On would stroll David in a very casual plain white shirt, black waistcoat and trousers. His hair was cut short and swept back. He would scream at his fans, 'Look at the lot of you! Face painted, glitter wearing transsexual Freaks!! You're a bunch of idiots!', before he was told that perhaps this wasn't a good way to start the show.
Behind him were Carlos Alomar (guitar), Stacey Haydon (guitar, replacing Earl Slick who had angered Bowie by giving him a nipple twist), George Murray (bass), Dennis David (drums) and Tony Kaye (keyboards). 'There's a good mix', said David, 'three blacks and three whites, which together make a kind of darkish grey'.
The set was toned down to basically nothing but a light bulb, the extra money going towards truckloads of precious Columbian powdery imports. 'I wanted a new kind of staging, something that would save me enough money so I could get well and truly buzzing all the time.'
'I never made any drug money from the 'Diamond Dogs' tour, which was a real downer. I'm not only making money now, I've got my own cocaine ski slopes that I sled down every morning. I manage myself now *sniff-sniff* excuse me...'
The tour was a great buzzing success. In San Francisco he filled the Cow Palace with 14,000 fans and later he filled it with cash and swum around naked in it. After shows adoring audiences would keep shouting and screaming for more at which Bowie would blow a loud rasberry and go home to count his diamonds and riches.
During the East Coast leg of the tour police found 8 oz of marijuana so three of his companions plus Bowie were charged with 'Having way too much of a good time'. He made a statement telling the press that he would never ever tour again, ever, not in a million years. Then it was off to Europe to do another tour.
David arrived in Britain in May after a three year absence and proceeded to play 6 nights at Wembley before an audience of close on 60,000 people, all of whom he's slept with at some point in his Ziggy Stardust days. The fans were by now arriving in Black waistcoats and pants, fearing David Bowie's wrath.
It was an emotional return for David and after the final encore of 'The Jean Genie' on the first night there were tears in David's eyes. But it turned out that his underpants had shrunk in the wash.
RCA released 'Changesonebowie' which isn't even a proper word. It was a greatest hits album which seemed to signify that David was all washed up. On closer inspection it was obvious to all that David was still pretty dirty and hadn't changed his shirt for the past week.
He travelled through Switzerland and waved to Angie and Zowie as he sped past.
Then on to the Chateau d'Heroville where he had mangled 'Pin Ups' some years before. It was there that he produced Iggy Pop's new album. He gave it the title 'The Idiot' summing up his thoughts about his good friend at the time.
This was a bad period for David. The world's supply of cocaine had dried up because of him and the Chateau started to deteriorate when he tried to snort the plaster and cement. Now Michael Lippman, who had become his manager for a short time, had him by the testes. He started work on an album which was to be titled 'Low on Cocaine'.
'Low on Cocaine' was to be important for another reason. It was Bowie's first collaboration with Brian Eno. Eno was considerably surprised when he met David, as David could shit 100% pure cocaine.
Eno talks about working with Bowie : 'David likes pickles, tomatos and cheese on his sandwiches. I prefer some ham, lettuce and mayonnaise. When we got together I had no idea how we could work this out. We tried a pickle, tomato, cheese, ham, lettuce and mayonnaise sandwich but that was a disaster. It's a tough to bring our talents together. Also, David likes to cut the crusts off his bread, which to me is just crazy. These are the things we had to work through if we were to do this thing right.'
Eno talks some more about their partnership : 'Don't even get me started on the way he butters his bread. He doesn't go all the way to the ends. So when you take a bite, you might only get half butter and half dry. It's a challenging collaboration.'
Brian Eno was at the Chateau for a week in September before he left in a tantrum. Then David and Tony Visconti left for Berlin to escape the purple/green cocaine monkey that David confided to Tony was stalking him. It was there that we would complete 'Low on Cocaine' and 'The Idiot'.