Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

literally features Bowie hanging on to himself,
cradling his own visage in his arms as if to telegraph
to his fans that a bit of comfort would be quite nice
right about now. Few responded to the collection.
Hours … marked the first Bowie studio album to fail
to crack the American Top 40 in over a quarter of a
century (intent on giving it a post-millennial fair
shake, Bowie reissued it in 2004 on his own ISO
label as a double disc). Bowie played “The Pretty
Things” on Saturday Night Live in the early fall of
’99, at the Net Aid benefit concert in October of
1999 and in an episode of VH1’s Storytellers, and
committed to a series of intimate club shows in
Paris, Dublin, Italy, Denmark and New York City,
marking the first time fans could see him in a
relatively intimate venue in three decades.
Shortly after the record hit shops, Gabrels
announced that he was leaving the fold after a
decade as Bowie’s guitarist (a run that rivaled
Carlos Alomar’s and lasted three times as long as
Mick Ronson’s). The Storytellers taping would mark
his last time playing alongside Bowie. Page
Hamilton of early-nineties grunge-metal rockers
Helmet was drafted as a replacement for the live
dates. Earl Slick and Mike Garson, both seventies
all-stars, returned, and Plati was given the role of
official musical director of the shows. Always one to
make a virtue of a possible free fall, Bowie used the
occasion to pull up more-obscure songs like
“Quicksand” from Hunky Dory and “Stay” from
Station to Station. These were true fan shows and