David Bowie 1972-11-17 Dania ,Pirates Cove Amusement Park (Remaster Learm) – SQ 7+

David Bowie 1972-11-17 Dania ,Pirates Cove Amusement Park (Remaster Learm)
Sound Quality Rating

01. Intro.flac
02. Hang On To Yourself.flac
03. Ziggy Stardust.flac
04. Changes.flac
05. The Supermen.flac
06. Life On Mars?.flac
07. Five Years.flac
08. Space Oddity.flac
09. Andy Warhol.flac
10. Drive In Saturday (Bowie DID play “Drive In Saturday” that night, he said, for the the first time.).flac
11. The Width Of A Circle (pt 1).flac
12. The Width Of A Circle (pt 2).flac
13. John, Iím Only Dancing.flac
14. Queen Bitch.flac
15. Moonage Daydream.flac
16. Waiting For The Man.flac
17. The Jean Genie.flac
18. Encore call
19. Suffragette City.flac
20. Rock ’N’ Roll Suicide.flac
21. Outro.flac

Label:
Audio Source: audience
Lineage: unknown gen tape received from Steveboy
Total running time: 1:25:55
Sound Quality : Much noise ,dull ,but still good listened to

Attendance: 200
Artwork: No.

After Hang on to Yourself Bowie says: “Good evening,my name’s David Bowie and these are the Spiders from Mars” to which some from the audience responds “Hi dave!” .The Spiders start tuning their instruments and Bowie does the announcement: This song called Ziggy Stardust“. After the number is finished there follows another round of tuning .and Bowie’s explanation “Ah,let me tell you that we’re all totally out of tune.Ha!. But we’re gonna play” is answered by someone from the audience calling “OK,allright,no problem!”.
It is a fine concert,the backup singing in Five Years is good and the rest of the songs are also played very well. The audience are reasonably enthusiastic,they recognise most of the songs and listen with interest when after Space Oddity
Bowie dwells upon the following number.Andy Warhol: “Thank you. When we got to New York we had a painter who had painted K. Bowles and Manlyn Monroe…” – the rest is not very intelligible. After Andy Worhol Bowie introduces a new song: “I’ve a now song for you I’d like to do very much. I wrote it on the tram from L.A to Chicago before I came down here and I tried to write it on the tram journey from Chicago to here. l’m not quite sure if I’ve learnt it yet ,so we’ll see won’t we”. The audiencee laugh and applauds. “l’ll tell you what it’s about because I didn’t understand it when I wrote it” Bowie goes on and the attentive audience laugh again. “This takes place in – probably in the year two thousand and thirty three witch is a good year,and in that time it was after a catastrophic time of war and many people didn’t know how to make love, and they learn to make love by watching the video film of the era of the nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties”. Again the audience applauded,and Bowie start to sing Drive in Saturday with his own guitar as sole accomparument. This was the first time this number was played live,and Bowie turns out a splendid version. It is also quite special because it is acoustic.As likely as not Bowie played it more than once during this US tour,but this is the only tape of the tour that contains it. “Thank you” Bowie says after the number is over,and gets thunders of applause.
“This is a number that was written by a band…..this is a New York band’s number and the band was called the Velvet Underground” Bowie says ,referring to Waiting For The Man,a cert in the ’72 US tour repertory.

Somewhere during the show a tiny,sharp object got into Bowie’s boot. In Cut deeper into his flesh with every movement,but he wouldn’t interrupt the show and kept on singing and swinging. He gave no inkling of his pain,and after Sufragette City he disappeared so that at last he could get rid of the thing in his boot; there was a bloody,fleshy mess in his boot.It took some time before Bowie and the spiders returned for an encore.but in the end they gave way to the yells for more. “Thank you very much. If we can manage it” Bowie says,not quitLe certain whether he would be able to do another number with his painful foot “this is is from Ziggy Stardust,its called Rock & Roll Suicide“. It’s a good performance,and after the number Bowie calls out “Thank you”,and the Ode to Joy tape is played ,witch brings us to the end of this concert

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Comment :
James Roos – Miami Herald (18 November 1972)

Review of Pirates World, Dania Concert – 17 November 1972

The first thing you notice about David Bowie is his, er unusual attire. When he stepped onto the stage at Pirates World Friday Night,lights flashed, Beethoven blared a la “Clockwork Orange” and there he stood – the incarnation of “gay rock”.

Yes, this is the latest fad in rock’s theatrical bag of weird tricks, blatantly homosexual mannerism, with costumes to match. So David Bowie wears his hair frizzed red, his face blanched white like a harlequin, his slender frame zipped into a red pantsuit. What a sight.
What a voice. For whatever his attempt at theatrics, David Bowie’s music is better than his show. At least, this time it was. All the effeminate gestures and swivelling of hips were just so much affection added to basically good musical talent.

That voice is a hard one to pin down in words, so conclusive is its quality. It is not quite sultry, yet sensuous. It is tinged with cabaret style, the smoothness of the balladeer. It can turn raunchy when the music so demands.
Most of the time it has an original timbre, so far as rock is concerned, though it derives from the Beatles and possibly Johnny Mathis.

Regardless, Bowie’s songs are enjoyable, his band rarely too loud. He can give you “Space Oddity” the song that put him into rock star orbit, with chordal electric guitar textures that beautifully set off his voice.

He knows how to use the guitar’s resources, to detune it for effects. He can blend with his partner in mellifluous duet, adding the Elvis Presley “Come on, come on” with compelling intent.

There was a new song, something about “Put you arms around my head and lets go to bed” which meandered without shape to guide it. And there were his standards, like “Changes” and “Five Years” which the small Pirates World audience soaked up with delight.

Ginger (Nitzfinger), the epitome of the loud, unimaginative hard rock band, was endured as prelude to Bowie’s appearance. This group seems to think overloaded bass guitar and a few screams are all there is to rock music. Two minutes of them would have been the same as 20; 45 minutes were absurd.

As a step in the right rock direction, the promoters searched all ticket holders for drugs at the gates, which held up the evening’s music, but may be a way of beginning to clean up the dope and drugs which taint the reputation of rock concerts. For a while I thought this was an altruistic step on the part of rock promoter Leas Campbell, especially when Capt. James Cooper of the Broward County sheriff’s office told me that the police were just on hand to make arrests, and that the promoters were doing the searching.

However, Campbell walked on stage to clear up any misconceptions about his motives.
No he didn’t like this search any more than the audience. It was supposed to have been for bottles, which have been thrown on stage in the past.

Perhaps. But Campbell is a clever man. He wouldn’t want to alienate his audience. And after all, this was his first concert at Pirates World, which is but little changed despite much ballyhoo about improving the facility.

Postscript from a reader:

“With regards to the David Bowie At Pirates World, Dania….I was working sound for the opening band, Ginger, who replaced Nitzfinger due to scheduling conflict. The [negative] review of Ginger portion of the show review is accurate with regards to the bass sound. We were using Clair Brothers Audio and the bass was way too loud and they would not turn it down due to Bowie’s sound check establishing the initial mix…..the tribulations of the opening act !! An interesting aside is the drummer for Ginger was Frankie Banali…..later of Quiet Riot.”

David Bowie Tour Band – The Ziggy Stardust Tour
David Bowie – vocals, guitar, harmonica
Mick Ronson – guitar, vocals
Trevor Bolder – bass
Mick “Woody” Woodmansey – drums
Matthew Fisher – piano (20 Apr 1972 – 27 May 1972)
Robin Lumley – piano (2 Jun 1972 – 15 Jul 1972)
Nicky Graham – piano (1 Aug 1972 – 7 Sep 1972)
Mike Garson – piano, mellotron, organ (22 September 1972 – end of tour)
John Hutchinson – rhythm guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar (8 Apr 1973 – 20 Apr 1973 – 3 July 1973)
Aynsley Dunbar – additional drums (8 Apr 1973 – 20 Apr 1973)
Geoffrey A. MacCormack – backing vocals, percussion (19 January 1973 – end of tour)
Ken Fordham – saxophone (19 January 1973 – end of tour)
Brian Wilshaw – saxophone, flute (19 January 1973 – end of tour)

Crew
Robin Mayhew ,Will Palin ,Mick Hince ,Dean Heiser – Sound ,Ground Control ,Front of House Engineer ,Stage hands
Nigel Olliff, Nick Gilbey, Paul Normand and crew – Lights ,1972 Heavy Light ,1973 See Factor Industries NY Bob See ,Steve Hurston ,Mick Fussey
Peter Hunsley – Stage Equipment
Suzi Fussey – Wardrobe, Makeup and Hair

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Remaster measures:
– no hiss and noise reduction
– sound levels adjusted
– some minor gaps between songs removed
– bass lifted
– middle frequencies reduced
– treble lifted
– gap in Width Of A Circle with fade out (part 1) and fade in (part 2)

Other remarks:
– this version for me is by far the best sounding version of the concert I know of (I had 4 versions from Steveboy for comparison + my own one)
– There is some hiss present but I decided to leave it that way in order not to remove too much of high frequencies
– Some seconds in the middle of Width Of A Circle missing due to tape flip
– From all versions I know of this concert part 2 (starting with the 2nd part of Width Of A Circle) has an
inferior sound, manifested by a lack of higher frequencies. But in this version this is much less present
– The second half of Space Oddity is getting inferior in sound and was EQ’ed separately (treble lifted). This is the same in all versions

For me this is now one of the best sounding audience recordings from 72. But make up your own mind (song samples attached). The only flaws are some cuts, mainly minor ones but a more mattering one in the middle of Width Of A Circle and the sound differences during the concert. But all in all this doesn’t really matter when listening to the recording.

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