#1 - David Bowie - Heroes (Live Version discussion . . . ranked from worst to first)
Heroes was the 4th most performed song in the Bowie repertoire. It was performed live at least one time in 13 different years.
Live - 1992 (Freddie Mercury Tribute)
I don't love the entirety of this one. Bowie's vocals are fine, and the star power is there with Queen, Mick Ronson, and Ian Hunter. Ronson playing lead is interesting, but doesn't fit his style of playing. It seems to me like Bowie has energy but Queen as backing band is only ok. To me, it's historically more significant than anything else about it. The sound quality is muffled, which doesn't help matters.
Live - 1997 (Phoenix Festival),
Live - 1996 (Lorely Festival)
Reeves Gabrels tries to hard to stand out on this version. However, it has the seeds of emphasizing the bass more (which will be vital in the versions from the 2000s and will become the secret sauce to take the song to the next level). It's also a little to lounge act and tecno-y for my liking. The sound in the 1997 video is washed out, but I don't love the 1996 version even in crisp, clear sound.
Live - 1990
Adrian Belew may be a great guitarist, but he doesn't always fit with a song. Just like the 1978 version, he makes himself a focal point in parts of the song where he shouldn't. He tramples Bowie's vocals. I don't love the cadence of this version, as it feels too rigid and almost march-like.
Live - 1978 (Earl's Court)
This tour was where Bowie got connected with Adrian Belew, who IMO adds too many flourishes and ad libs things that don't need to be added. Bowie sings well, but I think they slowed the tempo down a little too much.
Live - 2001 (Tibet House Benefit Concert)
The sound and video quality are awful, but this version replaces guitars with a string section. I have heard better recordings of it and it does come of a little more cultured and high brow than the standard version. Hard to tell in this video, however.
Live - 1983 (Serious Moonlight Tour)
The more I listen to all the different performances for all these songs across the decades, the more I appreciate Earl Slick. It seems like he knows his place and to play true to the original songs and not to upstage Bowie when he is singing. But he also knew to turn things up when he had a designated guitar solo or extended outro. Heroes was "just a song" in the first set . . . whereas the second set was where Bowie and friends seems to open things up more.
Live - 1977 (Marc Bolan Show)
For most of the world, the debut of Heroes before the single or album came out. Bowie made several promotional TV appearances to support the album, usually just him without any visuals of a band performing. This was the first such performance. I don't know if the music was played live or if it was pre-recorded, but it's not the studio version of the song. Each appearance had different music that Bowie sang to, so I can't really tell how they pulled it off each time. Bowie looks incredibly human in 'regular clothes" and could best be described as "looking normal," which for him was rare. Bowie was BFF's with Bolan (some feel he was the person Lady Stardust was based off of), who sadly would pass away a few days later in a car crash.
Live - 2000 (Glastonbury Festival), (
Video of the festival)
Bowie rearranged the song for the better when he brought the bassline to the forefront and used the guitar as a dramatic device, adding it in layers and building to a huge crescendo to end the song. IMO, this was the way the song should have been all along. The video footage from the festival shows just how crazy these types of things get with hundreds of thousands of people in attendance. I am guessing the fireworks display did not happen while Bowie was playing, but I wasn't there and thus can't tell. Pretty much any version from the 2000's kicks the older versions in the nads.
Live - 1987 (Berlin Wall)
The performance is ok and nothing spectacular (if not kind of wimpy), but it's historical importance is what makes this performance great. The concert was performed in front of 80,000 people in front of the Berlin Wall, with the enormous Glass Spider stage rig set up outside. However, an untold number of thousands of fans showed up on the OTHER side of the wall. This was where Bowie wrote the song, about the political climate and the symbolism of the wall. After the show, protests and riots flared up in East Berlin. The wall would come down two years later, and even the German government acknowledged that Bowie's performance set things in motion to help unify the city.
Live - 2002 (Berlin),
Live - 2002 (Paris),
A & E Live By Request - 2002
After 25 years, Bowie had finally discovered what he had in this song. Not using the guitar for the first 2 minutes sets up the big finish. He looks like he is having the time of his life. Being in Berlin, Bowie would go off the board and perform the entire Low album to start the second set, performing 31 songs in total on the evening. Despite being a master of his craft, he would still evolve and learn that Heroes is not an early in the set song. Bowie said over the years Heroes is a b!tch to sing, as it takes a lot of chops to belt out the second half of the song. That's why it usually played early in the show when he hadn't put too much of a strain on his vocal chords. In his later tours, he moved the song to the end of the first set or in the second set and totally played to the crowd. The entire A&E show shows Bowie is actually a decent guy and is very enjoyable.
Live - 2004 (Hurricane Festival),
Live - 2004 (Isle of Wight Festival),
Live - 2003 (Unknown)
This show proved to be Bowie's swan song, and this was the last Bowie show the world would ever get. If Bowie looks tired and a lot less animated, IT'S BECAUSE HE HAD A HEART ATTACK EARLIER IN THE SHOW. But the show must go on. More has come out that Bowie was in failing health . . . in addition to having terminal liver cancer, he had survived 6 heart attacks. Bowie waived off medical assistance during the Hurricane Festival. How severe Bowie's condition has mostly been kept secret, but bassist Gail Ann Dorsey later admitted that after closing the show with Ziggy Stardust, Bowie collapse leaving the stage and had to be rushed to the hospital. The Isle of Wight performance was from a couple of weeks earlier (and does not have the baggage of almost dying attached to it). The mystery show shows how into it Bowie fans would get (with thousands of arms clapping over their heads in unison).
Live - 1985 (Live Aid)
This performance of Heroes is considered to be his best version ever (which clearly I don't agree as I don't have it at the top of the list). Bowie hadn't toured on 2 years and wouldn't go out on the road again for another 2 years, so he got together a motley crew of musicians that included Thomas Dolby on keyboards. Bowie was one of two acts that stood any chance of following Queen (the other being U2, who had performed earlier in the day). Bowie was interviewed and said he was never as excited to perform than he was for Live Aid. While I like this performance, IMO, offloading the guitar part to keyboards should have been considered sacrilegious. Even now, Dolby tells story of the day he shared the stage with Bowie.
Live - 1996 (Bridge School Benefit)
Of all people, Bowie hung out with Moby in the mid 90s, who convinced Bowie to jam with him on an acoustic version of Heroes. Bowie said he had never performed it that way and gave it a shot initially with Moby. A year or two later, Bowie performed this stripped down version at the Bridge School Benefit, which to me I enjoy far greater than the studio version. It is a completely different interpretation of the song, and Bowie on acoustic guitar, Dorsey on bass and backing vocals, and Gabrels on electric guitar takes the song to another level. Compared to other versions, this one focuses almost entirely on Bowie's vocals and the lyrics shine through. I am guessing not many people have heard this version, as it received no airplay or much publicity.
Live - 2001 (Concert For New York City)
For the reasons I am going to list off here, this is my favorite Bowie performance ever, and it may even be my favorite single live performance by anyone (although I would have to give that a lot more thought). To set things up, Bowie was living in NYC when 9/11 happened, like many other people, Bowie was shaken to the core. He hadn't been all that active for awhile. He had a lengthy tour in 1997 and only made a couple of promotional appearance in 1998. He played 11 shows mixed in with some TV appearances in 1999. He only played 5 times in 2000 (with the biggie being Glastonbury). And he sang a few songs at the Tibet House Benefit (which I listed earlier) in 2001. When the Concert For New York City came along, Bowie was eager to perform but didn't really have a band. He had been laying low and had just started getting some songs written for what would become the Heathen album in 2002. He pulled together some former band members last minute. I believe he had one practice before the show, which also featured Paul Schaffer & The World's Most Dangerous Band as the backing band for most of the performers.
I remember watching the show on TV. The people in New York were about as down in the dumps as people could ever be. Five weeks after the attacks, the rubble was still on fire and a black cloud of soot and ashes still hung over the city. I don't know how they determined the order of the acts, but Bowie led off the festivities, dressed in everyday, everyman wear. Imagine my surprise when the show started with Bowie by himself sitting on his derriere at the edge of the stage . . . playing some type of keyboard but playing America by Simon & Garfunkel (#186 on the list).
With a lot of the crowd filing in and trying to find their seats, Bowie kicked off Heroes. As outlined repeatedly, America has not been all that receptive to his music, and playing in front of a crowd that was emotionally bankrupt. They were spent before the show had even started. The band had not yet played a note, had only run through the song one time, and had to kick off the show in earnest from a cold start. And then they gave us THIS performance.
This is the baseball equivalent of riding across the country crammed in the back of a bus, then walking into the stadium and being asked to pinch hit against Aroldis Chapman without even taking a warmup swing. The result was turning on a 105 mph fastball and hitting it 550 feet. Everything about this performance is just insanely good. As discussed earlier, Bowie had retooled Heroes to start with the bass and then add in the guitar later. But very few people (myself included) knew that, as the only way you would have known was if you went to one of his 5 shows the year before.
In watching the show, I saw some familiar faces in terms of prior Bowie musicians . . . but I can't tell who the guitar player is. It doesn't look like Slick (unless he cut his hair and wore a suit) or Leonard, who were the most likely options in that timeframe. I am guessing it is Page Hamilton, who played lead on the 1999 tour. The guy with the headband is Mark Plati. In any event, from the opening bassline, the build up, the explosion at the end, the false ending, the huge crescendo, the drummer getting into it, the whole thing just works. The show went on for five and a half hours, and every other performer was playing for 2nd place. It was voted one of the Top 10 greatest moments in Madison Square Garden history. Of course, if Bowie were alive and they organized a concert to celebrate healthcare professionals instead of first responders in NYC, Bowie would be first in line to volunteer to do it all over again.
Well, I wasn't planning on typing 2,200 words to review one song . . . but that's how things turned out.
