Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By David Bowie, Warner Music UK 2018.
Parlophone Records, in association with BBC studios and Glastonbury Festivals Ltd, have released David Bowie’s legendary Sunday night 25 June 2000 performance at the Glastonbury festival.
This concert is widely seen as one of the finest performances ever witnessed at this, the most famous festival of them all.
The package includes the full 21-song set and for the first time a DVD of the entire show (until now only 30 minutes has ever been broadcast on TV).
It is available in 2 CD, 2 CD/DVD, 3 LP and standard and high resolution digital formats.
Glastonbury co-organiser Emily Eavis commented: “I often get asked what the best set I’ve seen here at Glastonbury is, and Bowie’s 2000 set is always one I think of first. It was spellbinding; he had an absolutely enormous crowd transfixed… he played the perfect headline set.”
Emily’s father Michael, the founder of the festival, who first met Bowie at Glastonbury in 1971 said: “He’s one of three greatest of all time; Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and David Bowie.”
Bowie had resisted doing a ‘best of’ show for a very long time.
While he would always include three or four hits in his sets he wouldn’t do a show entirely comprised of them.
But for this performance he made an exception and put together a set list that was littered with his biggest well known songs and the audience lapped it up.
Bowie was a phenomenal performer.
He had the ability to mesmerise audiences while playing in arenas that normally hosted football games and that were less than ideal to promote intimacy between performer and audience.
And yet I saw him a couple of times in those circumstances and I rate them amongst the best concerts I’ve ever seen.
Bowie loved the Glastonbury festival and returned often.
Emily Eavis believes: “that David had a very deep relationship with Worthy Farm. He told some wonderful stories about his first time at the festival in 1971 when he stayed at the farmhouse and performed at 6am as the sun was rising.”
Bowie fans will love this album and the version with the DVD is probably the pick of the offerings.
