David Bowie
Live Nassau Coliseum ’76
(Parlophone UK)
Catching David Bowie prior to his celebrated Brian Eno/Berlin period, the genius rock and roll chameleon we lost last year makes his star presence known in this “legal” issue of one of his most infamous 70’s bootlegs. Recorded at New York’s Nassau Coliseum in 1976, on Bowie’s Thin White Duke Tour, here is a dynamic concert pulling from the big Bowie releases of the time. We get such classics as the loud opener, “Station To Station” (the band here rocks it hard throughout), a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Waiting For the Man†(Bowie was a huge Lou Reed fan, and in and out of Reed’s bed), and then hitting his classics like “Five Years,” “Panic in Detroit” (sans most of Dennis Davis’ drum solo – don’t worry, the album ends with the over 13-minute full edit), “Changes,” “Diamond Dogs,” and a rockin’-more-than-usual “Fame.” Bowie is not striving for the high notes here as much as he falls in with his band, which included then-drummer Davis, Stacey Heydon and Carlos Alomar on guitar, George Murray playing bass, and the true standout player (especially when he hits the piano as he does often here) ex-Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye. Yes, Virginia there was a time when rock gods walked the earth and made music like this. David Bowie, Live Nassau Coliseum ’76 is a gem of another age.
