David Bowie Preps Concert DVD

A little over six weeks after recovering from emergency heart surgery, David Bowie is already back at his day job. According to a press release on Davidbowie.com, the one-time Thin White Duke is currently preparing the release of a new concert DVD. The disc will be issued on October 19th, and features footage culled from Bowie's recent world tour in support of the Tony Visconti-produced techno-rock platter Reality.

David Bowie: A Reality Tour is packed with 140 minutes' worth of Bowie tunes old and new (including the rarely performed Ziggy Stardust-era classics "Five Years" and "Hang on to Yourself"), and was filmed at Bowie's November 22nd and 23rd, 2003 dates in Dublin, Ireland. Of the shows, Bowie has apparently said: "If we're going to film a DVD anywhere, this is the place to do it." And somebody somewhere thought that was worth quoting.

While not released theatrically, the DVD is Bowie's first official concert film since 1976's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, in which acclaimed documentarian D.A. Pennebaker captured Bowie's last performance as the immortal space cadet/rock god. This outing is, perhaps thankfully, slightly lower-key. The tracklist:

01 Rebel Rebel
02 New Killer Star
03 Reality
04 Fame
05 Cactus
06 Sister Midnight
07 Afraid
08 All the Young Dudes
09 Be My Wife
10 The Loneliest Guy
11 The Man Who Sold the World
12 Fantastic Voyage
13 Hallo Spaceboy
14 Sunday
15 Under Pressure
16 Life on Mars?
17 Battle for Britain
18 Ashes to Ashes
19 The Motel
20 Loving the Alien
21 Never Get Old
22 Changes
23 I'm Afraid of Americans
24 Heroes
25 Bring Me the Disco King
26 Slip Away
27 Heathen
28 Five Years
29 Hang on to Yourself
30 Ziggy Stardust

The Reality tour was something of a comeback for Bowie, who, much like Prince, has continually released product to varying public interest since the early 90s. On his first major trek in almost a decade, Bowie played to sold-out houses across the U.S. and Europe, earning his jaunt the honor of top-grossing tour for the first part of 2004, according to Billboard Boxscore. As previously reported, the tour was abruptly cut short in June of this year as Bowie, suffering from chest pains, was made to undergo the aforementioned heart surgery for a blocked artery. As he told Rolling Stone at the time: "I'm so pissed off because the last 10 months of this tour have been so fucking fantastic. I can't wait to be fully recovered and get back to work again."

In somewhat related news, The Hunger, a celluloid Bowie relic from the early 80s, is set for an overdue DVD release on October 5th to the delight of goth kids everywhere. Tony Scott's stylish modern vampire saga added the role of pale blood-drinking spook to Bowie's varied film career, which has also included stints as Andy Warhol (Basquiat) and Pontius Pilate (The Last Temptation of Christ). While the style over substance delivery in The Hunger doesn't make for the most groundbreaking film of the man's career, it's easy to overlook in light of the fiery tryst between Catherine Denueve and Susan Sarandon. No really, it's art!