Correct me if I'm wrong but this looks very like the Bowie at the Beeb gig from 2000 (is it really that long ago?) which I'm surprised was never made available on DVD.

For some reason, presumably commercial, two of the tracks on the CD were omitted from the live performance. I know because I went to the trouble of making a CD of it only to see its commercial release later!

Band are kicking.

I always felt that Earl Slick was a member of a very select group of "classic" American guitar players - Joe Walsh is in there too, as is Bruce Springsteen when he plays a solo - whose distinguishing feature is that they don't sound like Americans when they play.

Their "comfort zone" is right on the edge of control, and so just a whisker away from losing it completely - an approach I associate more with our side of the Pond than the Cousins'.* It's exciting. This is why, for example, I'll always opt for a drop of Rory over a chug of Stevie Ray.

There's quite possibly a sports analogy in here somewhere: their ultra-analysed, tightly planned, yard-at-a-time game versus our hit-the-ground-running-and-see-what-happens approach. And rather than the gridiron grind of most of his compatriots that has you nodding in admiration, Earl Slick's playing is more the mazy dribble that leaves you breathless.

[*Jimi Hendrix, of course, was perhaps the most anarchic of all of them, and he was American. Or was he?]

The whole band is just so on top of things on that tune.

has he not been knighted yet? Or even a damehood. A national treasure.

the greatest song ever recorded...

Not long for the deluxe version of StoS now!

but what was the Dame thinking about with that haircut?

Who want’s an American guitar player who sounds ‘American’ when you can have one who sounds ‘classic’. Like that terrible Duane Allman, always sounding so ‘American’ and ‘planned out’ and ‘in control’. There he is teaching that Clapton feller about the guitar when Eric’s so good (and edgy) already.

I guess by extension an Engerlish guitar player who doesn’t sound Engerlish must be a very good thing, also? HJH had a good player, a bit quiet he was, who took all his licks from that rotten Perkins (but I’ve always considered HJH to be quite a good ‘American’ band so perhaps that cancels it out).

And what percentage of those american guitarists have passports? I think there’s the start of a whole new thread for you here, joven.

Well, I think Archie's observation has struck a chord here - could that concern with control (rather than the expectation of unpredictability) be why I have always preferred Gallagher over Vaughan? There is much to think on here...

On another aspect: can anyone tell me to whom 'tronco' and 'joven' refer? And what they mean?

Yours in bafflement,

I have to say that is a cracking band. Earl on fine form as you say in the OP. I saw him once with Ian Hunter back in the day and he was excellent then too. Who is the Nile Rogers-esque rhythm player? Carlos Alomar?

pretty guitar.

my ,erm,copy of the gig the band is this,Twangathon.
David Bowie: vocals and acoustic guitar;
Earl Slick: guitar;
Gail Ann Dorsey: bass;
Mark Plati: rhythm/acoustic guitar;
Mike Garson: keyboards;
Sterling Campbell: drums;
Holly Palmer: backing vocals;
Emm Gryner: backing vocals.

You can keep your Marrs and Greenwoods and Malmsteens

...the virtuoso cat among the indie pigeons (or something), but those three names really don't belong in the same post code, let alone the same sentence. Compared to Yngwie Malmsteen and his otherworldly chops, Greenwood and Marr are but bedroom strummers and I'm sure they'd be the first to admit it.

Now, before I get lynched, let me say that I don't particularly enjoy Malmsteen's work, in fact I'd declare most of it to be as boring as bat shit. But like it or not, he is a total master of his instrument while the other two are virtually babes in arms by comparison.

While taking nothing away from the sterling work they have done with the Smiths and Radiohead respectively, neither men are great guitarists in the true sense of the word.

As for Earl Slick, he's a fine journeyman player and did some great work with Bowie and others, but perhaps the less said about Phantom, Rocker & Slick and their none-more-80s hit Men Without Shame the better.

(and check out the two dumbfucks introducing the clip!)

you've made me listen to Station To Station again. I count it lucky it ain't a double album or I'd never get time to listen to anything else

Stone cold genius?

Leaves me completely cold, his technique seems to be to the piano equivalent of shredding. It seemed to work on Aladdin Sane but he plays the same way thirty odd years later.

As for guitarists Mick Ronson did an excellent job of arranging some of Bowie's earlier stuff and was by no means a one trick pony.

I don't have much of Bowie's stuff but if that's on Station to Station then that's where I'm going.

Isn't that what everyone wants to do? Play guitar like that in a band like that?

Cos I bloody well do.