Album Review: David Bowie – Glastonbury 2000

David Bowie – Glastonbury 2000

December 8, 2018

ALBUM REVIEW

OVERALL (OUT OF 10): 10

David Bowie’s old label Parlophone is deathly afraid that we are all going to forget about him now that he’s been gone a few years, and so they are doing everything they can to get a ton of releases out while the iron is still hot. Since his passing in January 2016, not quite three years ago, David Bowie product has been churned out at a truly torrential rate, as though they think they have to get it all out as fast as they can before the world ends or something. To be fair, the current Bowie release tsunami began in the September before he died with the Five Years box set, and Blackstar was released two days before his death in January 2016, but then the Who Can I Be Now? box set followed in September 2016, then the obligatory recently-departed-rock-star-greatest-hits-collection Legacy in November 2016, then No Play in January 2017, Live Nassau Coliseum ’76 in February 2017, Cracked Actor (Live Los Angeles ’74) in April 2017, then the A New Career in a New Town box in September 2017, Welcome to the Blackout (Live London ’78) in April 2018, the Loving the Alien box in October 2018, and now finally Glastonbury 2000 in November 2018.

Whew. Did you get all of that? It is truly a dizzying release schedule. I’m hard pressed to think of a release campaign where so much material was released in such rapid succession. The last couple of years have been expensive for fans of David Bowie. And exhilarating. Because the foregoing observation is not intended as a criticism – while I find it amusing that there is such a rush to get things out before the Bowie nostalgia inevitably fades, most of what they’ve released these past three years has been exceptional. The box sets have been outstanding, and I have to sheepishly admit that they have allowed me to hear many of Bowie’s classic albums for the first time. I haven’t listened to all of the live shows – who has that kind of time? – but the ones I have heard are great. And that is especially true of Glastonbury 2000.

You’ve all heard the hype about this one by now, I’m sure. After years of ignoring his legacy in his live shows for the most part, Bowie showed up at Glastonbury in June 2000 prepared to play the kind of nostalgia concert his peers had already been touring with regularly for a decade already.   See, the ratio of new songs to old songs in a setlist is usually a key indicator of an artist’s current relevance.  Generally when your setlist consists of 90% old hits, it signals that you’ve accepted that you are no longer relevant as an artist, and you’re pretty much on cruise control for the rest of your artistic life. That’s been Paul McCartney’s schtick for almost 20 years now, and there are plenty of old rockers just like him. But David Bowie was never like that, so a concert like this feels a little odd for him. While most of the elder statesmen of rock at some point have settled into a routine of releasing lazy albums every few years that require as little effort as possible and touring with their old hits, Bowie never did. In some ways, Blackstar was as much of a push in a new direction as anything he had ever done. Like Robert Plant, he never lost that restless spirit that pushed him to roam across uncharted soundscapes, not content to sit in one place too long. And like Robert Plant, sometimes that meant he got really lost, and it took him a while to find his way back. But at least no one could ever accuse him of putting his feet up and taking it easy.

When I listen to Glastonbury 2000, I am struck by the breadth of the man’s musical vision. I find it remarkable that songs as diverse as “Changes” and “Fame” and “Rebel Rebel” and “I’m Afraid of Americans” all exist next to each other on the same album, never mind being performed by the same artist in the same concert. Though I have to admit, things get off to a bit of a rocky start – I am not sure what is up with the jazz rendition of “Greensleeves” that starts the show, but sometimes Bowie liked to be weird for weirdness’ sake, and that was a pretty weird way to start off. The next song is an odd choice as well – the moody, ardent, passionate “Wild is the Wind”. This was a favorite of mine from Station to Station (I was glad to see him pull out so many songs from that album in the setlist). While it’s a fantastic song, performed with commitment, fervor and feeling, it’s not the crowd-pleasing bring-everyone-to-their-feet-at-the-start-of-the-show sort of song you typically expect a rock concert to open with. That takes guts really – to ask an audience to hang with you when you start right from the get-go with a reflective, resonant number, instead of the typical bang-your-fist-in-the-air opening number they are expecting. I like it. Except for the tinkly jazz piano keyboard flourishes that pop up periodically, those I could do without. There is some of that in the first few songs, luckily someone must have told the keyboard player to cut it out, because they are gone for good after five songs in. Other than that, Bowie’s musicians are outstanding – check out the Spanish guitar in the beginning of “Let’s Dance”, for example, or the chunky funky guitar on “Fame” that is every bit as 70s groovy as the studio original.  These guys do a phenomenal job of playing a wide range of styles and textures.

The second song, “China Girl” is a bit rough – Bowie’s low vocal gets lost in the mix on some of the verses, but it isn’t a great song anyway, so it’s not much of a loss. For me, “Changes” puts everything back on track, and it’s the first instance where you see Bowie switching back and forth between the twee, nasal tone of his earliest recordings and the more full-throated singing of his later ones, which he does with ease through the concert. And speaking of full-throated singing, gotta love that last note on “Life On Mars?” – this version is pretty cool, starting out with just Bowie accompanied with a piano, a naked arrangement that still holds all the drama and epic grandeur inherent in the song, even in its stark, instrumentally understated beginning before the rest of the instruments come in halfway through. “Heroes” is done in a similar fashion – he holds back through the first half of the song with a stripped down arrangement, which gives the second half extra oomph when the familiar guitar guitar figure comes swooping in to mimic the version we all know and love. This arrangement enhances the vocal crescendo that is heard in the original, when the vocal jumps an octave and the singing becomes ever more impassioned. I’ve always loved the way the vocals build in the song, and this arrangement really helps bring that out.

Epic moments abound in the show. There’s a terrific, energetic version of “All the Young Dudes”, followed by an even better version of “The Man Who Sold the World”, and then we get the return of the Thin White Duke on “Station to Station” – these three songs together are perhaps my favorite sequence from the album. There’s the snazzy stomp of “Rebel Rebel” (although I have to admit, while it’s a great riff, aren’t you kind of tired of hearing it after four minutes? Kind of wears out its welcome and becomes a bit redundant), the glammy guitar of “Ziggy Stardust”, and a surprising version of “Under Pressure” – I’ve heard it on enough live Queen albums I’d kind of forgotten it was a Bowie song too. It’s a shame Freddie Mercury wasn’t around to sing it with him, it just isn’t the same when Bowie does a duet on it with his backup vocalist. It’s hard for me to get too excited about this live version when there are so many great live Queen versions of the song.

I’d never heard “Absolute Beginners” before – what a lovely song. Nor had I ever heard the thunderous “I’m Afraid of Americans” – you listen to that, and it’s hard to believe you’re hearing the same band that played all the other songs that came before it, it is so different from everything else. And the song really resonates with me – these days I’m afraid of Americans too, and I’ve lived here all my life. The song is a monster, lumbering along like a sonic steamroller, and makes for an excellent finale.

I come away from the album wondering what Parlophone is so worried about. Why the mad rush to clear the vaults? Have a little faith in the music-buying public – no one is going to forget David Bowie. He was one of a kind. Yes, he was bizarre; yes, it could be hard to figure out what he was on about sometimes; yes, he sometimes misjudged what the music buying public would tolerate and then spent an album or two casting around for a new persona to grab everyone’s attention.  Some people like to make it sound like he was some kind of pure artist, disinterested in commercial success, who couldn’t care less if anyone paid attention to him – but that’s rubbish, the whole reason he did all the bizarre stuff he did is because he wanted attention.  He was the original rock-and-roll attention whore. And Let’s Dance proved without a doubt he craved commercial success.  Yet behind all of the attention-seeking gimmicks and the occasional top-of-the-charts-hit chasing, there was prodigious lyrical and melodic talent, an unquenchable creative curiosity, a knack for the epic, a keen appreciation for aural grandeur, and a willingness to take chances that is all but unknown in the vast musical wasteland of 2018. So Parlophone, you keep pumping out those old David Bowie concerts from the vaults – if they are as good as this one, there will be an audience for them.  And besides, there is precious little else coming out worth listening to these days.

“As of 1990 I got through the rest of the 20th century without having to do a big hits show. Yes, yes, I know I did four or five hits on the later shows but I held out pretty well I thought…big, well known songs will litter the field at Glastonbury this year. Well, with a couple of quirks of course.” – David Bowie

 

“Big songs did indeed litter the field that night, Mr. Bowie, you more than kept your word.  Well done sir, wherever you are now.” – Brutally Honest Rock Album Reviews