>> DAVID BOWIE :: STAGE

I feel this is the best live album of the batch (Ziggy Live was, of course, the soundtrack to the film). Maybe it's because more preparation and planning went into this one. David Live was a haphazard collection of many live shows (as was Thin Lizzy's Live And Dangerous) and my job was to salvage many a poor recording -- I wasn't the engineer on either.

With Stage we concentrated on just four shows, two in Philadelphia and one each in Boston and Rhode Island. They all took place in the space of a week. What makes the sound of the album so consistent was the fact that RCA loaned us their excellent mobile studio, which we parked outside each venue. I was the engineer, assisted by two senior RCA engineers. Each show was miked exactly the same way and no one was permitted to change the settings on the console from show to show. I was sitting in the best seat in the house, behind the console with two JBLs blasting in my face while I watched everything on three closed-circuit television screens.

So consistent was the sound (and the tempo of each song) that we were able to use the intro and outro of "Station To Station" from Boston and the bulk from Rhode Island. The edits are practically imperceptible, although you'll probably go back for a listen to guess where they are.

This album had the unique distinction of being a truly live album -- nothing was "fixed" in the studio later on (a testimony to how Bowie always gets it right in "take one"). The reason was that the band was still on tour and the album had to be released as soon as possible. With both David Live and Ziggy Live, there were only two backup singers (and the backup singers on David Live were out of breath from dancing). With Stage, the backup vocals were shared by almost all the musicians: guitarists Carlos Alomar and Adrian Belew, pianist Sean Mayes, bassist George Murray and keyboardist Roger Powell. Even drummer Dennis Davis added a cool rap vocal to "TVC 15" -- listen for him in the right speaker. This was a very tight band that became the foundation for the next studio album, The Lodger.

I always felt that the openers "Hang On To Yourself" and "Ziggy Stardust" were taken at too brisk a tempo, but the album settles in at track three, "Soul Love". "Fame" and "TVC 15" are sheer delights, rivaling the studio versions. This band is one of the best David has ever assembled for a live show -- each musician is full of dazzling musical personality and there's the unusual addition of Simon House on electric violin.

The tracks on the album were put in chronological order (according to the date when the compositions had first been released), rather than in the sequence in which they were played live. It was an idea of mine and David approved. Disc two begins with the controversial "ambient" instrumentals of "Warzawa", "Speed Of Light", "Art Decade" and "Sense Of Doubt". The audience, I must admit, got a bit raucous during these performances and that was too distracting (check out the "boo" at the beginning of "Sense Of Doubt") -- this type of realism didn't work (not that there was a lot, but it was distracting enough to mar the recording). I just used the audience tracks in the intros and endings to prove that they were there, but cut them completely during the bulk of the recording. The sound was so pristine that we were accused of substituting studio recordings for these. I can assure you that they were totally live and very difficult to play, deserving clean sound unfettered from jeers.

Stage ends with five songs from Bowie's latest albums, Low and Heroes, so the material in this live set spans five years of his career.

I mixed the album alone, back at my Good Earth Studios in London. Although this album was recorded in America and mixed in London, David and the band finally heard the finished product in a studio hired for one evening in Munich, Germany -- they really were still on tour! They loved it and jumped out of their seats when they heard the descending notes on "Fame" (we were playing it back very, very loud). David loved it just as I'd mixed it and didn't want to change a single thing. I suggested that maybe the ambient instrumentals could be edited shorter, but he insisted they remain on the album in their entirety.