David Bowie – Diamond Dogs Tour
I find it amazing that David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs Tour was so poorly documented considering it is now considered the mother of live music/stage production.
Here is what is written in The Complete David Bowie about the stage show for The Diamond Dogs tour – see pics below:
“A hydraulic cherry-picker supported a chair set into an office window near the top of the stage-right skyscraper. Appearing in the chair, David sang “Space Oddity” into a mike disguised as a telephone, and as the song reached “lift-off” the cherry-picker began to extend over the first six rows of the audience….Diamond Dogs began with Bowie up on the catwalk, holding tow trailing leashes to restrain the Dogs, who prowled the stage as the bridge descended to floor level. By the end of the song the Dogs themselves had taken over and tied Bowie up with the ropes. Then it was straight into “Panic in Detroit” from which the ropes were unraveled to form a boxing ring in which David, now in red boxing gloves and fanned down by his bodyguard Stuey George, shadow-boxed an imaginary opponent and lost. For “Big Brother” he sprawled atop a glittering ten-foot diamond while the Dogs savaged and scrabbled at it from beneath. The diamond rolled downstage before opening up to consume him; then the sides fell away revealing a giant jewelled hand, whose fingers unfurled to show David crouching in the palm, from where he sang “Time”. “The Width Of A Circle” revived the Ziggy show’s familiar stuck-in-a-box mime routine, culminating in a new coup de theatre during the instrumental break as Bowie began to tear down the skyscrapers from Hunger City….This dramatic gesture didn’t survive beyond a handful of early performances (due to expense)…After “The Width Of A Circle” Bowie was dragged to his feet by the Dogs for a wrestling bout and street-fight to the strains of “The Jean Genie”, before singing a final, defeated “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” alone on a chair.”
Here is an extensive site all about the Diamond Dogs tour which was apparently quite a feat for its time. Very little footage of that tour is available anywhere but this gives a great overview of the stage show
https://theyearofthediamonddog.webs.com/
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