David Bowie Live In Concert

This week on Live in Concert, it's David Bowie's "Serious Moonlight" tour behind the Let's Dance album. Hear a classic show recorded live on September 12, 1983.

David Bowie was always reinventing himself: Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, Aladdin Sane. It seems he was not so much trying to keep up with the times as he was feeding his creativity and trying to stay one step ahead of routine and predictability. That being said, many of his die-hard fans think his 1983 album Let's Dance is too conventional, too '80s. It's hard to argue with 10+ million copies sold on the strength of "Modern Love," "China Girl," and the title track as massive singles. The album would go on to rack up over 10 million copies sold, making it Bowie's biggest.

Bowie's choice of musicians to surround himself with was always impeccable. For this record, he hired this unknown 28-year old kid form Texas he'd seen play the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland: Stevie Ray Vaughan. Most of the studio band was booked for the "Serious Moonlight" tour to promote Let's Dance, but Stevie Ray Vaughan showed up at rehearsals "with a cocaine habit, a hard-partying wife and an entourage looking for easy access to drugs." He was fired immediately and replaced with Earl Slick, a Bowie vet from the Diamond Dogs and Station to Station tours who knew much of the material. There were 96 shows on the tour- all of them sellouts. We’ll listen to his legendary performance captured live at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver on September 12th, 1983, this week on Live in Concert.

Bowie is the headliner, but you also get a couple of great live cuts from Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band in 2014 and classic 1981 shows from Joe Walsh and Billy Squier on the next Live in Concert, Saturday night at 8, exclusively on Kalamazoo's Rock Station, 107.7 RKR.

Enter your number to get our free mobile app