David Bowie – Space Oddity – Live 1974

Rock

Year2016

Duration7m

Watch Now

7.2

Space Oddity was originally recorded on the 20th of June 1969, and released, less than 3 weeks later (those were the days!) in early July of that year. It was included on Bowie’s 2nd album, called David Bowie, in the UK and, Man of Words/Man of Music, in the US. Later, it was reissued in 1972, with the familiar Ziggy-era look of Mick Rock’s video and accompanying cover photo as, Space Oddity. Space Oddity was reissued as a single several times in the 70’s and was in and out of the charts and radio play-lists, throughout the decade. Like a lot of my generation, it was the first Bowie song I became aware of as a youngster. When I went looking for a Bowie record that contained Space Oddity - there it was - lead track on ChangesOne. And the rest of course is (my Bowie) history. Space Oddity was performed on the 1974 Diamond Dogs tour. It was included in the set because Bowie was keen to break America and this was a song people knew, unlike the fairly new ‘Dogs material. He performed the song above the audience, in a chair mounted on the moving hydraulic arm of a cherry picker. The cherry picker emerged from a pair of doors atop one of the “Hunger City” towers (the one with the phallus) and went out over the first six rows of the audience. It is likely people heard the familiar "Ground Control to Major Tom" opening line, before they realized where Bowie was. As the song came to an end, the chair would return to its position and the final note would see Bowie feign death with his head slumped, before the stage was plunged into darkness. The audio used here is from the Tower, Philadelphia in July 1974, and is included on the 2005 remastered David Live album. Like most of the songs on the tour, once one gets used to the soulful and jazzy rearrangements, there is so much to enjoy in the performance, with great playing by the band, and a fantastic vocal by Bowie. I sent a preview of this video to Mike Garson. Mike was keyboard player on this and many recordings and performances, throughout Bowie's ca