Live: Hammersmith Odeon, London

David Bowie performed at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on 30 June 1983, as part of the Serious Moonlight Tour.

It was the 27th date of the tour, which began on 18 May in Brussels.

Bowie’s guitarists were Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick. Dave Lebolt was on keyboards and synthesizers, and Steve Elson, Stan Harrison, Lenny Pickett played saxophones. Carmine Rojas played bass guitar and Tony Thompson was on drums and percussion. George and Frank Simms were the backing singers.

This show was in aid of the Brixton Neighbourhood Community Association. The charity aimed to advance and encourage the education and training of the inhabitants of Lambeth and to provide recreation and leisure facilities for the community. It ran a legal advice centre and counselling service for local residents.

We are deeply grateful to David Bowie for his wonderful gesture in agreeing to perform in this charity concert for the benefit of the Brixton Neighbourhood Community Association. David Bowie has always been highly regarded for his outstanding musical talents but in showing his genuine concern for the plight of the underprivileged in Brixton he has now demonstrated that he has a high sense of social responsibility.

Accordingly, the Association welcome David Bowie’s humane and compassionate interest in our work and his enlightened and practical support. The Association works tirelessly with limited resources to improve the quality of life of one of the more depressed and deprived areas of Britain. The specific objectives of the Association are to foster and improve community relations, to encourage the community to identify, mobilise and use its own resources and to break down any feelings of isolation of the community and its members through mediation and consultation with the wider community and its institutions. To achieve these ends, the Association provides free advice and counselling services (both on legal and social matters), operates a social action centre, a youth centre and a senior citizens group. The Association also encourages and participates in a number of training and further education courses and programmes.

With the assistance of the monies derived from this benefit concert, we believe that much progress can be made in fulfilling the goals and objectives of the Association for the ultimate long-term benefit of the community and its inhabitants.

The show’s setlist was mostly rearranged from previous Serious Moonlight Tour dates, although opening song ‘Look Back In Anger’ was the only new addition.

Bowie had previously performed at the Hammersmith Odeon at the end of the Ziggy Stardust Tour on 2 and 3 July 1973. He returned there for a final time on 2 October 2002 during the Heathen Tour.

The setlist

• ‘Look Back In Anger’
• ‘Breaking Glass’
• ‘Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)’
• ‘Rebel Rebel’
• “Heroes”
• ‘What In The World’
• ‘Life On Mars?’
• ‘Golden Years’
• ‘Fashion’
• ‘Let’s Dance’
• ‘Red Sails’
• ‘China Girl’
• ‘Station To Station’
• ‘Cracked Actor’
• ‘Young Americans’
• ‘Space Oddity’
• ‘TVC 15’
• ‘Fame’
• ‘Stay’
• ‘The Jean Genie’
• ‘Modern Love’