The news made headlines across the world: “Bowie Quits,” the New Musical Express trumpeted “Bowie Bows Out,” said several others. The audience’s shrieks can be heard in the live album and film of the concert. Pennebaker’s camera crews - on the last show of the biggest British tour in history, before “Rock and Roll Suicide,” the climactic song that closed both the “Ziggy” album and nearly every concert he performed during this era, Bowie stunned the world: “Not only is this the last show of the tour,” he said, “but it’s the last show that we’ll ever do.” There were more mundane, if colorful, real-life complicating factors as well: His manipulative, Svengali-like manager, Tony Defries, and aptly named MainMan management company (whom Bowie would ultimately pay upward of $50 million to separate from and obtain the rights to his music) dissention and rebellion within the Spiders, Bowie’s backing band that was also a part of the Ziggy storyline and not least, a seriously undersold upcoming American tour that needed a good reason to be canceled.Īnd so, on the Odeon stage - in front of five thousand fans, journalists and documentarian D.A. It was also one of the most manic periods of activity any major star had undertaken before or since: Bowie was essentially on tour for the entire period, playing nearly 200 concerts on three continents, and when he wasn’t performing, he was recording, in photo or video sessions, figuring out wardrobe and imagery, and plotting. But like many such creations, Ziggy turned into a Frankenstein-like monster that, exacerbated by drugs, idolatry, overwork and the trappings of fame, threatened to devour its creator, causing an identity crisis that Bowie - like countless other artists who’d wonder where the self ended and the star began - would struggle with for many years to come. In this almost unparalleled 18-month hot streak, Bowie created three classic albums - “Hunky Dory,” “Ziggy Stardust” and “Aladdin Sane,” featuring songs like “Changes,” “Life on Mars?,” “Starman” and “The Jean Genie” - as well as helming three albums for other artists: Lou Reed’s “Transformer” (featuring the New York bard’s biggest-ever hit, “Walk on the Wild Side”), Iggy Pop and the Stooges’ “Raw Power,” and Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes,” the generation-defining title track of which Bowie wrote. Within 18 months, Bowie had rocketed from a one-hit wonder to one of the most iconic pop stars the world had ever seen, with some of the greatest music of the era.
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