Ziggy Stardust the Motion Picture

Rueben and myself had been trying to open a portal to 1973 in the corner of his lounge so we could watch a David Bowie gig form the Ziggy Stardust tour. We used science and everything, but we just couldn’t get it to stabilize. Fortunately Rueben had ‘Ziggy Stardust the motion picture’ on his Sky+ box so we just watched that instead.
And strike a light, it was an odd mix of guitar wizardry, rock n roll swaggering, embarrassing theatrics, red lights and slightly out of focus camera work.
It’s well worth seeing just for Mick Ronson who totally stole the show for us. At times he’s every bit the silly big hairded rock guitar slinger, gurning and making some quite scary faces. With his heavy eye makeup he looks a lot like Skeletor. But the sounds he makes are incredible. David Bowie HAS to dress like an alien just so you notice him when he’s next to Ronson during a solo.
As for Bowie himself the film is the best of times and the worst of times. He hits a lot of bum notes (particularly during his harmonica solo in ‘Cracked Actor’) and comes across as a bit of a berk most of the time. I’d read that the Ziggy live show was all about ‘theatrics’ but in reality these mostly consist of sudden (and silly) costume changes. But what nothing could prepare me for was the mime. Who goes to a rock show expecting the front man to pretend to be stuck behind a glass wall and flap his arms like a bird in flight during the solos? Bowie does all of that and more, whilst wearing bangles the size of footballs. He certainly had conkers back in the day, you’ve got to give him that.

The film is famous for capturing ol’ D.B.’s apparent ‘retirement’ from live concerts (or is it Ziggy’s? Or is it just his way of sacking the Spiders?) as he announces that this will be the bands last show. Watching it back in 2008 this isn’t a very poignant moment, there’s no sudden out break of mass hysteria and the release of ‘David Live’ the very next year only serve to further under mine it’s status as a defining moment in Rock history. As it is, two boys invade the stage during the last song and that’s pretty much it.

The set list itself is a bit too medley heavy for my taste (I want to hear the whole of ‘All the young dues’ and ‘Wild eyed boy from Free Cloud’ not little bits!). But generally all the big Ziggy songs are there, plus a few others. And even ‘John I’m Only Dancing’ sounds half decent with some live energy behind it.
But pity the ‘other two’ Spiders from Mars as they barely get a look in. The fuzzy red camera work is almost totally dedicated to Bowie and Ronson. We see far more of the live audience then the other two musicians, which hardly seems fair.
All in all, the filming is pretty sub standard but it does give a flavour of the time and this is pretty essential viewing for Bowie fans.