David Bowie Tickets
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About David Bowie
Musicians evolve at the risk of losing their audience -- fans
always prefer known quantities to variables. David Bowie is one
performer who's made a career out of defying rock convention so
flagrantly and with such finesse that fans not only forgive him for
it, they worship him. From the fey folk of his pre-Space Oddity days
to the right-angled, martinet funk of "Fashion" and Tin Machine's
bloated Hard Rock, David Bowie's only constant has been his
inconstancy. Considering his vast, diffuse output -- three dozen or so
albums and counting -- you can hardly fault him for the occasional bit
of slag, especially when there are more than enough nuggets to make
all the panning worthwhile. At every career turn, David Bowie has
often sustained his flashes of brilliance -- The Rise and Fall of
Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory are two examples among many. His Janus
ability to perform with utter candor (as on "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide"
and "Quicksand") and then, in the blink of an eye, don a mask and
enter a role (witness the plastic Soul of Young Americans) makes Bowie
a living puzzle.
The clich? about David Bowie says he's a musical chameleon, adapting
himself according to fashion and trends. While such a criticism is too
glib, there's no denying that Bowie demonstrated remarkable skill for
perceiving musical trends at his peak in the '70s. After spending
several years in the late '60s as a mod and as an all-around
music-hall entertainer, Bowie reinvented himself as a hippie
singer/songwriter. Prior to his breakthrough in 1972, he recorded a
proto-metal record and a pop/rock album, eventually redefining glam
rock with his ambiguously sexy Ziggy Stardust persona. Ziggy made
Bowie an international star, yet he wasn't content to continue to
churn out glitter rock. By the mid-'70s, he developed an effete,
sophisticated version of Philly soul that he dubbed "plastic soul,"
which eventually morphed into the eerie avant-pop of 1976's Station to
Station. Shortly afterward, he relocated to Berlin, where he recorded
three experimental electronic albums with Brian Eno. At the dawn of
the '80s, Bowie was still at the height of his powers, yet following
his blockbuster dance-pop album Let's Dance in 1983, he slowly sank
into mediocrity before salvaging his career in the early '90s.
Even when he was out of fashion in the '80s and '90s, it was clear
that David Bowie was one of the most influential musicians in rock,
for better and for worse. Each one of his phases in the '70s sparked a
number of subgenres, including punk, new wave, goth rock, the new
romantics, and electronica. Few rockers ever had such lasting impact.
David Jones began performing music when he was 13 years old, learning
the saxophone while he was at Bromley Technical High School; another
pivotal event happened at the school, when his left pupil became
permanently dilated in a schoolyard fight. Following his graduation at
16, he worked as a commercial artist while playing saxophone in a
number of mod bands, including the King Bees, the Manish Boys (which
also featured Jimmy Page as a session man), and Davey Jones & the
Lower Third. All three of those bands released singles, which were
generally ignored, yet he continued performing, changing his name to
David Bowie in 1966 after the Monkees' Davy Jones became an
international star. Over the course of 1966, he released three mod
singles on Pye Records, which were all ignored. The following year, he
signed with Deram, releasing the music hall, Anthony Newley-styled
David Bowie that year. Upon completing the record, he spent several
weeks in a Scottish Buddhist monastery. Once he left the monastery, he
studied with Lindsay Kemp's mime troupe, forming his own mime company,
the Feathers, in 1969. The Feathers were short-lived, and he formed
the experimental art group Beckenham Arts Lab in 1969.
David Bowie needed to finance the Arts Lab, so he signed with Mercury
Records that year and released Man of Words, Man of Music, a trippy
singer/songwriter album featuring "Space Oddity." The song was
released as a single and became a major hit in the U.K., convincing
Bowie to concentrate on music. Hooking up with his old friend Marc
Bolan, he began miming at some of Bolan's T. Rex concerts, eventually
touring with Bolan, bassist/producer Tony Visconti, guitarist Mick
Ronson, and drummer Cambridge as Hype. The band quickly fell apart,
yet Bowie and Ronson remained close, working on the material that
formed Bowie's next album, The Man Who Sold the World, as well as
recruiting Michael "Woody" Woodmansey as their drummer. Produced by
Tony Visconti, who also played bass, The Man Who Sold the World was a
heavy guitar rock album that failed to gain much attention. Bowie
followed the album in late 1971 with the pop/rock Hunky Dory, an album
that featured Ronson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman.
Following the release of Hunky Dory, Bowie began to develop his most
famous incarnation, Ziggy Stardust: an androgynous, bisexual rock star
from another planet. Before he unveiled Ziggy, Bowie claimed in a
January 1972 interview with the Melody Maker that he was gay, helping
to stir interest in his forthcoming album. Taking cues from Bolan's
stylish glam rock, David Bowie dyed his hair orange and began wearing
women's clothing. He began calling himself Ziggy Stardust, and his
backing band -- Ronson, Woodmansey, and bassist Trevor Bolder -- were
the Spiders from Mars. The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the
Spiders from Mars was released with much fanfare in England in late
1972. The album and its lavish, theatrical concerts became a sensation
throughout England, and it helped him become the only glam rocker to
carve out a niche in America. Ziggy Stardust became a word-of-mouth
hit in the U.S., and the re-released "Space Oddity" -- which was now
also the title of the re-released Man of Words, Man of Music --
reached the American Top 20. David Bowie quickly followed Ziggy with
Aladdin Sane later in 1973. Not only did he record a new album that
year, but he also produced Lou Reed's Transformer, the Stooges' Raw
Power, and Mott the Hoople's comeback All the Young Dudes, for which
he also wrote the title track.
Given the amount of work Bowie packed into 1972 and 1973, it wasn't
surprising that his relentless schedule began to catch up with him.
After recording the all-covers Pin-Ups with the Spiders from Mars, he
unexpectedly announced the band's breakup, as well as his retirement
from live performances, during the group's final show that year. He
retreated from the spotlight to work on a musical adaptation of George
Orwell's 1984, but once he was denied the rights to the novel, he
transformed the work into Diamond Dogs. The album was released to
generally poor reviews in 1974, yet it generated the hit single "Rebel
Rebel," and he supported the album with an elaborate and expensive
American tour. As the tour progressed, Bowie became fascinated with
soul music, eventually redesigning the entire show to reflect his new
"plastic soul." Hiring guitarist Carlos Alomar as the band's leader,
Bowie refashioned his group into a Philly soul band and re-costumed
himself in sophisticated, stylish fashions. The change took fans by
surprise, as did the double-album David Live, which featured material
recorded on the 1974 tour.
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Young Americans, released in 1975, was the culmination of Bowie's
soul obsession, and it became his first major crossover hit, peaking
in the American Top Ten and generating his first U.S. number one hit
in "Fame," a song he co-wrote with John Lennon and Alomar. David Bowie
relocated to Los Angeles, where he earned his first movie role in
Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). While in L.A., he
recorded Station to Station, which took the plastic soul of Young
Americans into darker, avant-garde-tinged directions, yet was also a
huge hit, generating the Top Ten single "Golden Years." The album
inaugurated Bowie's persona of the elegant "Thin White Duke," and it
reflected Bowie's growing cocaine-fueled paranoia. Soon, he decided
Los Angeles was too boring and returned to England; shortly after
arriving back in London, he gave the awaiting crowd a Nazi salute, a
signal of his growing, drug-addled detachment from reality. The
incident caused enormous controversy, and Bowie left the country to
settle in Berlin, where he lived and worked with Brian Eno.
Once in Berlin, Bowie sobered up and began painting, as well as
studying art. He also developed a fascination with German electronic
music, which Eno helped him fulfill on their first album together,
Low. Released early in 1977, Low was a startling mixture of
electronics, pop, and avant-garde technique. While it was greeted with
mixed reviews at the time, it proved to be one of the most influential
albums of the late '70s, as did its follow-up, Heroes, which followed
that year. Not only did Bowie record two solo albums in 1977, but he
also helmed Iggy Pop's comeback records The Idiot and Lust for Life,
and toured anonymously as Pop's keyboardist. He resumed his acting
career in 1977, appearing in Just A Gigolo with Marlene Dietrich and
Kim Novak, as well as narrating Eugene Ormandy's version of Peter and
the Wolf. Bowie returned to the stage in 1978, launching an
international tour that was captured on the double-album Stage. During
1979, David Bowie and Eno recorded Lodger in New York, Switzerland,
and Berlin, releasing the album at the end of the year. Lodger was
supported with several innovative videos, as was 1980's Scary
Monsters, and these videos -- "DJ," "Fashion," "Ashes to Ashes" --
became staples on early MTV.
Scary Monsters was David Bowie's last album for RCA, and it wrapped up
his most innovative, productive period. Later in 1980, he performed
the title role in stage production of The Elephant Man, including
several shows on Broadway. Over the next two years, he took an
extended break from recording, appearing in Christine F (1982) and the
vampire movie The Hunger (1982), returning to the studio only for his
1981 collaboration with Queen, "Under Pressure," and the theme for
Paul Schrader's remake of Cat People. In 1983, he signed an expensive
contract with EMI Records and released Let's Dance. David Bowie had
recruited Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers to produce the album, giving the
record a sleek, funky foundation, and hired the unknown Stevie Ray
Vaughan as lead guitarist. Let's Dance became his most successful
record, thanks to stylish, innovative videos for "Let's Dance" and
"China Girl," which turned both songs into Top Ten hits. David Bowie
supported the record with the sold-out arena tour Serious Moonlight.
Greeted with massive success for the first time, David Bowie wasn't
quite sure how to react, and he eventually decided to replicate Let's
Dance with 1984's Tonight. While the album sold well, producing the
Top Ten hit "Blue Jean," it received poor reviews and ultimately was a
commercial disappointment. He stalled in 1985, recording a duet of
Martha & the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" with Mick Jagger for
Live Aid. He also spent more time jet-setting, appearing at celebrity
events across the globe, and appeared in several movies -- Into the
Night (1985), Absolute Beginners (1986), Labyrinth (1986) -- that
turned out to be bombs. Bowie returned to recording in 1987 with the
widely panned Never Let Me Down, supporting the album with the Glass
Spider tour, which also received poor reviews. In 1989, he re-mastered
his RCA catalog with Rykodisc for CD release, kicking off the series
with the three-disc box Sound + Vision. Bowie supported the discs with
an accompanying tour of the same name, claming that he was retiring
all of his older characters from performance following the tour. Sound
+ Vision was successful, and Ziggy Stardust re-charted amidst the
hoopla.
Sound + Vision may have been a success, but David Bowie's next project
was perhaps his most unsuccessful. Picking up on the abrasive,
dissonant rock of Sonic Youth and the Pixies, David Bowie formed his
own guitar rock combo, Tin Machine, with guitarist Reeves Gabrels,
bassist Hunt Sales, and his drummer brother Tony, who had previously
worked on Iggy Pop's Lust for Life with David Bowie. Tin Machine
released an eponymous album to poor reviews that summer and supported
it with a club tour, which was only moderately successful. Despite the
poor reviews, Tin Machine released a second album, the appropriately
titled Tin Machine II, in 1991, and it was completely ignored.
David Bowie returned to a solo career in 1993 with the sophisticated,
soulful Black Tie White Noise, recording the album with Nile Rodgers
and his now-permanent collaborator, Reeves Gabrels. The album was
released on Savage, a subsidiary of RCA, and received positive
reviews, but his new label went bankrupt shortly after its release,
and the album disappeared. Black Tie White Noise was the first
indication that Bowie was trying hard to resuscitate his career, as
was the largely instrumental 1994 soundtrack The Buddha of Suburbia.
In 1995, he reunited with Brian Eno for the wildly hyped, industrial
rock-tinged Outside. Several critics hailed the album as a comeback,
and Bowie supported it with a co-headlining tour with Nine Inch Nails
in order to snag a younger, alternative audience, but his gambit
failed; audiences left before Bowie's performance and Outside
disappeared. He quickly returned to the studio in 1996, recording
Earthling, an album heavily influenced by techno and drum'n'bass. Upon
its early 1997 release, Earthling received generally positive reviews,
yet the album failed to gain an audience, and many techno purists
criticized David Bowie for allegedly exploiting their subculture
hours... followed in 1999. For 2002, David Bowie reunited with
producer Toni Visconti and released Heathen to very positive reviews.
He continued on with Visconti for Reality in 2003.
David Bowie Tickets
Ticket Retriever sells tickets for David Bowie concert events. We
specialize in providing you with premium and other David Bowie Tickets
that are in high demand. We can help you gain access to tickets for
all major events.
How to Find David Bowie Tickets:
1. Browse our ticket inventory by clicking on the "David Bowie" button.
2. Sort ticket events by price, section, or row.
3. Use the seating chart to help you find the David Bowie tickets that meet
your preferences.
4. Place your ticket order for David Bowie Tickets on our secure
system.