Glass Spider Tour
The Glass Spider Tour was a 1987 worldwide concert tour by the English musician David Bowie, launched in support of his album Never Let Me Down and named for that album's track "Glass Spider". It began in May 1987 and was preceded by a two-week press tour that saw Bowie visit nine countries throughout Europe and North America to drum up public interest in the tour. The Glass Spider Tour was the first Bowie tour to visit Austria, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Wales. Through a sponsorship from Pepsi, the tour was intended to visit Russia and South America as well, but these plans were later cancelled. The tour was, at that point, the longest and most expensive tour Bowie had embarked upon in his career. At the time, the tour's elaborate set was called "the largest touring set ever".
Bowie conceived the tour as a theatrical show, and included spoken-word introductions to some songs, vignettes, and employed visuals including projected videos, theatrical lighting and stage props. On stage, Bowie was joined by guitarist Peter Frampton and a troupe of five dancers choreographed by long-time Bowie collaborator Toni Basil. With the theme "Rock stars vs Reality", the show was divided into two acts and an encore. The set list was modified over the course of the tour as Bowie dropped some of his newer material in favour of older songs from his repertoire.
The tour was generally poorly received at the time for being perceived as overblown and pretentious. Despite the criticism, Bowie in 1991 remarked that this tour laid the groundwork for later successful theatrical tours by other artists, and the set's design and the show's integration of music and theatrics has inspired later acts by a variety of artists. Starting in the late 2000s, the tour began to collect accolades for its successes, and in 2010 the tour was named one of the top concert tour designs of all time.
The tour was financially successful and well-attended, being seen by perhaps as many as six million fans worldwide, but the negative critical reception of the album and tour led Bowie to not only abandon plans for other elaborate stage shows, but to reconsider his motivations for making music.
Performances from this tour were released on the VHS video Glass Spider.
Background
In the four years prior to the release of Never Let Me Down, Bowie had worked on a series of miscellaneous projects that included collaborations with the Pat Metheny Group for "This Is Not America" and Mick Jagger for "Dancing in the Street". He also continued acting and composing for film soundtracks such as Absolute Beginners and Labyrinth.In 1985, after his successful performance at Live Aid and a live performance with Tina Turner for one of her shows on her 1985 Private Dancer Tour, Bowie collaborated with his friend Iggy Pop for his solo album Blah-Blah-Blah, producing and co-writing multiple tracks. He then worked with Turkish musician Erdal Kızılçay for the title song of the 1986 film When the Wind Blows. In late 1986, Bowie began recording sessions for his album Never Let Me Down, which was released in April 1987. He had not toured for his 1984 album Tonight, making the Glass Spider Tour his first tour in four years.
Development
Preparations for the tour began as early as 1986, when Bowie warned his band to "be ready for next year." Bowie was initially mum on his plans for his tour, saying only "I'm going to do a stage thing this year, which I'm incredibly excited about, 'cause I'm gonna take a chance again." When asked if he would elaborate on his plans, he replied "No! Too many other acts are goin' out. I'll just be doing what I always did, which is keeping things interesting."Bowie was joined by long-time friend Peter Frampton on the tour. Frampton said "I don't have a book to sell; I don't have an album to sell; I'm just here as a guitarist. The pressure is off. I'm enjoying myself." Frampton and Bowie had known each other since their teen years when they both attended Bromley Technical School, where Frampton's father, Owen Frampton, was Bowie's art teacher.
Bowie had a clear goal for this tour: to return to the theatrics that he had performed during his short-lived 1974 Diamond Dogs Tour. He wanted this tour to be "ultra-theatrical, a combination of music, theater, and rock", and he felt that his previous tour, while successful, had veered away from the theatrics that he preferred:
Bowie indicated that he was "testing the waters" with this tour, and was potentially considering other large, elaborate stage shows if the tour was successful:
Bowie decided that the theme for the show would be "the reality and unreality of rock," or, as one critic called it, "rock stars vs. reality". Bowie said, "It's not just about a rock singer, it's about rock music, so it has a lot to do with the audience and how they perceive rock, and rock figures, and all the cliches, archetypes and stereotypes, and also family relationship."
During the show itself, Bowie incorporated a wide variety of props: "I'm really attempting to do a lot of stuff! It incorporates movement, dialogue, fragments of film, projected images, it's what used to be called multi-media in the '60s." Bowie described how he assembled the show, saying, "The idea was to concoct surrealist or minimalist stage pieces to accompany rock-and-roll songs. I wanted to bridge together some kind of symbolist theater and modern dance. Not jazz dance, certainly not MTV dance, but something more influenced by people like Pina Bausch and a Montreal group called La La La Human Steps. There are some symbolist pieces, some minimalist pieces, and some vulgar pieces, too – some straightforward Vaudeville bits."
When Bowie was asked what he thought his audience expected of him on this tour, he said:
Bowie reportedly coordinated aspects of the tour via email, a rarity in the late 1980s. Management, scheduling and planning for the tour was handled by Bowie's management company, Isolar.
Promotion
In announcing the tour, Bowie embarked on a series of promotional press shows covering nine countries in two weeks, including Canada, the US and seven countries in Europe. The press tour shows were typically delivered in smaller venues seating around 300 people, and local fans were often allowed into the events. He used the opportunity to educate the press on his album and the tour, and the multiple dates allowed him to correct misinformation. At the London Glass Spider Press Conference, he clarified that "I didn't say 'lights, costumes and sex,' what I said was 'lights, costumes and theatrical sets in response to a question about what the audience could expect when seeing his new live show. Press tour shows included live performances of some of the songs from the album Never Let Me Down.Articles promoting Bowie's album and tour appeared in non-music periodicals in mid- to late-1987 such as In Fashion, Mademoiselle and Teen magazines.
Bowie agreed to what at the time was considered a controversial commercial sponsorship agreement with PepsiCo, which was later seen as helping to pave the way for other big money tours by other artists. For his part, Bowie recorded a TV commercial with Tina Turner to the tune "Modern Love" in May 1987 while he was preparing for the tour. Of the sponsorship agreement, Bowie said, "We did a commercial sponsorship thing only for North America with the Pepsi-Cola company. As far as I'm concerned, what it's allowed me to do, having them underwrite the tour, is to be able to produce a far more extravagant show than if I were just doing it myself. It means that instead of just having 1 or 2 sets I can have 3 or 4 sets made, and they can travel independently and they can be far more complicated."
Bowie had originally planned to take the Glass Spider Tour to Russia, albeit with the band only and no dancers or elaborate props, but with the money and extra stage provided by the sponsorship, Bowie felt he could take the full tour to Russia and South America. However, these plans failed to come to fruition, and the tour never reached those regions.
Song selection
Bowie elected to play less well-known songs on the tour and avoided some of his bigger hits. He was eager to not repeat the formula that made the Serious Moonlight Tour a success, saying, "It seemed so easy. It was cheers from the word go. You know how to get a reaction – play 'Changes,' 'Golden Years' and they'd be up on their feet. You get the reaction, take the money and run away. It seemed too easy. I didn't want to do that again." In a different contemporary interview he said, "I'm not doing 'Star' again. That was quite hard. I don't think I'm doing much Ziggy material on this tour! Probably use a lot of that mid-70s material, but not the more ponderous things like 'Warszawa.' I tried that, and that was a bit yawn-making. There was one I was humming to myself the other day: 'Baby, baby, I'll never let you down' – oh lord, what's that one? Jesus, I can't remember it.... 'Sons of the Silent Age!' Ah! That's right! Thank god I could remember it! So that for me now is a new song. I've never done that one onstage." "Sons of the Silent Age" was performed every night of the tour.All but two songs from his album Never Let Me Down were played live during the tour, although "Shining Star" was among the songs rehearsed. Other songs rehearsed but not performed were "Because You're Young" and "Scream Like a Baby", both from Scary Monsters . Several songs that Bowie had anticipated playing on the tour were abandoned before rehearsals even started, including "Space Oddity", "Joe the Lion", "Ricochet", and "Don't Look Down".
Songs performed during the tour were "chosen because they fit the performance" and fit Bowie's goal to make a show that was much more theatrical and had strong dramatic content. When he was asked how he was going to make his rock show "dramatic", he replied, "You'll be surprised what you can do with a 6-piece rock band and a stage and a couple of lights."