Outside Tour
| Tour by David Bowie | |||||||
| Associated album | 1. Outside | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start date | 14 September 1995 | ||||||
| End date | 20 February 1996 | ||||||
| Legs | 2 | ||||||
| No. of shows | 68 | ||||||
| David Bowie concert chronology | |||||||
| |||||||
The Outside Tour was a tour by rock musician David Bowie, opening on 14 September 1995 at Meadows Music Theatre – Hartford, Connecticut. Support during the US leg of the tour was provided by Nine Inch Nails, who segued their set with Bowie's to form a continuous show. Prick opened the first date of the tour. Morrissey was the support act for the European leg, but withdrew from the tour after nine dates. On selected dates Reeves Gabrels performed songs from his album, The Sacred Squall of Now in addition to performing with Nine Inch Nails and David Bowie. The opening of the concert tour preceded the release of the 1. Outside album which was released on 25 September 1995.
In a 2012 Rolling Stone reader's poll, the tour (pairing Nine Inch Nails with Bowie) was named one of the top 10 opening acts in rock history.[1]
Tour history
Initial tour rehearsals were held at the Complete Music Studios in New York before moving to the Mullins Center, where Nine Inch Nails joined the rehearsal.[2]
This tour was Bowie's first since he retired his hits with his previous Sound+Vision Tour (1990). Bowie said, "We're going to play some older material, sure, but not obvious things. I found, while rehearsing for the [Outside] tour, that older songs I haven't played for years suddenly fit in with this new material quite well – things like ... "Joe the Lion." So I'm quite looking forward to it."[3] Other songs from Bowie's back catalog that he performed during the tour include "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)", "Look Back in Anger", "Andy Warhol" and "Breaking Glass".[4]
Bowie spoke on why he chose to tour with Nine Inch Nails:
I personally did like the combination of NIN and me, but my fans didn't. Bad luck!! It also was an extremely young audience, between about 12 and 17 years old. My starting point was simply: I've just made an adventurous album, what can I do now to turn the concerts as adventurous. Looking at it in that way, it seemed logic to confront myself with the NIN audience. I knew it would be hard to captivate them by music they never heard, by an artist whose name was the only familiar thing.[5]
Trent Reznor has gone on record numerous times as being heavily influenced by David Bowie,[6] and further collaborated with Bowie by remixing "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" and later on 1997's "I'm Afraid of Americans" single. When asked in 1995 if his album Outside was influenced by Nine Inch Nails, Bowie answered, "the band that I was actually quite taken with was three guys from Switzerland call The Young Gods ... I’d been aware of them previous to knowing about Nine Inch Nails."[7]
Set and costume design
For the tour, Bowie went with a modest stage design ("some banners, some mannequins") and avoided the theatrical presentation like his previous Glass Spider Tour in 1987 and Sound+Vision Tour in 1990.[4] The stage "resembled a building site, with paint splashed crumpled sheets draped about", and included an old fashioned table and chair in one corner, onto which Bowie would occasionally climb during shows.[2]
Bowie had a few outfits for the tour (which varied between the European and US shows), but included 3 jackets designed by Alexander McQueen.[2]
Performance notes
Bowie opened an interview for the tour with USA Today on the opening day of the tour, on 14 September 1995 with the question "How do you commit commercial suicide? Well, you do this: play songs from an album that hasn't been released yet, and complement it with obscure songs from the past that you've never done on stage."[8]
During the tour, as Nine Inch Nails reached the conclusion of their performance, the two bands played together with both Nine Inch Nails and Bowie and his band performing "Subterraneans", "Hallo Spaceboy" and "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)", followed by two Nine Inch Nails songs "Reptile" and "Hurt" after which Bowie continued with his own set alone.[6]
Early in the tour, the "almost 100% Nails audience" provided a challenge to Bowie, who said "In those first weeks, we had to adjust emotionally to the fact that we were going to be challenged every night to get in sync with what people were coming to the show for. But then you start to recognize that if you're going to continue, you'd better enjoy what you're doing. The more we did that, the more it communicated to the audience. That's how it went from survival to being a good tour."[9]
Bowie signed copies of his album at a local record store while in New York on 26 September 1995.[2]
Morrissey was slated to be the opening act of the European tour, but he suddenly and unexpectedly quit just before the Aberdeen Exhibition Centre performance on 29 November 1995.[10] The support slot was filled on later dates by The Gyres, Echobelly, Placebo and a variety of local bands.
Live recordings
The 13 December 1995 performance at the National Exhibition Centre (Hall 5) in Birmingham, England, billed as the Big Twix Mix Show with Alanis Morissette, Lightning Seeds and Echobelly as support acts, was filmed by BBC TV with excerpts broadcast at a later date.
Tour band
- David Bowie – vocals
- Reeves Gabrels – guitar
- Carlos Alomar – guitar, backing vocals
- Gail Ann Dorsey – bass guitar, vocals
- Zack Alford – drums
- Mike Garson – piano
- Peter Schwartz – synthesizer, musical director
- George Simms – backing vocals, keyboards
Tour dates
Songs
|
From The Man Who Sold the World From Hunky Dory From The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
From Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture
From Diamond Dogs From Low
From "Heroes" From Lodger
|
From Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
From Outside
Other songs:
|
Notes
- ↑ "Readers' Poll: The 10 Best Opening Acts in Rock History", Rolling Stone, 11 July 2012, retrieved 4 November 2013
- 1 2 3 4 Alexander, Alex (1998), Outside Tour Ultimate Guide
- ↑ Hendrickson, Mark (November 1995), David Bowie: Outside Looking in, retrieved 1 August 2013
- 1 2 Pareles, Jon (29 September 1995), "POP REVIEW; Bowie and Nails Mesh (Sometimes)", New York Times, retrieved 29 October 2013
- ↑ "Can the Real David Bowie Rise, Please?", HUMO, 5 December 1995, retrieved 6 June 2013
- 1 2 Weisel, Al (2 November 1995), "Performance: Nine Inch Nails / David Bowie", Rolling Stone magazine (720): 28
- ↑ Newquist, HP (January 1996). "No Longer A Lad Insane". Guitar.
- ↑ Gundersen, Edna (14 September 1995), "Cover Story: Bowie, Beyond fame and fashion", USA Today: D1–2
- ↑ Sprague, David (February 1997), "David Bowie Interview", Pulse magazine: 34–37, 72–73
- ↑ Nicholas Pegg, The Complete David Bowie, Reynolds & Hearn Ltd, 2004, ISBN 1-903111-73-0
References
- David Buckley, Strange Fascination: The Definitive Biography of David Bowie, Virgin Books, 1999, ISBN 1-85227-784-X
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Studio albums and EPs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Remix albums | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Live |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Compilations | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Singles |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Notable songs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tours | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Soundtracks | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Films | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Games | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Related |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||