Repertoire
The set list included tracks spanning Bowie's 30 plus years in the music business, from The Man Who Sold the World (1970) all the way to Reality (2003), along with collaborations such as Sister midnight (with Iggy Pop) and "Under Pressure" (with Queen), and snippets and teasers of Bowie classics such as "Space Oddity" and "Golden Years". There is a bit more focus, however, on tracks from the albums released since the Earthling World Tour in 1997, Heathen (2002), and Reality.
The only exception from his latest albums is 'hours...' (1999); no tracks from this album were included, possibly due to poor reception of the album. Other albums with no appearance included Space Oddity (1969), the cover album Pin Ups (1973), the ill-received Never Let Me Down (1987), the albums produced with the band Tin Machine, and Black Tie White Noise (1993).
A notable inclusion into the tour were the tracks from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, usually performed as the final encores. "Ziggy Stardust" was nearly always the finale of each concert.
The inclusion of tracks from Let's Dance and Tonight was also notable, considering a fan tendency to reject the albums as "too commercial", seeing the return of the singles "Modern Love", "Blue Jean", "Lets Dance," "China Girl", and a semi-acoustic version of "Loving the Alien".
The interpretations presented often a heavier and more complex sound than those of the album releases to suit the band for which the Reality album had been written; a more dynamic "Rebel Rebel" which later saw a release as a bonus track was arranged as an opener which included notably some audience participation, though on a few occasions "New Killer Star" or "The Jean Genie" were played first. Use of audience vocals appear in a number of songs, most notably in interpretations of "China Girl", in which Bowie first invited the audience to sing on their own, only to inevitably fail, and then restarted the song singing it on his own. The process occurred somewhat vice-versa during performances of "All the Young Dudes", in which Bowie's voice was somewhat out of range to sing the chorus.
Read more about this topic: A Reality Tour
Famous quotes containing the word repertoire:
“The best joke-tellers are those who have the patience to wait for conversation to come around to the point where the jokes in their repertoire have application.”
—Joseph Epstein (b. 1937)
“For good teaching rests neither in accumulating a shelfful of knowledge nor in developing a repertoire of skills. In the end, good teaching lies in a willingness to attend and care for what happens in our students, ourselves, and the space between us. Good teaching is a certain kind of stance, I think. It is a stance of receptivity, of attunement, of listening.”
—Laurent A. Daloz (20th century)