February 1973
ALADDIN SANE IN AMERICA: 2ND US TOUR
Promotional magazine ad
Songs performed: Space Oddity, The Width of
A Circle, The Supermen, Changes, Five Years, Soul
Love, Moonage Daydream, Hang Onto Yourself,
Ziggy Stardust, Suffragette City, Rock n Roll Suicide, John, I'm Only Dancing,
Watch That Man, Aladdin Sane, Drive-In Saturday, Panic in Detroit, Cracked Actor, Time,
The Prettiest Star, & The Jean Genie.
Other artists songs: My Death (Jacques
Brel) & Lets Spend the Night Together (Jagger-Richards)
Set lists: Songs from Aladdin Sane and Ziggy Stardust made up three
quarters of the set now. Bowie played all but one song (Lady Grinning Soul) from the
Aladdin Sane album on this tour. There was no typical setlist for this tour with Bowie
experimenting and changing with different line-ups.
Support musicians: Jazz pianist Mike Garson re-joins the Ziggy Stardust
entourage. In addition the musicians Brian Wilshaw and Ken Fordham - on saxophone,
Geoffrey MacCormack as back-up vocalist and John Hutchinson on rhythm guitar are added to
the band. The cities for this tour were those where Bowie had done best in his last tour
of the US.
Feb-6-12th 1973
Studio: RCA Studios, New York. Rehearsals start and finish.
Feb-13th 1973
Concert Hall: Radio City Music Hall, New York. Rehearsal.
Feb-14th 1973 (St. Valentines Day)
KEY CONCERT: Radio City Music Hall, New York. This is
Bowie's big breakthrough in the US. The show was becoming even more outrageous with many
new costume changes and more bizarre make-up. Both shows are a sell-out of 6,200 people
each. Attending celebrities include Truman Capote, Salvador Dali (a fan who has attended
other Bowie performances), Johnny Winter and Todd Rundgren. Bowie faints on stage after a
fan leaps on the stage during "Rock n Roll Suicide" and embraces him. He is
diagnosed by an attending nurse as suffering from exhaustion (blocked pores from the
makeup is also blamed) and sleeps 12 hours straight the next day. Rumours suggest that
gunshots rang out before Bowie collapsed but audience tapes do not support this fanciful
theory.
"The giant auditorium was filled with Walter
Carlos' recorded cybernetic music from Clockwork Orange, as several layers of curtains
parted to reveal a giant screen on which was projected an animated film of the cosmos
rushing at light speed at the viewer. A single spotlight opened up on a set of large
concentric spheres welded into a cage and suspended 50 feet above the floor of the stage,
in the middle of which was standing a stern and staring Bowie clad in a black silver silk
garment, the first of what would be five different costumes that night. It was truly
an amazing sight: Bowie the noted acrophobe, who won't fly in planes or ascend above a
certain level in buildings, coolly gazing at his adoring fans, while his band, The Spiders
From Mars, augmented by six additional musicians on horns and percussion, cranked into
"Hang Onto Yourself".... At times Bowie acted out his role as a straight
pop singer, a sort of hyperthyroid Anthony Newley; at others he would change into a
progressively more skimpy costume and whip his arse around, a campy gamine leg-throw here,
a cute barefoot pirouette there. Those songs dealing with Bowie's starkly paranoid
themes of rock-star death, impending planetary doom and coming suicide were treated as
little theater pieces, playlets recited and acted rather than sung and played."
- Stephen Davis - Rolling Stone Magazine.
"I
attended the Feb 14, 1973 Bowie Show at Radio Music Hall. I
couldn't sit still, it was amazing. The intro with David being
lowered onto the stage and the band & equipment being raised
from below the stage, the giant screen showing stars shooting
through space being raised and then it was truly Hang on to
Yourself.
About
three-quarters the way through the concert I told my girlfriend
that I had to try to get onstage, so I made it to the right of
the stage, the same side as the horns were. I jumped onto the
stage and ran behind the horns. There was a stagehand carrying a
clip board there so I stood beside him. At times David would
scamper over to the horns and conduct them...he would motion
"you up"..."you down"..it was phenomenal...David right in front
of me. Later, when the
two
bodyguards came out to each side of the stage, I thought that I
would be ushered out but when the bodyguard pointed at me, the
guy with the clipboard motioned that I was with him. I thanked
him quietly and continued to watch the rest of the show.
Then came
Let"s spend the Night Together (wearing a pink boa) and then
Rock N Roll Suicide. After the curtain closed, I started running
across the Radio City Music Hall stage to get the boa that David
had just dropped on the stage but just as I got there a roadie
or stage hand picked it up. It was too late to stop running and
I was just about to run into David when he turned around quickly
(he heard me coming) and I stuck out my hand and said "Great
show David. Next thing I knew I had an arm around my shoulder. I
thought I was busted, until I looked up and saw Mick Ronson. He
looked at me and said "So, you enjoyed the show?" and he smiled.
Then the three
of us started walking across the stage, David on one side of me
and Mick Ronson on the other (still with his arm around my
shoulder). I will never forget the next line that Mick said. He
looked at David & said "David, I think we"re really
going to like America".
We walked into the dressing room, Mick
took away his arm & walked away & David was walking away too
when one of the road crew stopped me and said that I would have
to leave. My greatest memory from possibly the greatest live
show of all time.
Thanks David" - Douglas McRae
Feb-15th 1973
Concert: Radio City Music Hall, New York.
Feb-16th 1973
Concert: The Tower Theatre, Philadelphia.
"The opener that week (Seven shows in five
days) was a 1950s revival group called Fumble. I remember them opening with "Hello
Mary Lou," and also doing "Ebony Eyes." In between songs, the audience kept
yelling out "Fumble!" - Chuck Darrow
Feb-17th 1973
Concert: The Tower Theatre, Philadelphia.
David Bowie 1973 "Ziggy" - Fan
recollection by Barbara Shewchuk
Feb-18th 1973
Concert: The Tower Theatre, Philadelphia.
Feb-19th 1973
Concert: The Tower Theatre, Philadelphia.
"For the two shows I saw at the Tower in
February 1973 ... he did the "Hang Onto Yourself" opening and it was truly a
religious experience. The way Mick and Trevor looked in the flashing strobe lights as they
stood statute-still, and Bowie's japanese space suit...then they slammed into "Hang
Onto Yourself" ...wow!! It's pretty much the most thrilling moment I have ever had at
a concert. The second would have to be the jam in the middle of "Width of a
Circle," when Mick and Trevor (with the strobes flashing again), faced each other at
center stage and slowly rocked back and forth as they both kept riffing higher and higher
on the necks of their axes..." - Chuck Darrow
Feb-20th 1973
Concert: The Tower Theatre, Philadelphia.
Feb-23rd 1973
Concert: The War Memorial Auditorium, Nashville.
"Just thought I'd let you know that I attended the
Feb. 23rd, 1973 Bowie show at the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville, Tn. The show was
great! I noticed you didn't have attendence for that show. The show was a sellout and I
believe it seats 1800. It's a great venue, but mostly used for school and political
functions nowdays." - Rick
Feb-24rd 1973
Melody Maker magazine predicts a reduction in Bowie's touring due
to his expressed interest in a career in film.
Feb-26th 1973
Concert: Ellis Auditorium, Memphis.
Feb-27th 1973
Concert: Ellis Auditorium, Memphis.
Feb-28th 1973
Angela Bowie flys to the US to join David on TWA.
The 
Companion
