Send "David Bowie " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 The most surprising thing about A Reality Tour, a live album documenting David Bowie’s titular 2003-04 tour, is that the Thin White Duke still sounds like the Thin White Duke. At the time of this recording, Bowie was 56 years old. Yet, listening to this recording, the man barely sounds a day past Station to Station. Bowie remains vital, spry, and preternaturally alluring. As always, he has surrounded himself with a stellar band that includes two of his greatest accomplices: pianist/keyboardist Mike Garson and guitarist Earl Slick. Over the course of two and half hours, Bowie and his band rip through 33 tracks that include his biggest hits (“Under Pressure” and “Rebel Rebel”) and deepest cuts (“Fantastic Voyage” and “Be My Wife”).Another surprising thing about this album: many of Bowie’s newest compositions sound just as potent as the obligatory warhorses. While Reality—Bowie’s most recent album and the impetus for the tour—was certainly a solid LP, it’s nevertheless a shock that some of the best cuts on A Reality Tour (“New Killer Star” and “Never Get Old”) are from that album. Some of the selections from 2002’s Heathen (“Sunday” and “Afraid”) also benefit from the live context. Listening to A Reality Tour makes one thing abundantly clear: like Dylan, Bowie’s most recent material is worth giving a damn about....full text |
| Telegraph |
| Where is David Bowie when you need him? Arguably the boldest and most creative solo artist in the history of rock, he seems the ideal icon for these uncertain times, the kind of future pop visionary who might bring the blurred possibilities of a disintegrating music culture into sharp focus. But Bowie has hardly been heard or seen in the past five years, popping up only as a kind of sonic shadow, a backing vocalist on a handful of tracks by friends and new favourites, including Arcade Fire, David Gilmour, Alicia Keys, Scarlett Johansson and TV On The Radio. Bowie turned 63 this month, and if I’m reading the runes correctly, suffers poor health and is effectively semi-retired. Related Articles Arctic Monkeys: Humbug, CD review Major Lazer: Guns Don?t Kill People... Lazers Do, CD review Pop CD reviews: Candi Staton, Hot Leg, The Airborne Toxic Event and more Review: Oasis at the Liverpool Echo Arena Those Dancing Days: less of a girl band than a girl gang So we may have to content ourselves, for the foreseeable future, with re‑releases, outtakes and live recordings, like this one. This 33-song, re-mastered double CD set makes a popular live DVD available as pure audio for the first time, with added bonus tracks. And it’s a real treat. It was recorded in Dublin, in the latter stages of the 2003-2004 world tour that nearly killed him (Bowie suffered a minor heart attack during a German show on June 25 2004). This is not classic period Bowie, a stretch from 1970 to 1983 when he constantly pushed the boundaries of popular culture, redefining what a pop star could be. But there is something to be said for perspective. In cheerful, crowd-pleasing form, Bowie treats these arena shows almost as a valedictory, career spanning celebration, collapsing his many alter-egos into a latter-day incarnation of his original showbiz persona as theatrically extravagant entertainer. With an absolutely stellar band, including Earl Slick on guitar and Gail Ann Dorsey on bass, Bowie offers vigorous yet faithful versions of some of his greatest moments, from the opening dirty rock charge of Rebel Rebel to a melodramatically climactic Ziggy Stardust....full text |
| Classicrock |
| It has been just shy of seven years since David Bowie's last studio album release, Reality. A live performance DVD from the subsequent tour was released on DVD in 2004. Today (01/26/10) a double album (CD and MP3) version of A Reality Tour dropped. Although the tour was in support of the 2003 album, the performance set list turned out to be a Bowie career retrospective. But far from your usual "Greatest Hits" package, the artist turns in surprisingly fresh versions of some of his most memorable standards...full text |
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