Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

goatee, brocade coat, mess o’ eyeliner), footage of
the event is charmingly dated today, but at the time,
the atmosphere constituted a love fest, with the host
in genuinely good humor. Not much morbid reflection
here. “Good evening, we’re your rock band for
tonight,” Bowie announced as he took the stage.
“You’re going to get party vibes.”
“We just sort of sat down and he blasted the track
to us,” says Thurston Moore of how each selected
performer was broken in preshow. The band went to
Bowie’s studio to hear tracks from the then
unreleased Earthling record. “And it was this big
drum and bass thing with, like, him singing. And I
remember thinking how the whole drum and bass
underground had kind of been a little played out and I
was a little wary of it. Listening to David sing like
David sings on top of this drum and bass … [it was]
extremely energized and proficient, but I felt scared it
was gonna be this genre music that gets dated really
quickly. He told me, ‘I think I’ve really found my
ultimate musical bed … in jungle!’” Rehearsals took
place in an empty sports arena in Hartford,
Connecticut. “They were pre-creating the show,”
Moore says. “Who the fuck rents out a fucking
arena? People with his kind of revenue … they have
airplanes … they rent out arenas.”
Bowie’s band and Sonic Youth jammed on “I’m
Afraid of Americans,” and live, without the digital
brushstrokes, the strength of the track (one of
Bowie’s best late-era singles, especially after an NIN
remix) began to come through. “It would have been