THIS MELLOW
BLACK CHICK
JUST MY SPINE
OUT OF PLACE
Stage
is the second
live album by
the English musician
recorded on
the Isolar II Tour
in 1978
and released through
RCA Records
later that year.
Stage
has been reissued
numerous times,
each with expanded
track listings.
Recording
Stage
was culled from recordings
of concerts in
Philadelphia,
Boston,
and Providence,
Rhode Island,
United States,
in late April
and early
May 1978.
It primarily included material
from Bowie's most recent
studio albums to that date,
Station to Station,
Low,
and
"Heroes"
(both 1977),
but also contained
songs from
The Rise and Fall of
Ziggy Stardust
and the
Spiders from Mars
(1972).
Aside from
Bowie's core team
of guitarist
Carlos Alomar,
drummer
Dennis Davis,
and bassist
George Murray,
the band included
ex-Frank Zappa
sideman
Adrian Belew
on lead guitar;
Simon House
of Hawkwind
on electric violin;
Roger Powell,
best known
for his work with
Todd Rundgren
in Utopia,
on keyboards;
and
Sean Mayes
on piano,
string synthesizer,
and backing vocals;
all would be featured on
Bowie's
next studio LP,
Lodger
(1979).
In the liner notes
for the album's
2005 CD reissue,
producer and engineer
Tony Visconti
explains that the
"ambient"
songs were recorded via
a direct electronic feed
from the instruments
rather than through
microphones,
and that the audience was turned
"way down during these performances".
In Visconti's words,
American audiences were
"a little too impatient for David
to get on with the rock songs".
Stage
was a commercial success.
In the UK,
it reached No. 5
and was subsequently
certified gold by
the British Phonographic Industry
(BPI).
It also reached
No. 44 on the US charts.
"Breaking Glass",
which originally appeared
in shorter form on Low,
was released as
the title track of a
3-track EP
and reached number 54
on the UK singles chart.
In the US,
"Star"
was also released as a
3-track EP,
while in Japan
"Soul Love"
was released as a single
with
"Blackout"
on the B-side;
neither of these
releases charted.
In a review of
the 1991 rerelease,
Mat Snow of Q stated
that
"performances are faster
than the studio originals
and suffer for it;
what they gain
in live jauntiness
not exactly a quality
they were crying out for
they lose in
power and intensity."
2017 Rerelease
In 2017,
the album was included,
in two versions,
in the
A New Career in a New Town
(1977–1982)
box set
released by Parlophone.
One version contained
the original edition
with the same list
and ordering of tracks
that had appeared on
the original vinyl album;
the other was a
new version
of the album,
based on the
2005 edition
but including
previously unreleased songs
from the concerts.
The latter was also
released separately,
in 2-CD
and
3-LP formats,
in 2018
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