Adelaide Oval is widely recognised as one of the most picturesque of the world's major cricket grounds. During the Bowie concert in 1978, the backstage was reportedly a camp of tents and caravan trailers.


In his diary of the 1978 tour, keyboardist Sean Mayes suggested that the Oval provided a great relief after many concrete stadiums and catacomb dressing rooms on their more hectic US and European tours. He also reflected on Adelaide as a city: 


"Adelaide was a strange city to my English eyes. The streets were wide like an American town but the buildings were like a European town" ~ Sean Mayes (keyboardist).

The repertoire in Adelaide remained almost identical to the previous leg of the tour - focusing on material from Low and "Heroes", although 'Speed of Life' had now been dropped.


The set in Adelaide was divided in two - Bowie announcing:


"We're just going off for 10 minutes....and when we come back....we won't be wearing any slippers".

Sean Mayes recalled that the crowd was particularly vocal in the second half.

"People were throwing streamers on-stage, also a sparkler, a camera sling and a blue puppet wearing a DEVO badge.

Towards the end, Carlos was losing his voice and David forgot some of the words in 'Station to Station'. But we stormed through the encores....".

The blue puppet, incidentally, was Bruce Butler's Grover doll. It sat aloft Sean's piano for most of the concert (having been placed there by Bowie).

After the gig, the band went to what was described as a posh but boring nightclub.