David Bowie’s ‘Stage’ to Present 1978 Tour as Immersive Experience

Cinephiles and well-heeled David Bowie fans in Germany will be “Heroes” just for one night on Valentine’s Day when a new immersive concert experience, Stage, debuts in Berlin’s Uber Arena during the Berlin Film Festival. Variety reports that the production pairs previously unseen footage of the artist, taken during his 1978 Isolar II World Tour, with added dramatic lighting. Filmmaker Brett Morgen discovered the footage while making his Moonage Daydream film.

The presentation will combine large-scale projections on three screens, as well as the use of transparent LED screens. Patrick Woodroffe, who has worked with the Rolling Stones and Elton John on their live presentations, designed the lighting. Audio engineer Paul Massey, who won the Oscar for Best Achievement in Sound Mixing in 2019 for Bohemian Rhapsody, mixed the music with 7.1 surround sound and spatial audio design.

Morgen, who will appear as a headlining speaker around that time at Berlinale’s European Film Market, collaborated on the film with Bowie’s estate, the Berlinale, and Rob Hallett’s Wonderworld.

Bowie launched his Isolar II World Tour in March 1978 and performed 78 concerts in North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia on four legs before concluding it that December. The performances focused on material from the first two albums of his “Berlin Trilogy,” Low and “Heroes,” on which he explored a more experimental direction.

His gigs on the tour also included material from his celebrated Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars album, as well as Station to Station, Young Americans, and Aladdin Sane, among others. Performances recorded in the U.S. comprised the material on his Stage live album, released while the tour was still going on, and years later on the 2018 archival release, Welcome to the Blackout (Live London ’78), which sounded even better. He wouldn’t stage another full-scale tour until 1983.