puff' and a 'queer' for liking David Bowie. One particular kid told me that I shouldn't be listening to 'that bender,' I should listen to 'proper rock. Like Queen.'

So I tried to keep my Bowie addiction quiet, but that was difficult when 1987 rolled around. I couldn't stop listening to his latest album - Never Let Me Down. It was the best thing I'd ever heard. 

And then the really unexpected news broke - Bowie was bringing the Glass Spider tour to Roker Park in Sunderland. This was simply too good to be to true. I knew Queen had played a huge show in Newcastle the year before, but I never expected Bowie to turn up in the North East. 

David Bowie. 

In Sunderland.

I'd never been to a 'gig' before. It was the day after my 14th birthday and there was a coach trip running from Darlington. I had to skive off school. My brother was going with some of his friends - they were all four years older than me, and really didn't want me tagging along.

It was a grey and drizzly day. I hoped the weather would improve by the time the coach made it through to Roker, but no such luck. The streets seemed to be filled with concert goers, hot dog vans and stalls selling T-shirts and programmes. The local paper had produced a special souvenir edition - for one day only, Sunderland went a bit Bowie mad.  

I had a big blue cagoule and a pair of binoculars - so I spent the hours before the show staring at the giant Glass Spider stage set. It didn't look great - it seemed to be constructed of tinsel, polythene and scaffolding - but I was sure it'd be fine once all the lights were on.

Going to a big stadium gig seemed to involve a lot of standing around and paying a small fortune for a can of Fanta. At least the rain stopped. For a bit.

The support acts were a mixed bag. I remember thinking The Screaming Blue Messiahs sounded a bit tinny and lost on such a big stage - as if somebody was playing music through a walkie-talkie. Big Country seemed a lot more suited to the venue. Their guitar solos and singalong anthems livened up the damp crowd. The local press and TV coverage would later say that the audience enjoyed Big Country's set a lot more than the main event. That was partly true. 

I wanted to get as close to the stage as I could, but I was a lot shorter - and a lot younger - than the rest of the crowd. I also realised I'd have to stand amongst all of the pushing, shoving and much bigger people for about five hours before Bowie took to the stage. I gave up after about 90 minutes and went to sit in one of the stands. I found a seat high up on the right hand side of the stage. My brother had to come with me. I think he knew there'd be trouble at home if he abandoned me, so he had to put up with a pretty crappy view. He wanted to stay on the pitch with his older, taller friends - and I'm not sure he ever forgave me for spoiling his day.

Bowie's show didn't start until after 8pm. A brilliantly creepy piece of violin music kicked off the concert - I'd find out later it was Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze as performed by The Kronos Quartet. This was followed by long bursts of guitar and Bowie repeatedly yelling "Shut up!" 

It was exciting - but also very frustrating. Dancers descended onto the stage and performed a shouty, drum heavy version of Up The Hill Backwards. The crowd was going crazy - and I was trying to work out what the hell was going on. Unless members of the band - or the dancers - went right to the front of the stage, I couldn't see them. 

Bowie began the spoken introduction to Glass Spider and was then lowered to the stage in a silvery chair - but I missed all of that. No matter how much I craned my neck I couldn't see what was going on. I only knew the exact moment he appeared because the crowd noise suddenly increased.

It was supposed to be surreal and dream-like - but it was the middle of Summer and in broad daylight the set looked a bit rubbish. The complex stage lighting was almost completely wasted and there were black plastic bags over some of the electrical equipment - presumably to keep the rain out.

 There was a screen on our side of the stage - but it only came on about a third of the way into the show.  

But it was David Bowie! In Sunderland! It was really him! In Sunderland! And the crowd loved him - even if he did say 'good evening, Newcastle' in Sunderland!

I'd never read the NME, Melody Maker or Sounds, so I didn't know about the bad reviews (for Never Let Me Down and the Glass Spider Tour). And I'd never seen Spinal Tap. Even with a crappy view, I thought the show was brilliant. Once they sorted the bass out - it was far too loud on the first couple of songs - I really enjoyed the show. 

I was pleased because he played so many of his recent songs. Tracks like Loving the Alien, Absolute Beginners and Blue Jean were some of the first songs I'd heard when I started getting into Bowie's music - and he did a big chunk of the Never Let Me Down album, too.   

Bowie thanked us for 'not letting it rain. You don't know how nice it is not to play in the rain'. And then he couldn't do the encore on top of the big Spider because it started pissing down.

Bloody Sunderland. 

 I spent my birthday money on secondhand vinyl; The Man Who Sold The World, Diamond Dogs and "Heroes" - mainly because Bowie played All The Madmen, Big Brother and Sons of the Silent Age at Sunderland. He was supposed to have 'gone commercial' and 'sold out' in the 80s but he was throwing bizarre album tracks into his set-lists. Getting hold of his older albums felt like like reading up on ancient history. 

I also managed to buy bootleg cassettes of the Roker Park show from the market in Newton Aycliffe (from the same bloke who'd sold me the secondhand copy of 'Tonight'). It was a ropey, audience recording but it was great to hear the whole show again - even that bit about Newcastle.

About a year later a video of the Glass Spider show was released. The cheeky sods split the show over two separate VHS tapes so it cost £20 to see the whole thing. The setlist was a bit different - a few of the Never Let Me Down tracks had been cut to make room for more familiar hits like Rebel Rebel and Jean Genie. That was a bit disappointing - but otherwise the videos were both great.

They'd filmed the show indoors and it made a huge difference. The lighting effects and the more ambitious (and slightly ridiculous) bits of stage business were actually visible! The Spider looked really cool when it was all lit up! And Bowie got to sing Time standing on top of the Spider without having to worry about the weather!

I nearly wore those tapes out. I think I tried to brighten up my memories of rainy Roker Park by mixing them with moments from the videos. Now I knew what it looked like when Bowie descended from the belly of the spider at the start of the show! And all that confusing stuff about 'rescuing a fan' from in front of the stage during Bang Bang made sense! Kind of. 

Anyway - it was a great show.

 

The first music magazine I ever bought was Q. I only bought it because Bowie was on the cover. May 1989. He was launching his latest album Tin Machine. Except it wasn't a new Bowie album, it was a whole new band. Bowie (and his new band-mates) took the opportunity to slag off Glass Spider and Never Let Me Down. Apparently Tin Machine* was Bowie getting back to making good music after a few years of being crap.

I felt a bit daft. I loved that 'crap' music. Seeing the Glass Spider show had meant so much to me.

I couldn't listen to those mid-80s albums for years. And that's ridiculous. 

Apart from the nostalgic glow I get from hearing Tumble & Twirl, Magic Dance or Day-In Day-Out, I enjoy listening to them. I genuinely think Never Let Me Down is one of the very best songs he ever recorded. 

 

I'm sure there are ways to prove that the Never Let Me Down album is not as good as Aladdin Sane, but I don't care - I still listen to both. 

And it's OK for an artist to dislike their own work - otherwise what would be the point in carrying on and creating new stuff?

Now that David Bowie isn't around any more, I think his music - all of his music - is more important to me than ever.

*Yes - I liked Tin Machine as well. I listened to it more than anything else in 1989. Apart from maybe Deacon Blue - and that's a whole other story.