David Bowie – Outside Tour – 1995

November 18th 1995 – Wembley Arena

Supported by: Morrissey

An interesting conversation occurred a few weeks before this gig. I hadn’t really contemplated going to see Bowie on this tour, the UK legs were at “my fave” the NEC, Birmingham or Wembley Arena, which I hadn’t been to but assumed would be a similar big warehouse, so it was off my radar.

Anyway, my brother in law rang me and said he’d been given a few tickets to see a band at Wembley and wondered if I fancied going. He wasn’t quite sure if it was my cup of tea, he said he was “a singer, getting on a bit, but not bad, I’m not that bothered, but wondered if you’d heard of him? Bowie? David Bowie”……..hahaha, that was pretty good work of fooling me! Er yes please….all of them!!!

Kindly, I was privileged to receive two freebies (err – hang on….freebies….for David Bowie? This is madness, cost us a few beers, but thats not bad!!)

Flipping heck, I don’t really do Morrissey! But I had a friend who did, so the two of us went to Wembley really looking forward to seeing our individual favourite acts (although my mate was a big fan of both)…….truth be told, I came away saying I had been really impressed with the Morrissey in the end!!!

Morrissey

So, I might have been a bit scathing about Morrissey in the lead up to this gig, I mean, let’s just say I’d had a long running battle trying to understand The Smiths and eventually gave up trying! “This Charming Man” and “What Difference Does it Make” were great, but I couldn’t stand what seemed like whole albums of this stuff.

I relented in 1987 ad really loved and bought “Panic” (lyrics such as “hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ. Hang the DJ, hang the DJ”) only to find out it was only 2mins 20secs long!!! Now I think I paid approx. £1.50 for that single, so I was mighty p155ed off that I wasn’t getting value……this when I gave up on The Smiths completely.

Anyway, here we are and I can’t get away from Morrissey…well, I could go to the bar, but that would be churlish and rude to my pal, who is going have the same issue when Bowie comes on.

Remarkably, from the opening thumping notes of the first song, “Do Your Best and Don’t Worry” I was quite impressed and it continued, he was a very good singer. His band were fantastic, although I didn’t know any of them:

• Morrissey – Vocals
• Alain Whyte – Lead guitar, rhythm guitar
• Boz Boorer – Lead guitar, rhythm guitar
• Jonny Bridgwood – Bass guitar
• Spencer Cobrin – Drums

The only song I knew was “Dagenham Dave”, but this probably helped as I couldn’t be prejudiced from the start and actually, that was a good song too!!

So that was a surprise, I enjoyed a Morrissey concert. I doubt I’ll ever get the chance to see The Smiths, so we can leave that one where it was! 😉

A live performance on YouTube, which it’s not clear which Wembley night it is, but very similar to what we would have seen, although we were half way back on the other side of the arena….

Set List

• Do Your Best and Don’t Worry
• Reader Meet Author
• The Boy Racer
• Nobody Loves Us
• Billy Budd
• We’ll Let You Know
• Spring-Heeled Jim
• Dagenham Dave
• The Operation
• Hold On to Your Friends
• Speedway
• The Teachers Are Afraid of the Pupils
• The National Front Disco

David Bowie

It was amusing that some of the others on freebies had come expecting to hear Bowie play all the greatest hits and as they weren’t forthcoming they were getting itchy bottoms! I did point out that he’s said a few years previous, he wouldn’t be playing

The full band line up was quite different from the previous tour and definitely felt like a move to a new era of sound, but great to get to see Carlos Alomar live:

• David Bowie – vocals
• Reeves Gabrels – guitar
• Carlos Alomar – guitar, backing vocals
• Gail Ann Dorsey – bass guitar, vocals
• Zack Alford – drums
• Mike Garson – piano
• Peter Schwartz – synthesizer
• George Simms – backing vocals, keyboards

A great line up, I’d heard a bit about Gail Ann Dorsey so was looking forward to watching her and Reeve Gabrels was from Tin Machine, a side project of Bowie’s, so that would bring a hard edge to the music.

Not surprisingly, Bowie played most of the tracks on “Outside”, his latest album and the one being toured.

After about 6 songs some of those also invited by my brother in law got a bit chatty and complaining about Bowie not playing any of his old songs, to which I pointed out (politely I hope) that a) he said on his last tour he wasn’t going to play the hits anymore, but b) although mainly new stuff, he’s already played “Look Back in Anger” [Lodger], “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” [Off the same named album] and “Andy Warhol” [Hunky Dory]….so maybe they needed to listen to same of the albums ;-)…………they were quiet after that – lol.

In fairness to Bowie, he did what he said would happen, he’d moved on from feeling compelled to sing big hits, but wasn’t to the detriment of the back catalogue, he just selected old songs he wanted to sing and did them in a different way, which was mesmerising if you knew the songs….we were loving it.

In fact there were tons of old songs. There was a brilliant version of “Boys Keep Swinging” and “Fashion”

Gail Ann Dorsey was adding a great bass line and her vocals were backing Bowie so well and when she did a fascinating version of “Under Pressure” (that’s an old on isn’t it?) her voice was front and centre and so powerful….such a strong performance! Watch in the video below from 1:33:15 minutes, you can see how much Bowie is enjoying singing with her and listening to her! Lovely sound.

If you wanted the hits, you didn’t get it (you were also warned years ago), if you wanted new stuff and off beat versions of songs that were clearly favourites of David Bowie, lets face it, the majority of the crowd lapped it up, then you went away happy, having watched a genius at work.

I conceded Morrissey was a superb performer, what better end to a show could you have than that…….and it was a free ticket!!

This would be the last time I saw David Bowie live, but what a concert to leave him on.

Found another live performance on YouTube which is of the night we were there, again from the opposite side of the stage, but shows what a great performance it was.

Set List

• The Motel
• Look Back in Anger
• The Hearts Filthy Lesson
• Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
• The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (As Beauty)
• I Have Not Been to Oxford Town
• Outside
• Andy Warhol
• The Man Who Sold the World
• A Small Plot of Land
• Boys Keep Swinging
• Strangers When We Meet
• Hallo Spaceboy
• Breaking Glass
• We Prick You
• Nite Flights (The Walker Brothers cover)
• My Death (Jacques Brel cover)
• D.J.
• Teenage Wildlife
• Under Pressure (Queen cover)
• Moonage Daydream