David Bowie Space Oddity Live 1974

Space Oddity was performed on the 1974 Diamond Dogs tour. It was included in the set because Bowie was keen to break America and this was a song people knew, unlike the fairly new Dogs material. He performed the song above the audience, in a chair mounted on the moving hydraulic arm of a cherry picker. The cherry picker emerged from a pair of doors atop one of the Hunger City towers (the one with the phallus) and went out over the first six rows of the audience. It is likely people heard the familiar Ground Control to Major Tom opening line, before they realized where Bowie was. As the song came to an end, the chair would return to its position and the final note would see Bowie feign death with his head slumped, before the stage was plunged into darkness. The audio used here is from the Tower, Philadelphia in July 1974, and is included on the 2005 remastered David Live album. Like most of the songs on the tour, once one gets used to the soulful and jazzy rearrangements, there i