Back in 1983 (maybe early '84), a Melbourne radio 'simulcast' one of the concerts in the Serious moonlight Tour which I duly 'taped' and listened to every night for perhaps a year; that was my introduction to David Bowie, and thus began the long (and predictable) love affair. It is surreal after all these years to go back and see the puffy blonde hair and high-waisted trousers and the cheesy, Celine Dionish set, but then, that was the 80s! Watching the show on TV is nowhere near as intimate an experience as listening to it on cassette (my teenage mind imagined every move and nuance in fine detail) but it's still pretty good. I'm only disappointed that the movie version tinkers with the concert to the extent of deleting songs - it makes the show a bit short for a live concert and feels more like a Saturday evening TV special (which is probably what it initially was).

The real revelation however, is the 'Ricochet' documentary offered as a special feature. It gives interesting insight into Bowie and his 'Far East'. It's classic Bowie with both the artfulness and playfulness (and occasional seriousness) so inherent in his work. All in all, 'Serious Moonlight' satisfies - a whole lot of Bowie, a little bit of history and a good time had by all. Highly recommended.

The `Let's Dance' album may have been partly motivated by Bowie's desire to prove himself to his new label by delivering hit records, but the subsequent tour was - Bowie has admitted - designed to introduce him to the kind of conservative ultra-mainstream audience that had previously regarded him with suspicion. It was also designed as his "pension plan" - at the back of his mind, he says, he was planning to "get rich quick" and then retire.
So here we have a hits-heavy setlist in which almost all the songs are subjected to arrangements that suck all the menace, all the subversive experimentation out of them. Lots of loungey saxophone charts, lots of primitive-sounding synthesizer. Without its attendant guitar feedback and harmonica, "Cracked Actor"'s innuendo could easily pass by the listener. "Rebel Rebel" and "Fashion" are abbreviated in order to fit into medleys. "What In The World", "Look Back In Anger" and "Scary Monsters" are conspicuously lacking in dissonance and vocal/guitar extremities. When Bowie (and Earl Slick) tackle Lou Reed's "White Light White Heat" they proceed from the `Rock 'n Roll Animal' arrangement (not a good idea). "Station to Station" survives the sanitisation process - and then only to find itself cut short by the film editor! Elsewhere, play-it-safe renditions of Life On Mars, Sorrow, China Girl etc.

With all this, a stage set that looks like it was designed for Kid Creole and the rather silly choreography of the Simms Brothers - it's unlikely to be a satisfactory viewing/listening experience for hardcore Bowie-ologists. Anyone who prefers Outside to Hours, Lodger to Young Americans, can afford to leave this alone.

And now that I've told you what this DVD is - let me tell you what it isn't: a comprehensive document of the live video adventures of Mr Bowie circa 1983.
Restoring the Ricochet documentary to the catalogue, and extending it, is laudable - but in their failure to restore the interviews that were appended to the original two-volume VHS release of the concert (as if determined to make life difficult for Bowie-ologists hoping to streamline their collections) EMI has once again shown its inability to understand its obligations to the music consuming public. Somebody should tell them, "it's not your job to rewrite history, but to preserve it, right?!!"

I have to say I wasn't expecting much from this DVD- recorded at the very moment that Bowie's career was teetering on the brink of the critical abyss (this concert was recorded just a year before the release of his low-point "Tonight"), you might expect this concert to reveal everything that was bad about the "branded Bowie" of the 80s. But no! It's a thoroughly enjoyable concert- the band playing is solid throughout, Bowie's voice is great and the reworkings of classic tracks work rather well (at the very least they're perversely enjoyable- especially the cover of White-Light/White Heat- more on that in a minute).

The set-list is a fairly judicious balance- its more or less a greatest hits package with some Let's Dance songs thrown in, although the emphasis is more on the late seventies stuff, albeit with the experimental dissonance jettisoned in favour of a commercial 80s sound, which was clearly aimed at garnering acceptance from the kind of people who were buying Phil Collins records at the time(!) It's true that Bowie was "thinking about his pension" at this point (and why not? He spent the seventies being financially shafted by RCA), but remarkably, this doesn't detract from the concert at all. With such a solid backing band (Slick, Alomar, the drummer from Chic) how could you possibly mess up songs like Heroes, Golden Years, Ashes to Ashes and Young Americans? No amount of tinkering with the arrangements alters these indubitable classics.

Further, I think its a mistake to criticise Bowie for ditching the artiness of his late 70s phase in favour of a more commercial approach here. The fact is, that Bowie's music has always been quite theatrical and camp, so the hammy theatrics on show here not only don't detract from the songs, they sometimes enhance them. Cracked Actor, for instance, sees Bowie dressed in Shakespearian garb with Yorick's skull, while the arrangement ditches the original's fuzzy, amped-up guitar lead for cheesy synth-stabs, accompanied by a slinky bass groove. Its a camped-up treat, one of the show's highlights. My other fave is the cover of White Light/White Heat, which makes something of a mockery of the original, turning its pretentious artiness into a campy treat, topped off by the bandana-ed Earl Slick's preposterous 3-minute guitar solo, a brazen display of 80s excess. Ive always thought the Velvet's original was over-rated anyway, and seeing it revamped in this way gave me a great deal of perverse pleasure.

But its not all camped-up, hammy pseudery. (Nor are the pleasures on offer purely those of a perverse nature...) There's a solid performance underneath the cheesiness, and, I said above, don't be fooled into thinking that this concert ought to be forgotten along with Bowie's underwhelming studio output from the same period.

A vast improvement over the earlier VHS release, thank God. Though the picture and sound are by no means perfect (from what I gather, the concert was filmed on video), they no longer detract from the concert in the way the VHS version (muffled sound, blurry picture) did. For some idea of the quality, check out the Cat People video on The Best of Bowie DVD.

The concert itself is not for everyone, by all means, but even beyond the blonde perm and hammy theatrics, there lurks a solid concert. Its strength lies mainly in the track listing: it's basically the Low through Scary Monsters period with some older material and new songs thrown in. With Carlos Alomar (who features a lot in the concert) and Chic's Tony Thompson, the material has a nice funky edge, something missing in Bowie's current line-up.

The low points are Life on Mars and Space Oddity, which don't work at all well in these settings, the latter seeming to grind to a halt in places. Also, Earl Slick and his red hair band should have been tamed: each time he comes on for a solo it feels like you're watching a Van Halen covers band - it's not ideal. (When Bowie introduces the band towards the end, Slick is greeted by rapturous applause while Alomar just gets a routine clapping, which is simply unfair.).

Also included here is the documentary, Ricochet. Thankfully, Bowie doesn't act in the film. Instead, we see him hob-knobbing with the people of Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong. There are actually some nice shots of these cities, with a particularly nice montage of Bangkok set to the music of Moss Garden. There is also footage of the Hong Kong leg of the tour, where the set is more intimate and a little rougher round the edges.

I can never decide whether I prefer Bowie or Jagger or Roger Taylor of Queen, so I suppose I must say I like them all. If you want just one Bowie DVD, it must depend on whether you want him at his most way-out, or just for sheer easily accessible fun. For the latter, I can't recommend this concert highly enough. It's wonderful and Bowie is awesome. (But then he's always awesome.)

Packed with so many favourite songs.... Look especially for Crack'd Actor, Young Americans, Heroes, and Fame! Lurvely!!