Live: City Hall, Newcastle

David Bowie performed at Newcastle’s City Hall on 15 June 1978, as part of the Isolar II Tour.

He performed three consecutive nights at the venue on 14, 15, and 16 June.

This was the 54th date of the tour, which began on 29 March in San Diego.

Bowie’s guitarists were Carlos Alomar and Adrian Belew. Simon House was on electric violin, Sean Mayes played piano, and Roger Powell was on keyboards and synthesizers. George Murray played bass guitar and Dennis Davis was on drums.

We played three glorious nights in Newcastle. Backstage we had a few visitors including Trevor Bolder, the Spiders’ bass player still sporting his long sideburns and Stu, David’s ‘minder’ from those glamorous days. We reminisced about the ’73 tours and what we had been doing since. Iggy also joined us and stayed with the tour for a week.

Bowie had first visited the City Hall with the Manish Boys on 5 December 1964. The Ziggy Stardust Tour called at City Hall on 2 June 1972 and 7 January, 8 June, and 30 June 1973. Bowie also performed there with Iggy Pop on 2 March 1977.

The setlist

• ‘Warszawa’
• “Heroes”
• ‘What In The World’
• ‘Be My Wife’
• ‘The Jean Genie’
• ‘Blackout’
• ‘Sense Of Doubt’
• ‘Speed Of Life’
• ‘Breaking Glass’
• ‘Fame’
• ‘Beauty And The Beast’
• ‘Five Years’
• ‘Soul Love’
• ‘Star’
• ‘Hang On To Yourself’
• ‘Ziggy Stardust’
• ‘Suffragette City’
• ‘Art Decade’
• ‘Alabama Song’
• ‘Station To Station’
• ‘Stay’
• ‘TVC 15’
• ‘Rebel Rebel’