Live: Western Springs Stadium, Auckland

David Bowie performed at the Western Springs Stadium in Auckland, New Zealand, on 2 December 1978, as part of the Isolar II Tour.

It was the 74th date of the tour, which began on 29 March in San Diego.

His guitarists were Carlos Alomar and Adrian Belew. Simon House was on electric violin, Sean Mayes played piano, and Roger Powell was on keyboards and synthesizers. George Murray played bass guitar and Dennis Davis was on drums.

Western Springs is a huge open-air stadium, one side a natural amphitheatre. Every now and then we heard a new report about the size of the crowd. It had passed 25,000 quite early on and grew to thirty, then thirty-five. Finally it reached 41,000 – the largest crowd ever in New Zealand, beating the early record of the Stones and even Neil Diamond!

The first half went well, though the place was so big that we lost much of the immediacy of the audience. When we went on for the second half, David suggested we all take our cameras and photograph the crowd. He never carries a camera nowadays (he had a small Polaroid in 1973) but borrowed Roger’s so he could join us in this ‘tribute’ to our audience. At the end of the show, he flung his sailor cap out to them as we ran off for the last time.

Bowie returned to the Western Springs Stadium on 26 November 1983 during the Serious Moonlight Tour, and 28 November 1987 during the Glass Spider Tour.

The setlist

• ‘Warszawa’
• “Heroes”
• ‘What In The World’
• ‘Be My Wife’
• ‘The Jean Genie’
• ‘Blackout’
• ‘Art Decade’
• ‘Breaking Glass’
• ‘Fame’
• ‘Beauty And The Beast’
• ‘Five Years’
• ‘Soul Love’
• ‘Star’
• ‘Hang On To Yourself’
• ‘Ziggy Stardust’
• ‘Suffragette City’
• ‘Sense Of Doubt’
• ‘Alabama Song’
• ‘Rebel Rebel’
• ‘Station To Station’
• ‘TVC 15’
• ‘Stay’