March had rolled around by the time Bowie called a press conference at the Players Theatre to announce he only had two days left to live. When the entire worlds press arrived to catch the alarming scoop Bowie said 'Only Kidding' and broke into 'Day-In Day-Out', a song from his forthcoming album. He announced a world tour to the angry press.
Peter Frampton and Bowie first undertook a two-man world tour (holding press conferences and playing songs) to promote the upcoming world tour. An idea was formulating in David's mind, next time perhaps there should be a world tour to promote the world tour that would promote the world tour.
Later that month 'Day-In Day-Out' was released with 'Julie' as the B-side. The A-side was from the soon to be released album 'This'll Let You Down', whose name was changed at the last minute to 'Never Let Me Down' for fear of low record sales. It would reach number 17 in the UK charts, though I should check on that with Sysiyo I think. [Sys's comment: "Amazingly, that was correct!"]
'Never Let Me Down' was out in April, while Peter and David were travelling the world before travelling the world.
Sunday Herald - NLMD is not that bad. Now let us never speak of it again.
New Musical Express - NLMD is that bad.
The Sun - This has been discussed before
The new tour would be more adventurous than the time David decided to see how many ping pong balls he could fit into his mouth at one time. He wanted a giant insect to dominate the stage, idea's were floated. Dung beetle? No, The Dung Beetle Tour didn't have the right ring to it. Stink Bug? Might keep people away. The glass spider was chosen, after all, it was one of the songs on the album.
The glass spider would tower about 60 feet above the stage and frighten the living shit out of all the arachniphobes in the audience. It would glow different colours, shoot lightening bolts to kill unlucky random concert-goers and at the end of each show scuttle off to lay waste to towns and villages.
Besides Frampton, who Bowie could not seem to shake at this stage were Carlos Alomar (guitar) Erdal Kizilcay (keyboards, congas, violins and trumpet) Richard Cottle (synthesiser and saxaphone) Alan Childs (drums and percussion) and Carmine Rojas (bass). They were all angry because they were afraid of spiders and would have preferred a mosquito or maybe a fly.
The tour started in Rotterdam in May and was beset by problems from the start. Playing in vast arenas the spider, to some, seemed so far away as to be the size of an ordinary small garden variety, with Bowie as a distant red speck.
Bowie would descend from the giant spider on a chair supported by cables, but to most it simply looked like the spider was pooping Bowie. The show would start with 'Up The Hill Backwards', then the Bowie pooping, then 'Day-In Day-Out', 'Bang Bang' and 'Absolute Beginners'. Encores would usually be Iggy Pop's 'I Want To Be Your Dog' and Lou Reed's 'White Light, White Heat', which was appropriate since the musicians were suffering under the glare of 600,000 watts.
In London on June 19th and 20th at Wembley stadium, it rained so much that everyone could see Princess Diana's breasts. This was not so bad in itself but it meant everyone was watching that instead of the concert.
Meanwhile David was getting closer and closer to one of his dancers, Melissa Hurley. They would dance more and more intimately as the show wound around the world, eventually culminating in making love onstage much to the audiences delight (or at least those who could see, those further back simply saw the red speck jump on top of the white speck).
'Time Will Crawl/Girls' was released in June, as was 'Never Let Me Down/87 and Cry'. It is best if you ask Sysiyo for exact chart positions and whether or not snowmen were mentioned in either song. [Sys comments: "Time Will Crawl/Girl reached number 33 in the UK. As for the snowmen, history actually records that Girls was originally going to be titled Snowmen, and it would have included the lines: Snowmen/They snow and they melt/They kiss/Snow and they melt/Like snowy breeze. Sadly, Bowie later decided to rerecord the song as Girls, so that material from The Hunger could be used as the video, however the idea of a video was later abandoned in favour of one for Time Will Crawl where Bowie would be beaten up by some silly dancers. And Never Let Me Down reached number 34 in the UK. No snowmen were included this time."]
David's Pye releases were re-issued October. Some people went insane. Many committed suicide.The thoughtful title given to this collection was 'David Bowie'.
The American leg of the tour followed later in the year, and unfortunately David started wearing a Dracula cape and forcing himself on women. This may have been a promotional tool. David using a tour to promote his tour, and his tool as a promotional tool. 30 year old Wanda Nicholls complained that as he took advantage he sung all of his newer crappy songs and refused to sing his older classics.
When Australia's
turn came around a video was recorded in Sydney to capture The Glass Spider tour for future generations to complain about. David once again told everyone how much he loved the place and that he would keep coming back again and again.
Meanwhile he had completely fallen in love with Melissa, and Melissa with him. 'Every night, as I saw that big giant spider crap David, I thought, he is truly the most beautiful piece of spider feces I have ever seen in my life.'.