Ottawa Citizen - 17 June 1974
Bowie show needs more rock, less role For all its grand production, David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs – the alleged theme of his latest concert - was disappointingly dull. In fact the most dramatic moments of the entire evening came during the aftermath of Bowie’s early exit. In North America, Bowie has yet to live up to his advance billing and Saturday night in the Civic Centre, before a strong crowd of about 7,000, Bowie again failed to reach any great heights musically. The show was 30 minutes late, during which time the audience was subjected to an aimless soundtrack that ranged from satanic grunts ready to be exorcised, to pretend pantings of pornographic passion already in the process of being exorcised. The stage was dominated by tall, grey cut-out skyscrapers dripping colored wax like a forest of inner-city candles. Bowie and his rather good band finally hit the stage and opened medium-strong with a good rendition of 1984. Dressed in a white suit complemented by red shoes and hair, Bowie looked and acted much like a highly polished, latter-day Bobby Rydell. He sang one under a street-light song dressed in an anklelength coat and when he removed the coat he removed his jacket – to a loud round of applause. This revealed a blue shirt with red suspenders and, save for a few latter-day Presley pelvic gyrations, this was the most risqué Bowie got all evening. Two singer-dancers who accompanied him did pander to some purient interest but not much. A high point of the evening – physically rather than musically – came with Bowie, his head the sole target of a tiny, bright spotlight, singing while perched atop the centre building. As the song progressed, a mechanic arm slowly lowered Bowie out over the audience. A clever gimmick but the visual effect was far more memorable than the song itself. Bowie’s routine with the 15-foot glistening Christmas ornament was equally underwhelming.	Bowie’s biggest problem, as the show’s key figure, was that he kept disappearing - musically rather than physically. There’s a lot of acting in rock and roll but there should be even more rock than role. As a smalltime actor, Bowie is a fair rock star but as a big time rock star, Bowie is a smalltime actor. The band was quite good and made tunes like Moonage Daydream, Suffragette City, Diamond Dogs and Rock And Roll Suicide some kind of highlights. Bowie wrote his own epitaph some time ago in Lady Stardust: "And he was alright The band was all together Yes he was alright The song went on forever …" Unfortunately Bowie is supposed to be something spectacular yet, despite impressive stage settings, Saturday night’s performance – 90 minutes without an intermission – just never did climax. Bowie received surprisingly good crowd response throughout the show and at the end, the demand for more was surprisingly strong and vociferous. While many left, many more thousands remained cheering and stomping until some time later it was announced that Bowie had left the building. Like wildfire, a chair throwing spree spread across the floor area as many young people gave vent to their frustration. Backgrounded by a dangerous barrage of bottles, the piles of chairs grew until a few individuals began throwing chairs at the security and equipment personnel on stage. Some chairs were thrown back at the crowd by people on stage but finally, before a nasty situation turned nastier cool-headed policemen quietly intervened to calmly clear out the crowd. Bouquets to the police, a slap on the wrist for the audience – whether or not their feelings of rip-off were justified – and a sad bye-bye to Bowie.
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