Live Performances
Bowie took songs from this album on the road in September 1996, performing 4 US east coast "club" shows including one at the Roseland Ballroom in New York to positive reviews. Prior to taking the stage for the shows, Bowie would play his new song ("Telling Lies") over the loudspeaker, but as the single was only available for download over the Internet, most fans did not recognize the song. The setlist for these shows was similar to the setlist he'd use during the upcoming 1997 Earthling Tour.
On 9 January 1997, the day after Bowie turned 50, Bowie held a 50th birthday concert for himself, performing tracks off his Earthling album as well as a selection of songs from his back catalogue. Bowie was joined onstage to perform many of the songs by artists including Billy Corgan (of The Smashing Pumpkins), Foo Fighters, Sonic Youth, Frank Black, and Robert Smith (of The Cure). Other non-performing guests included Beck, Moby, Julian Schnabel and Iman. Artist Tony Ousler designed some of the artwork for the video backdrop that played behind the band onstage. The event was recorded for a pay-per-view special commemorating the event.
At the Phoenix Festival in 1997, Bowie and his band played in the Radio 1 Dance tent as Tao Jones Index. They performed in darkness with dry ice and strobe lights. Tao Jones Index was a pun based on Bowie's real name, David Jones, and the 1997 Bowie Bond issue (Tao is pronounced "Dow", as in Dow Jones Index from the US stock market).
Bowie went back on the road in support of this album, with his Earthling Tour taking place between May 1997 and the end of the year.
Read more about this topic: Earthling (album)
Famous quotes containing the words live and/or performances:
“I do not believe in erecting statues to those who still live in our hearts, whose bones have not yet crumbled in the earth around us, but I would rather see the statue of Captain Brown in the Massachusetts State-House yard than that of any other man whom I know. I rejoice that I live in this age, that I am his contemporary.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“At one of the later performances you asked why they called it a “miracle,”
Since nothing ever happened. That, of course, was the miracle
But you wanted to know why so much action took on so much life
And still managed to remain itself, aloof, smiling and courteous.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)