Bowie Live
It's a cool and cloudy Friday night as our taxi cruises to a halt outside the Wembley Arena. Hundreds of hopefuls are hanging around in the unlikely chance of getting a ticket at some kind of reasonable price. The ticket touts have them, and they're all over the place asking up to £400 for a £10 ticket. Inside, stall-sellers are flogging every conceivable form of Bowie paraphernalia. Earrings, key-rings, various teeshirts, glossy souvenir programmes. Money changes hands even faster at several bars dispensing pint-size plastic cups of bitter and lager.
One bar is surrounded by film people from Wardour Street. Greying distributors squeezed into their blue jeans. Smart young turks wearing the colourful Oshima Gang tee-shirt for the Bowie film "Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence". Confident young women in chic post-punk apparel. Older Chelsea types in party dresses.
Nobody appears to have paid in. No wonder the tickets were so scarce.
Further down there's a gathering of radio people who failed to get tickets for the night before. Most are wearing their latest gifts from the record companies - tee-shirts and shoulder-bags. "Darling, I hope it won't be as dreary as last night", moans one of them who's appropriately clad in a tee-shirt that proclaims "Take That Situation". Perhaps it's because of some negative critical reaction to Thursday's first night that there's an air of calm anticipation pervading the cavernous arena.
We take our seats, a trendy couple in designer jeans to our left, a pair of brash youths in ragged denim shorts to our right. The row in front offers a fashion line of leather, see-through vests, pin-stripes, luminous jackets, and garish make-up, and that's only the men. All human life is here, so to speak.
Half an hour late, at 8.30pm, the house lights go down. There's no support band, which makes sense. The ten-piece backing band pick their way with torches in their hands onto the vast stage. The stage lights come up on enormous columns of green, red and yellow light streams. Guitars are strapped on. Drum sticks are wielded. Saxaphones are poised for playing. To the right of the stage hangs a huge silver halfmoon. A voice booms over the PA: "Welcome to the Serious Moonlight Tour '83".
And he-ee-ee-er's David! The Thin White Duke bounces onto the stage, grins, and tears into "The Jean Genie". It's been five years since the last tour and the Duke's not too thin anymore. The former gaunt androgyne has turned 36 as a dapper, tanned, blonde symbol of survival and success. The crowd's on its feet. A ten-second breather and before the applause even peaks it's straight into "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide". This is Bowie's time-capsule show of his career to date, and the hits keep pumping out "Heroes", "Golden Years", a sublime "Life on Mars". The sound isn't great - it rarely is at Wembley - but it improves. But any other of Thursday's teething problems appear to have been solved.
The star dances round the stage in his baggy cream suit during "Fashion"; not one of his better songs. But it's there for a purpose. During the instrumental break in "Fashion" the band slips into the spine-tingling intro to "Let's Dance"" the song that restored Bowie at the top of the charts this year. "Let's dance for fear tonight is all", he sings, the hot backing band pounding out the funk, and the audience erupts. A frenetic rendition of Lou Reed's "White Light White Heat" brings the first half of the show to a throbbing crescendo.
There's an interval because it's time for Bowie to change his clothes. He's back in blue for a blistering version of his "Cat People" theme, taken several times faster than in the movie or on the "Let's Dance" album. "Just be still with me", he croons while the sax sears. "You wouldn't believe what I've been through". The first set was solid, tight and slick. The second is magnificent, moving backwards and forwards in time from "Rebel Rebel" to "China Girl" to "Scary Monsters" on to an absolutely stunning performance of "Young Americans".
He steps off stage, then re-appears encaged in one of the gleaming tubes of light for "Ashes to Ashes", the sequel to "Space Oddity" which comes next. For this he stands playing his acoustic guitar bathed in a flood of white light. His other prop is the glowing globe from the "Ashes to Ashes" video. He kicks it in to the eager crowd and it's passed between him and the audience until he tires of the routine.
Bowie reminds us of his mime training when he indulges in some mock-Hamlet theatrics with his boisterous snazzily-dressed backing singers, the brothers Frank and George Simms, during "Cracked Actor".
"Hang on to Yourself", a power-house treatment of "Fame", the hits keep coming, and then, it's over. Well, not quite. There's the encores to come. There has to be an encore because the house lights haven't come up yet, so the audience are reasonably restrained as they ask for more.
The torches twinkle on the dark stage again and Bowie and band are back for a surprising reprise of "The Jean Genie". Off again. No house lights yet. Sparing shouts for more. Then back again and off again. Still no house lights, but there's a greater urgency in the calls for a third encore. Bowie's back, singing "I'm standing in the wind but I never wave bye bye" for a tremendous finale of "Modem Love" that's far superior to the album version, and the most blase are dancing in their seats.
He waves bye bye, and the house lights come up. The audience stamps, shouts, screams for more. No reply. 10,000 smiling faces and sweaty bodies stream out of Wembley.