Originally released as a Record Store Day exclusive in April 2018 but swiftly receiving a CD and digital release,
Welcome to the Blackout (Live London '78) gathers 24 highlights from
David Bowie's two-night stint at Earls Court on June 30 and July 1, 1978. Apart from "Sound and Vision" and "Be My Wife," which appeared on a 1995 compilation, this album consists of previously unreleased -- but heavily bootlegged -- live performances, all dating from the end of
Bowie's 1978 tour.
Stage, which came out a few months after this performance, captures the same tour, but
Welcome to the Blackout isn't as stiff as that contemporaneously released double album.
Bowie and band -- which includes guitarists
Adrian Belew and
Carlos Alomar, bassist
George Murray, and drummer
Dennis Davis, along with
Roger Powell, a keyboardist who served in
Todd Rundgren's
Utopia -- are loose, sometimes rushing a tempo and sometimes settling into it, as they do on a louche "Heroes" that kicks off the record. The positioning of "Heroes" is telling: it's not here as a triumphant closer but a grooving keynote, setting the pace for a set where
Bowie attempts to find the right balance between art and a party. He doesn't always get it right --
Powell tends to overwhelm on the suite of
Ziggy Stardust numbers, painting everything with swathes of synths -- but the performance is invigorating even with its flaws. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine