| Daily Mail Friday, June 6, 1997 London Hanover Grand Adrian Thrills Bowie Back to the Future Having celebrated his 50th birtday in January with a concert at New York's Madison Sqare Garden, it would be easy for David Bowie to start looking for soft options The most compelling figure in British rock during his commercial prime in the Seventies, he has nothing left to prove and could easily churn out his greates hits ad infinitum in a Jagger-style parody of the glory days. But the cosy path has never appealed to the chamelion instincts of the Thin White Duke. The past year has been one of feverish activity, his American tour being followed by the Earthling album, a tenacious attempt to embrace the Nineties. Bowie still wants to be a hero. He's even playing small venues again. This intimate show in a packed West End Club was a warming up for a European tour, which began last night in Germany. With a band now perfectly attuned to his artistic objectives, Bowie is clearly enjoying playing live again. Gaunt features accentruated b a goatee beard and that familiar shock of spiky orange hair, he took to the cramped stage of the Hanover rand positively beaming. 'It's really good to be back, ' he grinned. And the words rang true. In opening the first of two sets with nods to a couple of well-loved album tracks- a wonderfully melancholy Quicksand from Hunky Dory and the heavily electronic V2 Schneider from Heroes-he immediately won over the small crowd. After a meaty Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), Bowie and his band embarked on a five-song excursion into Earthling, breaking the journey only with a rendition of his 1980 hit Fashion. An artist who has regularly raided his own back pages for inspiration, Bowie looked to the urban blues of his early solo albums when writing Earthling. But where his vintage songs were rooted in the four square rock rhythms of the era, he now ebraces modern dance culture, particularly the frenetic urban beats of drum'n'bass. The notion of a middle-aged super-star shamelessly adopting street sounds would strain the gulibility of most audiences. Rather like when 10cc tried to play reggae on Dreadlock Holiday , the outcome could have been embarrassing. But Bowie, the crafty magpie, gets away with it by enhancing the drum'n'bass shuffle of Little Wonder and The Last Thing You Should Do with a populist slant. As a song writer, he also creates melodies to suit his own vocal limitations, omitting the top end that he once reached so magnificently. Striking a balance between the old, new and downright bizarre, the set continuited with a cover of the Laurie Anderson hit O Superman. After beginning softly, with bassist Gail Ann Dorsey intoning over bleeped electronics, the piece built impressively to an extended finale. The set ended with a quartet of standards from the Seventies and Eighties. With The Jean Genie running into Queen Bitch, Fame and Stay, Bowie hammed it up in time honoured vaudeville style. After playin old songs with such vigour, he resumed 20 minuites later with largely newer, dance oriented material. From the hypnotic Dead Man Walking to the ambient I'm Deranged, it was a short set of exotic flavours and shifting moods. Brave enough to try something new, Bowie continues to move ever onwards.
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