The Concert Room celebrates David Bowie and his legendary 70's decade with "Heroes" live on the Spectrum stage, April 28, 1978

0:05 SPEAKER_03: Hey everybody, welcome back to the concert room. I'm your host, Bob Hill. The concert room is a podcast session dedicated to all the great performances and performers who played on the stage at the legendary Philadelphia Spectrum Arena. The Spectrum held numerous events and concerts over its 40 plus years of existence, earning the nickname America Show Place. The Spectrum was a special place for music fans and bands. And welcome back to the concert room. We're rolling along nicely here in season two.

0:37 SPEAKER_03: I have some great conversations with guests lined up later the season, so stay in touch for that. But let's get back to uh a special show or artist. And today I'm excited to feature one of my favorite artists, and that is David Bowie. I was looking back on uh season one and and uh again we're about halfway through season two, and it kind of occurred to me that we have not talked about David Bowie. And what can you say about this legendary songwriter, singer, actor, and stage performer, and overall artist that hasn't already been written?

1:14 SPEAKER_03: Uh to me I think Bowie just stands alone in the music industry because mainly because of his appeal to people who have different musical tastes. For instance, uh I grew up more of a hard rock, uh kind of a metal kid, but hearing Bowie albums blur out of my older sister's rooms, kind of a different kind of rock, but and sometimes in a weird way, which is a good way. And especially with Mick Ronson on guitar and his band, uh it was definitely rock, albeit different. But it still was rock, if you know what I mean.

1:50 SPEAKER_03: My point is, whatever your preference in music is, Bowie kind of eventually came around to your liking with his new and changing uh personas and musical styles. So let's talk about his changing personas and music throughout the seventies, and uh because I have a later 70s performance lined up for us today to listen to at the spectrum. Um but I do want to kind of go over a little bit of background because I think it's really important. And I do want to concentrate on the seventies because Bowie received particular acclaim for his work in the nineteen seventies.

2:29 SPEAKER_03: So let's talk about this. He's obviously regarded as among the most influential musicians of the twentieth century, and his career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, and his music and stagecraft have had a significant impact on popular music. So a little background on Bowie in general and how it ties in with our city and Philadelphia in particular. Bowie studied art, music, and design before embarking on a music career in 1962. He released a self-titled solo album in 1967 before achieving his first top five entry on the UK singles charts with Space Oddity, and that was in 1969.

3:15 SPEAKER_03: Now, after a period of experimentation, including the album The Man Who Sold the World, which now featured, as I mentioned, Mick Ronson, the single Starman and its album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. This is 1972, won him widespread popularity. This particular period is his Starman era, and it was on this tour that brought Bowie to the States for the very first time. He rolled into Philadelphia in November on his Ziggy Stardust International Tour for three nights at the Tower Theater.

3:53 SPEAKER_03: And if you are familiar with my past sessions, I talk about the Tower of Theater frequently because that theater venue was like uh kind of like a small brother to the Big Brother Spectrum Arena. The tower is located just outside of Philly in Delaware County. Shout out to Delko. And uh bands that were not really ready for the big arenas of the day, like the Spectrum, LA's Forum, there was Cobalt Hall and of course Madison Square Garden. Uh they would come in to play smaller venues like the Tower Theater.

4:27 SPEAKER_03: So the Tower Theater and the Spectrum kind of went hand in hand as far as these two great venues for concerts. So David Bowie rolls into the tower for the first time in 1972, three sold-out shows. He's in full Ziggy show mode, um the Ziggy persona. Kind of representative of of Bowie's basic themes, such as Alienation, Androgyny, Otherworldliness, and Rebellion. And it was, of course, highly theatrical act, it was innovative, and concerts at this time period were kind of demanding of big performances and showmanship more and more, and Bowie certainly delivered.

5:12 SPEAKER_03: It made him an international star, and these tower shows were also recorded. Bowie could have recorded anywhere on this tour. He chose the tower to record. These shows were the final venue on his first Bowie and Spiders U.S. tour. Bowie did return to the Tower Theater in 1973, continuing the Ziggy persona. These shows kind of solidified his love for the city, in which he called his fans Bowie Kids, and his fascination with our history of soul and RB music, which is going to be important a little bit later on, and we're gonna get to that.

5:49 SPEAKER_03: Now, these shows were so successful that Bowie and the band returned to the tower again for seven nights during the Diamond Dogs tour. Bowie performed at the tower. This is July 1974. All but the last dates were recorded and released as the uh his pro live album, David Live. It was released later that year, 1974, and again Bowie records a live album at the tower. And I have to reiterate that the city of Philadelphia is just so important to David. We will see why again in a minute. It was on this tour, the Diamond Dogs tour in 1974, that David Bowie retired the Ziggy Alien Persona, and he moved on to something entirely different.

6:37 SPEAKER_03: So you can see that Bowie kept returning to our city to play multiple sold-out shows, recording the shows, and it kind of solidified his love for the city's soul scene, which directly led him to record the Young Americans album, his next album, at Sigma Sound Studios in Philly, working with local artists like Luther Vandros. And now a new persona emerges. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted towards a sound he characterized as plastic soul. Again, another kind of artsy label that really hasn't been identified yet in music.

7:14 SPEAKER_03: So that's a style of uh funk and and soul and RB and swing. And so on this next album, Bowie booked sessions at Philly's famed Sigma Sound Studios with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's team in August and November of 1974. These sessions produced with Tony Visconti and featuring guitarist Carlos Alamar and a young Luther Vandros produced tracks like the title track Right and Can't You Hear Me eventually recording fame, which shot to number one. The album Young Americans released in 1975. This featured kind of a Philly funky disco feel uh to it, immersed with his 60s roots in RB blues and soul.

8:05 SPEAKER_03: Now his funky follow-up album Station Station in 1976 would continue this quote-unquote plastic soul genre with the hit Golden Years. And now we finally come to 1977, and he again changed direction with the electronic inflected album Low. This is the first of three collaborations he did with Brian Eno that came to be known as the Berlin trilogy. He's now in his new persona, kind of like a Berlin arts performer, which makes sense because he moved to Berlin trying to get healthy, and it was during this time period he recorded his three albums with Brian Eno.

8:50 SPEAKER_03: As I mentioned, Lowe in 1977, Heroes in 1977. That's a pro prolific year for Dave and Bowie. And the final piece in the trilogy Lodger, which was released in 1979. Now these albums featured kind of a minimalistic and ambient instruments and synthesizers and sounds from generators, uh, so it was uh again electronic and uh kind of new wave-ish, uh quite a different style than Plastic Soul. And also the Starman genre. So his genius of changing music styles three times in a span of just actually a couple years is really unbelievable.

9:36 SPEAKER_03: We're only talking nineteen seventy-two, all the way up until right now, nineteen seventy-seven, which he's already changed his persona three different times, and his musical styles and his concerts and his stagecraft. Uh absolutely quite unbelievable. By this time, David Bowie is performing at the Spectrum Arena. His concerts at the Spectrum totaled about ten shows, um, starting in March 1976. His last show was in July 1990. So after completing Low and Heroes, Bowie spent much of 1978 on his Isler 2 World Tour.

10:16 SPEAKER_03: And David Bowie rolled into the Spectrum on April 28th and 29th, 1978, on this world tour. And of course, the shows were recorded. It's this tour and recording I'm actually going to feature today. Once again, I have to reiterate it. Bowie chooses our venue to record a live album. There are some recordings of concerts subsequently in Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. The set list included material from Bowie's most recent studio album, Station Station, Low Heroes. Uh, but also contained some songs from his earlier albums and the successful The Rise and Falls of Ziggy startup.

10:59 SPEAKER_03: So, let's get to this featured performance. I chose Heroes since it captured his current persona and music era at this point. This is off his official live album stage recorded at the Philadelphia Spectrum during the April shows 1978. Here is David Bowie on the Spectrum Stage. Enjoy.

12:45 SPEAKER_01: And that is the fat and that is the best.

17:40 SPEAKER_03: Oh, it was just phenomenal live. Uh unfortunately, I never got to see him in concert. But I am very thankful that we have these two great live albums and other recordings out there. Um he recorded in Philly that captured his shows. Um two completely different albums too. Early Bowie, the Tower in the early 70s, and then later 70s with uh stage here. Um completely different uh persona. It's really quite amazing, as I mentioned before, to change all those musical styles over all those albums and visually being able to do that live uh all in one decade.

18:25 SPEAKER_03: That's it'll it would never be duplicated. I mean, it would just never you cannot do that nowadays. He didn't stop there. His ever changing musical styles and theatrical personas would uh continue in the eighties with his so-called uh new romantic and pop era, he would continue to play in the spectrum and come back and tour. Uh then the early nineties, the tin machine era, and later nineties with uh, I guess what's called a neoclassic era. Again, it's really quite unbelievable an artist can change like this after a few years and be successful.

19:01 SPEAKER_03: And as I said, uh if you didn't like Bowie's musical style at the time, he'll eventually come around to you and your taste. It's quite impressive to present these styles visually and musically in concert. Um he just had uh great fans and he was always backed up by great producers, and he took great care to record these albums and then go out and present these songs uh visually. Unfortunately, Bowie passed away on January 10th, 2016. He is obviously sorely missed, but again, the music and legacy you left behind will never be forgotten or duplicated.

19:43 SPEAKER_03: And it is a once-in-a-lifetime art for us to enjoy and appreciate. So, I hope you enjoyed the session. Uh please continue to support and enjoy Bowie's music and films and art, and stay tuned for more great shows and interviews coming up. I'm Bob Hill and I appreciate tuning in and look forward to seeing you again in the concert hall.