Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

dance troupe, La La La Human Steps. As with the
White Light tour following the spectacle of 1974’s
Diamond Dogs outing, Bowie’s post–Glass Spider
trek was a study in understatement. Even La La La
Human Steps was corralled and less intrusive.
Bowie hid much of the band in darkness, opting to
sing much of the material by large, static monitors
(often showing videos of his classic hits), and his
stage costume was nothing more elaborate than a
white shirt and black trousers. For all its class and
commercial success (another sold-out run), Sound
and Vision, on the heels of Tin Machine, seemed
like more of a professional obligation than
something truly new and exciting. This was, critics
agreed, good Bowie again, but it was hardly
liberated Bowie.
“One thing I can tell you is he wasn’t very happy on
that tour,” Kizil-cay says. “Something wasn’t working.
It was a weird atmosphere. Backstage he would get
angry with us and say, ‘If nothing happens you should
move onstage, do something special.’ I think he
doesn’t like looking back.”
Tellingly, almost immediately after the tour closed,
Bowie set about working on Tin Machine II and
seemed happy to move forward once again. Another
tragedy, however, would force him to dig back into
the catalog one last time. In November of 1991,
Bowie’s friend and duet partner Freddie Mercury
died of an AIDS-related illness at just forty-five years
old. Bowie accepted an invitation to appear at a
massive tribute concert at London’s Wembley