Live: Manhattan Center, New York City

David Bowie kicked off the Hours Tour with a performance at the Grand Ballroom in the Manhattan Center, New York City, USA, on 23 August 1999.

There were just nine dates in the tour, which lasted from August to December 1999. This show was recorded and filmed, and later released as the VH1 Storytellers live album and video. The show’s director was Michael A Simon.

Bowie’s band was Reeves Gabrels and Mark Plati on guitars, Mike Garson on piano and keyboards, Gail Ann Dorsey on bass guitar and vocals, Sterling Campbell on drums, and Holly Palmer and Lani Groves on backing vocals.

Three songs were also recorded for the BBC TV show Top Of The Pops on this day at the venue. They were unused at the time, and eventually released in 2024 on the digital EP Live From The Manhattan Center ’99.

This was Bowie’s final live performance with Reeves Gabrels, a long-running partnership which had begun in 1988 with a live rearrangement of the song ‘Look Back In Anger’, and came to the fore with the Tin Machine project a year later.

It was also the first performance in which Sterling Campbell played drums with Bowie. Campbell remained part of Bowie’s live band until the end of A Reality Tour in 2004, and performed on a number of studio albums up to 2013’s The Next Day.

Bowie and Mike Garson had previously performed at the Manhattan Center on 18 September 1995.

The setlist

• ‘Life On Mars?’
• ‘Thursday’s Child’
• ‘Can’t Help Thinking About Me’
• ‘Seven’
• ‘China Girl’
• ‘Rebel Rebel’
• ‘Survive’
• ‘Word On A Wing’
• ‘Drive-In Saturday’
• ‘I Can’t Read’
• ‘Always Crashing In The Same Car’
• ‘If I’m Dreaming My Life’
• ‘The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell’

Hours Tour dates

• 23 August 1999: Manhattan Center – New York City, New York, USA
• 9 October 1999: NetAid, Wembley Stadium – London, UK
• 10 October 1999: HQ Club – Dublin, Ireland
• 14 October 1999: Elysée Montmartre – Paris, France
• 17 October 1999: Libro Music Hall – Vienna, Austria
• 19 November 1999: Kit Kat Klub – New York City, New York, USA
• 2 December 1999: Astoria – London, UK
• 4 December 1999: Alcatraz – Milan, Italy
• 7 December 1999: Vega – Copenhagen, Denmark