In concert
On 29 November 1972, the Ziggy Stardust Tour arrived in Philadelphia. By coincidence, Mott The Hoople were playing at the city’s Tower Theatre.
Bowie introduced the band on stage, sang with them on ‘All The Young Dudes’, just as he had in Guildford earlier in the year, and played saxophone on their version of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Honky Tonk Women’.
The Philly performance of ‘All The Young Dudes’ was included on the band’s 1998 release All The Way from Stockholm to Philadelphia, and on the expanded edition of All The Young Dudes in 2006.
Excepting guest performances with Mott The Hoople, David Bowie first performed ‘All The Young Dudes’ live on 12 May 1973.
This was Bowie’s long-awaited return to the UK, following the Ziggy Stardust Tour’s shows in North America and Japan. At the first show at London’s Earls Court, ‘All The Young Dudes’ was the middle part of a medley, in between ‘Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud’ and ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’.
This version was retained through much of the remainder of the tour, and can be heard on the 1983 live album Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture.
The song was performed regularly through to 1974’s Diamond Dogs Tour, from which recordings appear on David Live and Cracked Actor (Live Los Angeles ’74).
In 1987 guitarist Peter Frampton played the chorus melody towards the end of ‘Time’, during the Glass Spider Tour. He began the melody as Bowie sang the line “Perhaps you’re smiling now”, and continued until the song’s close. A recording can be heard on Glass Spider (Live Montreal ’87) on the 2018 box set Loving The Alien (1983-1988).
At the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, held at Wembley Stadium on 20 April 1992, Bowie performed the song with Queen, Mott the Hoople’s Ian Hunter, and Mick Ronson.
‘All The Young Dudes’ was mothballed until Bowie’s 1996 summer tour, and brought out again for his June 2000 shows. His performance from that year’s Glastonbury Festival headlining set can be heard on the 2018 DVD and album Glastonbury 2000.
The song was performed often in 2003 and 2004 during A Reality Tour, Bowie’s final tour. It can be heard on the album and DVD of the same name. Sterling Campbell often began the song by playing the drum intro from ‘Young Americans’.
Bowie’s final performance of ‘All The Young Dudes’ was at the Eichenring in Scheeßel, Germany, on 25 June 2004. This was the final date of the tour; Bowie was hospitalised following the show, having collapsed backstage after the final encore.
It’s strange that Bowie says he wrote All the Young Dudes specifically for Mott the Hoople but when describing the song’s meaning to Burroughs he’s telling the whole Ziggy Stardust story and Dudes is a part of that story. It seems he wrote it for Ziggy but gave it away to Mott. Why else would he write a song for them about his own character’s story?