david bowie - david live, stage
emi dig into their vaults once more to release two more 'special editions' from bowies 70's output. this time they have decided to revisit his live albums, both of which have been out of print for many years.
in the process tony visconti has returned to the original tapes and touched up, remastered, retracked re-everything to make these versions somewhat special. after a lot of consultation with the bowie online community it was decided that the original track listing on both albums should be restored to the original concerts running order. so now we get a full concert from the diamond dogs tour recorded in july 74, 'david live', in superb full Technicolor sound, and in stark contrast to the glam glory there is the 1978 show where the majority of the tracks were lifted from the recent brian eno albums 'heroes' and 'low' for 'stage' where the newfound synthesizer makes more of an impression. to add to the 'gimme factor' there are even extra tracks that never appeared on the original versions, ('space oddity', and 'panic in detroit' from 'david live', and 'be my wife', 'stay' from 'david stage).
as well as the music there is the small matter of the packaging. keeping the format of the double album the the double cd albums come in very nice foldout form with extensive photos and sleeve notes by tony, giving insights into the creation process for both albums. with the reiteration that there has been very little sonic tinkering (ie studio overdubs that are normally applied to 'live' albums) making you realise just how tight these bands were.
unfortunately i cannot give a fair review as david bowie is my all time fave artist. i even liked tin machine. so you will just have to make your own decision as to whether these glorious packages (see i did warn you ..) are worthy of your hard-earned. personally they are welcome additions to one of the worlds best back catalogues around. the songs are some of the best rock songs ever, the sound is excellent, david sounds spot on etc etc.
just makes me wish i had had the opportunity to see the main man live. one day my dream will come true. in the meantime these will definitely suffice.
nb : for the fancy hi-fi buffs - there is a 5.1 surround sound dvd-a version of 'stage' as the recordings were made in such a way that this was possible.