David Bowie. 1983, Live in Sydney. Serious Moonlight Tour. Pro shot. Complete
In my original posting, the audio was slightly out of sync with the video, which has now been corrected. Plus Life On Mars? had a drop out (now restored) while Station to Station had a glitch (now removed).

About.
On the 20th November 1983, David Bowie performed his final Australian concert of the Serious Moonlight tour. This Betamax recording was taken from a sight screen feed made at that time.

The first couple of numbers, plus the end have some deterioration with drop outs, but, as it hasn’t been viewed in nearly 40 years, the quality overall has held up well. The audio feed was in mono and has been remastered to bring it out more.

The Setlist:
Introduction
1 Look Back In Anger
2 “Heroes”
3 What In The World
4 Golden Years
5 Fashion
6 Let’s Dance
7 Breaking Glass
8 Life On Mars?
9 Sorrow
10 Cat People
11 China Girl
12 Scary Monsters
13 Rebel Rebel
14 White Light White Heat
15 Station To Station
16 Cracked Actor
17 Ashes To Ashes
18 Space Oddity
Band introductions
19 Young Americans
20 Fame

Encore
21 Star
22 Stay
23 The Jean Genie
24 Modern Love

Story behind this video.

Back in 1983, I was working in a One-hour photo lab in Sydney and we would often have crew from the Sydney Entertainment Centre come by to drop off films to be processed. Over time I got to know some of the camera crew that were used to shoot the video that would be projected onto the sight screens at the side of the stage.

When Bowie came to Sydney, these guys were hired to do the same thing at the Sydney Showgrounds for his final two concerts. This was video only, as it was to be shown live on the side screens. However, I was told that for the final concert a Sony U-Matic video recorder was used to record the show and a basic mono mic was connected to capture the audio. This was for personal use only. When I was told about this on the following Monday by one of their crew, I asked if it was possible to get a copy. The guy said that I could drop by with a VCR and make one, which I did (but with a Sony Betamax) the following day. Weeks later when I saw one of the crew and thanked them again, he told me that they couldn’t find the original tape and he thought it possible it had been recorded over (!!??) also, he didn’t think there were any other copies made. As such, I probably had the only copy in existence.

The tape had been with me for 39 years and I finally got to having it transferred to digital file. I have remastered the basic mono audio to bring it out more, but apart from that, the footage is as it was. I hope one day the tape can be restored to remove any artefacts and defects.

trog26@gmail.com
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ_-AeQK1W4

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