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Curtis Ensler's Collection

David Bowie   09/20/1990

Sambodromo Del Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Media CDR   2 discs
J-Card Comment David Bowie
Rock In Rio 1990
Venue: Sambodromo de Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Date: Sept.20.1990
Label: Mistral, MM 9107/8

Quality: 9/10, Soundboard

CD 1:
01. Space Oddity
02. Rebel Rebel
03. Ashes To Ashes
04. Introduction Band
05. Life On Mars
06. Stay
07. Petty Pink Rose
08. Blue Jean
09. Let's Dance
10. Sound & Vision
11. Ziggy Stardust

CD 2:
01. China Girl
02. Station To Station
03. Young Americans
04. Fame
05. Heroes
06. Changes
07. Modern Love
08. Jean Genie/Gloria

Line up:
David Bowie (vocals, guitar, saxophone)
Adrian Belew (lead guitar)
Michael Hodges (drums)
Erdal Kizilcay (bass)
Rick Fox (keyboards)


Source info:
original silver CDs --> EAC --> FLAC

Cover art is included.

Note on Beethoven's #9 Symphony: I think we - at DimeADozen - came to the
conclusion, that the inclusion of this particular intro (taken from
Clockwork Orange OST) is tolerated in the torrents.

Info taken from Bassman's Site:
An excellent release of an odd concert. This is an sound board recording, which
means that the sound quality is excellent but a bit "dry". A small minus is that
the audience can hardly be heard at all. Gloria fades out at the end, but you
can't get it all. A funny and good CD!

Personal note: I bought this in the mid 90's at a CD store in Vienna, called
"Big Ear", which was entirely devoted to selling bootlegs(!) mainly coming from
Italy. Well, you can imagine the shop did not last very long (about ca. 2 years
still) as the shop owner got sued by many record labels and artists.

And this was the 2nd boot I got from the great Sound + Vision tour from 1990.
The first boot was from a show in Paris (from 03.04.1990 called "Paris Au
Printemps"). But that one was rather poor quality (and up to this day I have yet
to hear a better version of the Paris shows). Therefore I was very happy to
finally have a soundboard recording from the tour. Maybe, due to this I am a bit
too positive and sentimental about that particular boot "Rock In Rio". As I know
some Bowie fans out there do not like it very much. Well I understand them, but
even now after more than 10 years I hold it dear.

The reasons why some think negative about "Rock In Rio" are mainly the following:
* it's a short show,
* the sound of the recording and the performance are a bit strange (although it
IS a soundboard):
- you practically do not hear the audience,
- sometimes there are problems with the stage setup (e.g. Adrian's mike is off
during "Pretty Pink Rose")
- the mix at all is often unusual, emphasizing the "wrong" instruments
- David's voice got rougher while the tour lasted, and this show was at the tour's
very end (it lasted from March.04 - Sept.29)

And one can not argue with that, all this is true.
BUT from my point of view, this issues make the whole show to a really UNIQUE Bowie
experience!
This particular audience-less recording gives new insights into the playing and
a totally unique presentation of the songs which can not be found anywhere else.
Also David's rough voice gives a totally different or new characteristic to
these songs. Together with (IMO great) stripped-down guitar-based arrangements
of the songs for that tour I often consider them sounding like being played by
Tin Machine.

Another bonus I think is the excellent guitar work by the great Adrian Belew. I
am not sure if his work is so specially brilliant on this particular evening or
is it maybe again due to the unique audience-less recording, that he is so
prominent in the mix sometimes.

And it amazes me that despite the many drawbacks (David's (horrible) voice,
short show, end of the tour (which usually produced some tiredness in Bowie
tours), sound of recording) this boot offers some of the best versions of
particular songs:

"Stay": Nowhere else can the great intro be heard so clearly and wonderfully
played. The instrumental start of the song lasts over two and a half minutes,
until David starts singing very beautiful (considering his voice) in a very calm way.

"Station to Station": This is commonly regarded as David's favourite songs by
anybody (at least in the pools I know). Well, at least it is mine and I think
nothing can top the original studio recording from 1976. Although live versions
of that song are always welcome, I usually did not get very excited about them.
However, this "Rock In Rio" version is unique to all live recordings in one
particular way: Due to the special mix the train-intro is not dominated by the
guitar but by the piano. I always smile about this simple fact when I hear this
version. And since the original studio version also has the piano of the great
Roy Bittan so prominent in the mix, maybe this is the reason why this "Rock In
Rio" version has a special place for me among all live versions.

"Fame": Yep this it. "Fame" by Tin Machine :-) For me this particular version is
the peak of the development of the live versions of "Fame". For some reason I am
not very fond of the original studio version from 1974 and I also do not like
the live versions from 1976 and 1978, which have practically the same
arrangement as the studio version. Things got much better with the 1983
version(s): Due to the horn section used during the 1983 tour a totally new
arrangement was used, which in the later part of the tour was elongated by an
interesting semi-improvised vocal part (to be found on the video). In 1987 this
outro was further reworked and included quotes from other songs like "Lavander
Blue" or "London bridges falling down". And in 1990 the arrangement went back
more to the original guitar based arrangement but further played with the idea
of that elongated outro (the version here lasts 5.52 min with the outro taking 3
min). The 1990 version uses a nice Samba-based rhythm part overlaid with
repeated "Is it any wonder" and gave Adrain Belew much space for his guitar
craziness. Although this arrangement was played on each evening in 1990, the
"Rock In Rio" version sticks out because of the mix and/or Adrian playing of
that particular night.

"Changes": This song was written to be performed live. There are practically no
bad live versions. And this is a great version. David laughs again during the song,
which he seems to be doing quite often (e.g. 1976 rehearsals). Another funny
part is Adrain singing "Aaaaahh" in the background which is quite in the front due
to the unique mix (at ca. 1:40). Apart from that it's an excellent and wild version.

"Modern Love": This was a surprise for. Actually I do not like the "Let's Dance"
album very much. Yes the intro by SRV to "Modern Love" on the original studio
version is great and unique and can not be copied by any other guitar player. At
least as it seems, no other guitar player at any Bowie tour could or wished to
play it that way. And therefore the live intro always appeared to me a bit of a
poor imitation compared with the original version. However, the rest of the
original version was always much to much a pop song for me. Therefore I never
ever expected a live version of "Modern Love" to be of any interest for me -
until "Rock In Rio". When I heard that particular version the very first time,
my usual suspect of yet another useless "Modern Love" live version was proofed
by the intro, which can not be compared with the SRV intro (again maybe the
other guitar players, understandably, wished to perform it their own way). But
than Hodges' drums kick in and the song takes a drive which I did not expected -
what a great rock song that is! After the first refrain the drive gets even a
bit faster, I think, and we hear a great solo by Adrian (again due the mix it
has to "compete" with the keyboards). During the second refrain and till the end
of the song the "chemistry" on stage is incredible getting ever wilder till the
song's very end. David almost freaks out and does not care about his voice. His
singing turns more into screaming BUT it fits the song so well! At 2:37 we also
hear the audience screaming, which I like so much, as it fits so perfectly into
the whole atmosphere. (Originally I thought some girls from the audience were
jumping up on stage, because obviously they must have been close to David's
micro - I thought this to be very cool. And I kept this image for over 10 years.
Last year I saw a very bad quality video of that performance and the explanation
why we can hear the audience is rather simple: David went to the audience as
close as possible and held the micro into the audience. Well, sigh ... I'll
stick with my old impression ;-) ) For me this is definitely the best version
of "Modern Love" ever and absolutely the peak of this show!


After the astonishment of hearing these fabulous versions on "Rock In Rio" I set
out and listened to the versions on the now over 20 different 1990-shows I have.
And nothing! - No other versions came any close to this experience I had with
the "Rock In Rio" versions.

Well, that were just me personal thoughts (and thanks for reading that long :-)
). Get this show and see for yourself, if you like it or not. If not, that's
fine with me.

Because of the many songs played during 1990 (and especially the version of
"Young Americans" in the early part of the tour) one needs to have several shows
to get the whole picture. Thankfully, there are many good 1990 shows out there.

Originally seeded at DimeADozen on 2007.08.26 by steelyan.
Trades Allowed Yes
Owned by Curtis Ensler · Last Updated May 23, 2023