The Bottom Line
For an artist who has based a successful career on constantly changing musical styles and stage personas, David Bowie has remained remarkably consistent in his ability to relate to his audience and to continue to deliver fresh versions of songs he first performed more than 30 years earlier.
Pros
- Bowie connects with the audience and holds them throughout the performance
- Band and backup singers are tight and smooth
- Technical quality of the production is excellent
Cons
- Very entertaining, but we've heard most of it before, on the 2004 DVD
Description
- Release date: January 26, 2010 - Epic / Sony Music Entertainment
- Recorded November 22 and 23, 2003 at Point Depot in Dublin, Ireland
- Backing vocals: Gail Ann Dorsey (bass guitar) and Catherine Russell (percussion, keyboards, acoustic guitar)
- Guitar: Earl Slick and Gerry Leonard
Drums: Sterling Campbell
Piano, keyboards: Mike Garson
Guide Review - David Bowie - 'A Reality Tour'
You can forgive David Bowie if he would just as soon forget about his 2003-04 world tour, considering that the tour came to an abrupt premature end when he suffered a heart attack and subsequently underwent surgery on a blocked artery.
The tour was designed to promote the 2003 album, Reality, which, as it turns out, is the last studio album Bowie has released. In reality (pun intended) the set list for the tour went well beyond songs from Reality. In fact, as reflected in a majority of the 33 tracks on A Reality Tour the tour performances were more of a career retrospective than a promo tour for a single album.
As is typically the case with artists who bloomed and blossomed in the late '60s and early '70s, the most enthusiastic crowd response on the Reality tour was to Bowie's classic early work, like "Fame" and "Changes" and "Rebel Rebel." Just two of the tracks from Reality were released as singles ("New Killer Star" and "Never Get Old") neither of which charted in the US.
The Bowie we heard in 2003 hadn't lost much, if any, of the original spark ignited by Ziggy Stardust (the persona he adopted for a series of albums released between 1969 and 1972) that continued through the early '80s with a constant reinvention of his artistic self.
The performance on A Reality Tour, coming at about the midway point in the tour, features a relaxed and confident Bowie who jokes comfortably with the crowd between songs and engages them with his still-fresh renditions. The band and backup singers are in the groove, and the quality of the production is excellent.
Whether Bowie will ever release another studio album, or tour again, is an open question. Since recovering from his 2004 health scare, he has performed only occasionally. So, for something approaching new, we'll have to settle for the three previously unreleased bonus tracks -- "Fall Dog Bombs The Moon," "Breaking Glass" and "China Girl" -- on A Reality Tour.
Unlike your standard compilation album, this one gives us the latter day music, but performed in the present, which adds an additional dimension to both the music and the artist. For that reason alone, Bowie fans who don't have the DVD should add this set to their collections.
