| Submitted by: Norris, Kelly-Marie (kmnorris@mail.gcnet.net) Earthling, Washington DC 12.October.1997 This show was magnificent for many reasons. Number one, I was able to get quite close to the stage for once. Bowie was his usual right-on self, his voice better than shows of years passed. Mike Garson reminded me of a mad scientist in his "la-bor-a-tory...." Reeves was actually smilingfrom time to time, and Gail Ann was amazingly graceful. Mad props out to Zach as well. Zack looks the exact same age he did in that B-52's video from ten years ago. That guy must be on ginseng or something. However, these things are not what made this show the best DB show I have ever seen. Although..... those reasons pretty much kicked ass on their own...... Frankly, it was the people I met while waiting those 6 long hours to get in... You see, before this tour, I had no computer access. I had no idea that there was a Bowie family online until I got a computer at work the summer of 96. And instead of doing the job I was hired to do, I was dossing around the net looking for Bowie. It was through the search engines I discovered the official Bowie site, and another great place you may have heard of called "Teenage Wildlife." I met so many wonderful, witty people. I had found an online home. I knew for certain I wasn't the only Bowie fan left in the world, which I had pretty much assumed since the end of the Serious Moonlight Tour..... By the time the Earthling Tour came around I had a gaggle of new friends from the ‘net, most of whom were going to be in DC for the show. It seems that Bowie fans have a lot of extra income. They pretty much just travel the world going to Bowie shows. In between tours, they all get jobs or something. The day of the show, I was so excited, I could not sleep, and believe me I'm pretty damn good at sleeping all day. We decided to get down to the venue in the early afternoon, and wait for the rest of my new friends to show up. As it turns out, the first people we met were Kali and Frippertronic, two super cool guys. They had the smarts to have brought little toy gnomes as props... Fripp wrote naughty things on his gnome. I scolded myself for only bringing a crummy t-shirt on which I had painted a sunflower and all of my new friends names. Soon after, along came PamEE, who eventually became my bathroom buddy. I will never go to a public restroom again in DC alone again without PamEE. She runs a mean defence. (Aesop's moral of that story, "never drink a lot of beer in line at a David Bowie show in a bad neighbourhood...") It was not long before PattiBowie, Tura, Ramsey, Gilly, Aquaria (Aq and Gilly were kind enough to loan me their photos to accompany this story) and a bunch of others found there way to the encampment. Everyone was so amazingly cool and smart and witty. I remembered why I was a Bowie fan in the first place. Bowie fans are smart, hip and free-spirited. Bowie fans can make waiting in line six hours in the heat, smack in the middle of the worst part of DC where crackheads are lurking in the parking lot of the strip club across the street, FUN. That is no small feat, mind you. I felt at home in the middle of the crappiest part of the crappiest city in the US. Finally, they began to let us in, and we huddled as close to the stage as we can get. We're packed in like Vienna sausages. We don't mind, it's us against everyone else trying to get up front, and who can blame any of us for trying? I don't remember much until Bowie came out and began singing in a voice that I didn't know he had (Memo To Me: Smoke more and take up singing again.). Bowie was charming, engaging, funny. During Fashion, he danced with the little shirt I made him. People said afterwards they thought he might keep it. However, the crowning moment of the night goes to the "gnome toss" during "Little Wonder." Kali, who either had been force fed large amounts of hallucinogenics as a child, or perhaps simply had a complete lack of hand to eye coordination, tossed his gnome in such a way that it actually hit Bowie in a place men least like to have gnomes thrown. David made a wonderful joke about it, in his best mock angry voice yelling "Owwww! Who threw that gnome?!" As I looked around, and the entire audience's collective jaw dropped. Fortunately for David (and Kali, I'm sure...), David was unscathed, and apparently able to bear more children if he so desired, at a later date. After this amazing show we stood outside and had the show post-mortem. Everyone was elated. Indeed, one of my favourite tours. I wished the night would never end, but unfortunately it had to. We went our separate ways, and stayed in touch online. Our friendships endure though, and as a point in fact, we had a reunion of sorts in Philly on Halloween. We will always have our common experiences to link us together. And these experiences have made us really close. I am so glad these people are my friends. Also, I am glad no one is allowing Kali to throw anything again for the rest of his natural life. (Although Kali has since informed me he is licensed to "lightly fling" moondust from time to time....) I thank God for Bowie. As a kid I didn't have any taste in music until my mum bought me Diamond Dogs because I liked the album cover. And to think, my life could have gone completely awry. I could have remained a Fleetwood Mac fan instead. KelMar
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