Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

Michael Lipp man was reportedly blamed for this
logistical glitch and soon he was an ex-manager as
well, marking a long period of Bowie’s affairs being
run almost exclusively by himself and Schwab.
Rehearsals concluded in New York City, and the tour
opened, as was Bowie’s way, in Canada, at the
Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver in early February.
The first thing audiences saw as they took their
seats in the arena was Salvador Dalí and Luis
Buñuel’s sixteen-minute-long surrealist short film Un
Chien Andalou, immortalized by the Pixies’
“Debaser” and famous among film students and artdamaged
types for its signature image—an eye ball
(actually bovine) being sliced vertically and bleeding
jelly. “Geiger Counter,” from Kraftwerk’s latest,
Radio Activity, was the pre-show soundtrack,
suggesting Cold War edginess to thousands of
stoned rock fans looking for two hours of escapism.
Then a harsh white spotlight and Bowie, his hair
again slicked back, walked down the stairs in a
black vest, white shirt and black pants, crooning, in a
more deadpan register, “The return of the Thin White
Duke, throwing darts in lovers’ eyes,” as if he was
ruining some mass wedding ceremony by
announcing the punch is toxic. Despite the austerity,
uncommon to nearly all arena rock spectacles of the
day, the White Light tour, as it came to be known,
was another commercial and artistic success.
Critics praised the minimalism.
“In its own way Station to Station was quite
stylized too,” journalist Chris Charlesworth says.