bowiedownunder.com
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bowiedownunder.com |
| 1983 Serious Moonlight Tour | (Page 3 of 3) |
On to New Zealand where a further two concerts had been scheduled. In the previous year, Bowie had been in New Zealand filming Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. The country was also home to his tour wardrobe stylist, Glenis Daly. |
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| NEW ZEALAND ARRIVAL: November 22 |
Following a direct flight from Sydney, Bowie arrived at Wellington Airport to crowds of onlookers, media, security personnel and tour representatives. In the customs area, Bowie spared a few minutes for a TV crew but moved through the main section of the airport without stopping.
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| MARAE VISIT, PORIRUA: November 23 |
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| WELLINGTON: November 24 |
The first New Zealand concert was held at Wellington's
Athletic Park where Bowie drew an audience of around 40,000 (from a
city of only 200,000!).
Anger over public vomitus and urination was relayed from Wellington residents to Auckland (which was staging the last concert of the main tour). This caused some spectacular advance press. "Residents Fear Bowie Rampage" read one headline. "Enjoy It But Behave Plea From Bowie" was another. Bowie
said "We are going to have a good time, just as long as people don't
throw bottles and act like hooligans". |
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| AUCKLAND: November 26 |
The 74,480 strong audience was the largest ever recorded for an Australasian concert and was believed to be the largest single crowd gathering in the history of New Zealand. The gig was recorded in the Guiness Book of
Records as the largest crowd gathering per head of population anywhere
in the world.
According
to the book David Bowie's Serious Moonlight The World Tour, there
were "90,000 or so, with their bonfires up on the hills around the
site. Looking like Huns in the flickering light but behaving."
The Auckland show was supported by Auckland based group Dance Exponents and Australian group Models. The
nuclear arms race was dominating world headlines, and Bowie finished the
Auckland concert with an impassioned oration ("I wish our world leaders
would stop their insane inability to recognise that we wish to live peacefully"),
and released two white doves into the sky before the final encore.
The
last minute addition to the Serious Moonlight Tour called the "Bungle
In The Jungle" (documented
in the "Ricochet" video) was to be stripped
down to the basics without most of the crew.....so Bowie asked the road
crew to cut the huge cake shaped like the Earth.
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| NZ TOUR DOCUMENTARIES |
Although Bowie's experience at the Maori greeting had been filmed for apparent world wide release, it has never released. Fortunately in 2008, Bowie fan and documentary maker Sam Coley took on the project to create a radio documentary about the marae visit and also the record breaking Auckland concert. Subsequently, these were created into slide shows and then uploaded to youtube as follows: Down Under The Moonlight: Frank Simms on Steve Ray Vaughan: Frank Simms on Let's Dance: Frank Simms Interview (Part 2): |
| OFFICIAL PASSES AND ITEMS: |
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| CONCERT DATES |
The following are pointers to relevant pages at Teenage Wildlife You can add information directly
to these pages.
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