| The Birmingham Post 4th August Martin Longley Que Club Birmingham Little Wonder that Bowie's still great David Bowie's Back-To-Smaller-Venues tour kicked off in Birmingham with a band working up into killer form following two years of constant road-humping. The crowd was colled with excitement, eager to be blasted at close range by a rock god of normally stadium proportions. Seeing Bowie on this scale was a reminder of what truly constitutes true star power. All the talk is of his drum-n-bass borrowings, over whether they're authentic or not. This misses the point: he's picking elements of the style and latching them onto some of his most nostalgic song writing in recent years, looking simultaneously backwards and forwards. The actual melody of recent single Little Wonder, taken from the Earthling album, would be perfectly at home on 1978's Hunky Dory album. Bowie's repertoir is so far-ranging that it's easy to be treated to surprise exhumations. Aided by the acoustic guitar of old, he revisited Quicksand which actually was on Hunky Dory. Some of the new songs are taking their place as classics, with Hello Spaceboy already ensconced as a vessel-bursting set-topper. Here it reached several climaxes as it rocketed around the sweaty walls. Then he romped through one of his funkiest tunes, Station To Station's Stay. I'm Afraid of Americans and Looking For Satellites thrilled to the grinding guitar slabs laid down by Reeves Gabrels. He was in his own world, garbed in 1973 Roxy Music feather bower, his head shaven close, encased in huge earphones that seemed to cut him off from mundane sonic reality. Gabrels is also a master of cloning and tonight he was closely approximated the unhinged quaility of Robert Fripp's original solos on Scary Monsters and Fashion (the latter complete with ironic hardcore porn videos). Then Bowie embarked on a liquid journey through an almost unrecognisable O Superman, Laurie Anderson's only singles success. Bassist Gail Ann Dorsey sang lead, backed by Bowie, swimming hypnotically against some rather more gentle drum and bass ripples. Look Back In Anger and White Light, White Heat then sent an exhausted audience spilling onto the streets, hardly believing what they'd just seen.
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