Without doubt David Bowie’s now-iconic Glastonbury 2000 appearance contains stellar moments galore, amounting to a virtual feast-o-rama for fans who have long awaited this very special release. In this essay, I will attempt the difficult feat of zeroing in on just five of these moments. The first of these goes beyond the music, occurring as early as the opening seconds of the performance before David Bowie has so much as uttered a word or sung a note . . .
Moment #1: Bowie’s arrival onstage
Hardcore and long-term fans will immediately grasp the self-referencing significance of David Bowie’s carefully chosen image on that very special night. Always the supreme master and manipulator of performance persona(s), as he walked measuredly from the blackness of backstage to take his place in the glare of the lighting at the front of the stage his costuming, loaded and sublime, immediately sent a powerful message to those in the know. In typical Bowie fashion, therefore, his performance began the very second that audience eyes were laid upon him. Just as the song "Ashes to Ashes" (1980) so unexpectedly and poignantly self-referenced the much-loved Major Tom of "Space Oddity" from eleven years earlier, and the video for "Little Wonder" of 1997 visually referenced Ziggy Stardust and sprinkled fans with welcome dollops of glam nostalgia, when the eyes of Bowie’s most avid fans alighted upon his form as he took to the Glastonbury 2000 stage it pulled them into a gasp-inducing three-decade backflip. Here, before them, was the David Bowie of Hunky Dory (1971). Well, the rear cover photograph to be precise rather than the Bacall/Dietrich-esque movie star front cover image. For a vast number of fans, Hunky Dory is an all-time favourite Bowie album, finding him poised on the brink of success and packed full of magnificent classics such as "Life on Mars", "Oh You Pretty Things", and "Changes" that demonstrated to the world the very peak of the songwriters’ craft. Released just six months before its successor, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, launched him into the stratosphere, Hunky Dory is a liminal moment in Bowie history. The Hunky Dory Bowie, “in his frock coat and bippity boppity hat” (ref: "Queen Bitch") displayed a soon to be excised element of sixties hippiedom and also a delightful foppishness and dandy eccentricity such as only the English could ever produce. Ok, walking to the front of the Glastonbury stage he wore no bippity boppity hat, but the three-quarter length Alexander McQueen frock coat was superb as were his trousers; audaciously wide Oxford bags. With no hat containing his long flowing locks, the similarity to his photograph on the rear cover of Hunky Dory was accentuated further.
More than just referencing Hunky Dory though, the Glastonbury 2000 Bowie was bringing another ghost to the fore by revisiting his debut performance some twenty nine years earlier, in 1971, at just the second-ever running of the then-named Glastonbury Fayre festival. Performing as a duo with soon-to-be Spider from Mars Mick Ronson at dawn on that occasion due to time running out for his scheduled slot the evening before (a 10.30pm curfew was in operation), an acoustic version of "Memory of a Free Festival" (from his second album) was performed just as the sun came up over the adjacent hill and this has gone into Bowie folklore as a magical moment to those lucky enough to have been in attendance. Well-received by the slowly awakening festival goers that moment stands as a powerful bookend to Bowie’s 2000 return to Glastonbury that found him once again, so appropriately, performing at the change of light; this time as the sun set and darkness took hold.
Creating such an obvious and powerful recapitulation of his much younger self, it was a poignant, eerie, and appropriate entrance to Glastonbury 2000, and also chock full of homage to an earlier, more naive and simpler era of rock music for both himself and his thousands of fans. What an opening statement! And how wonderfully, aptly, Bowie to provide a stellar moment before even opening his mouth.
Moment #2: Changes
Linking in to the poignancy of his entrance, for this reviewer the second stellar moment comes with the third song, "Changes". Preceded by his smiling announcement from the stage, that “I’d just written this one the first time I played Glastonbury . . . 1971” the opening track from Hunky Dory sonically completes the nostalgia loop set up by his time-bending entrance. Remarkably, and as if momentarily overwhelmed, Bowie falters slightly over the words of the second line of the first verse (blink and you miss it) before recovering with typical class and supreme aplomb to deliver a wonderfully powerful rendition of the song that so completely sums up his approach to a career built on constant change. Vocally, his much-loved and often commented upon slippages into Anthony Newley/Tommy Steele-style cockney accent are to the fore throughout the song, most especially on the title word where he gives the vowel sound a fine East London working over, turning it into “Chayynges”. Listen too for the reworking of the words “Strange fascination” in the bridge section, which become “Strayynge fascinayytion”. The band throughout is superb! Another of David Bowie’s talents, perhaps not often enough acknowledged, was his wonderful penchant for surrounding himself with the finest musicians imaginable at all stages of his career in order to help him get his musical messages across. On "Changes" they all shine but none more-so than the virtuoso pianist and long-time Bowie collaborator Mike Garson with his signature florid avant garde style flourishes (that hit their finest hour on Aladdin Sane). In the final moments of the song, the camera pulls back to show the view from behind the crowd looking toward the stage, revealing a moving, waving sea of thousands of fans dancing before their star who is bathed in white light before them, Saviour-like, with the stage lit in red all around him. Superb.
Moment #3: Station to Station
How stunning to hear the return of the Thin White Duke some twenty four years after he roamed the stages of the world, after leaving behind the self-styled and fleetingly visited Plastic Soul Man incarnation of Young Americans (1975). The opening of "Station to Station", the title track from the album of the same name (1976), has always been a stunner with its relentless uber-powerful train sounds piercing the European night, moving from speaker to speaker beneath walls of wailing and anguished guitar feedback and painting stark and austere aural pictures in the mind of the listener. At Glastonbury 2000 that wonderful sonic experience is recreated perfectly in the live setting and further enhanced by pulsing saturations of white light across the stage. On the Isolar II tour of 1978 that included a show in Auckland, New Zealand, attended by this reviewer, Bowie closed his set with "Station to Station". So, for me, hearing and seeing it again performed so superbly, late in the Glastonbury set, brought on a powerful wave of nostalgia and also gratitude that I’d had this same live experience myself in my youth. Ever the thespian, Bowie sets the song up theatrically, waving a succession of bye-byes to the crowd and thus highlighting the transient theme of the song as the train sounds and the white light wash over him. The call and response sections between Bowie and his backing vocalists in the song’s extended outro bring a new dimension to the song in comparison to the recorded version of decades earlier, thereby ensuring that the ‘Station to Station’ of Glastonbury 2000 walks with ease that fine line of providing a faithful rendition of a Bowie classic while also showing progression. This is David Bowie at his sound-and-vision best.
READ MORE: TAKE THE DAVID BOWIE QUIZ
Moment #4: Under Pressure
Especially given the current blockbuster success of Bohemian Rhapsody, the film that tells the story of Freddie Mercury and Queen (forget the critics – the fans love it and that’s what matters), it’s impossible to watch David Bowie and bassist/vocalist Gail Ann Dorsey duetting on the smash hit "Under Pressure" without Freddie coming to the forefront of one’s mind. By the time this song was performed as Bowie’s set closer at Glastonbury 2000 (Bowie and the band leaving the stage at the song’s conclusion before coming back for their encore) Freddie had been gone for nine years, but as one of the best loved British rock mega-stars his candle still burned brightly and the roar that greeted the song’s tell-tale opening bass riff was clear testament to that fact. David Bowie and Annie Lennox, backed by the remaining members of Queen, had brought the house down with their version of "Under Pressure" at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium in London in 1992, so for Gail Ann Dorsey to now step into such illustrious shoes was no small ask. But there’s a reason she worked with David Bowie from 1995 until his death. That is, she has talent in spades and not only as a bass player. Never faltering in the execution of John Deacon’s basslines – the absolute engine room and hallmark of this song – and with an X-factor in her stage presence that confirms she is something of a star-in-her-own-right, her vocals here match Bowie’s perfectly, just as had been the case with Freddie Mercury (and Lennox). Simply, Gail Ann Dorsey is not ‘standing in’ for anyone while delivering this song side-by-side with her famous boss; she is there entirely on merit and accordingly stamps her presence powerfully and emphatically on the song. The high notes soar, the attitude is perfect, the vibe between her and Bowie electric . . . without doubt Freddie would approve.
Read more: Interview with Bowie's bassist Gail Ann Dorsey
Moment #5: Ziggy Stardust
It was extremely hard to pick a fifth and last stellar moment from David Bowie’s Glastonbury 2000 performance despite the fact that I elected to limit my choices to his four song encore. With the line-up of choices being "Ziggy Stardust", "Heroes", "Let’s Dance" and "I’m Afraid of Americans", where does one even start? It had been a hit-packed concert to this point, and to have four such giants of songs left to the encore stands as testament – as if it were ever needed - to the incredible output, longevity, and quality of the artist. Still, just after the band trooped back onto the stage after the crowd’s lengthy and unified cries for more were at last acknowledged and rewarded, the sound of the fanfare-like opening guitar riff that announces the beginning of "Ziggy Stardust" sent a not-to-be-ignored shiver up my spine, even watching and listening on video eighteen years after the fact. One can only imagine the effect it must have had on those actually in attendance on the day, who responded by giving those opening chords the biggest ovation of the night. For avid/rabid David Bowie fans like myself, those opening chords hold all the depth and gravitas of Richard Wagner’s magnificent "Ride of the Valkyries" or the opening bars of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The Ziggy Stardust persona and album had launched David Bowie’s career into overdrive in 1972, and now we are all able to be reminded of the power of that moment in his triumphant Glastonbury revisitation. In 1972 David Bowie had everything to prove. In 2000 he needed to prove nothing as the biggest rock star on the planet. But, of course, it’s David Bowie on that stage and so he still gives it everything he has. Slowed down from the original version but with riffs fat enough to drive a truck through, the rendition is rock power personified and Ziggy is brought back to life again. The drawn-out closing moments are something very special to behold as Bowie holds the roaring crowd in the palm of his hand, pausing smilingly and dangerously long before he delivers the declamatory final line, “Now Ziggy played . . . guitar”. And at this point, with his arms stretched out messianically in his signature Ziggy Stardust pose, it seems as if the world has stood still. Leper messiah/rock messiah: Ladies and gentlemen . . . it can only be DAVID BOWIE!
David Bowie Glastonbury 2000 is out now on digital, streaming, CD, DVD and LP for the first time. Get your copy here and see the video preview below...
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Dr. Ian Chapman is a Senior Lecturer in Music and Convener of the Performing Arts degree programme at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. A life-long popular music fan he has written eight books to date, including two on David Bowie, Experiencing David Bowie: A Listener’s Companion (2015), and the forthcoming David Bowie FAQ (publication early 2019). Having also written both his Masters and PhD theses on the artist, he has given papers and talks at many events and conferences around the world. A popular free-lance motivational speaker, Ian’s specialty is the transformative power of the performing arts, drawing upon techniques (as espoused by artists such as David Bowie) that can be used in everyday life to develop self-empowerment and self-confidence. https://www.ianchapman.co.nz
