David Bowie - Glass Spider

The horror of Bowie’s ‘Phil Collins period’

Bowie’s always at his best when letting the zeitgeist inform his work. Come 1987, Never Let Me Down and the Glass Spider tour, however, he was busy proving himself a stadium-filling star, not at all out of water with 80s overproduction and bombast.

The problem is, he wasn’t out of water. The album and tour fit snugly with the prevailing big-styleno- substance, airbrushed trend. That Bowie enters the stage in a reversal of the Space Oddity routine from 1974’s Diamond Dogs tour suggests that, at this point, his best ideas were behind him. Peter Frampton turning every song into one long solo adds to the artiste’s disconnection; even White Light/White Heat becomes an extended clapalong with the crowd.

There’s a vague concept about celebrities not being allowed to be normal people, and Bowie’s hilariously unconvincing “I want to be in the audience too” routine only serves to highlight the point; the massive glass spider prop surrounding band and stage doesn’t. The best thing about this is that the two Glass Spider VHS tapes, unavailable since 1987, are together on one DVD, along with two CDs of live highlights – if you can call it that. Was it worth the 20-year wait?

2 stars 2 stars

EMI | 391 0022 (DVD+2-CD)

Reviewed by Jason Draper
<< Back to Issue 340

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