David Bowie - Singapore Indoor Stadium - 04/03/04

I saw Bowie’s ‘Reality’ tour three times, and this was the oddest. In my previous job, I did a fair bit of travelling – short stints in North America, Australia, Europe and Singapore. As the only time off was in the evenings, I would check out what was on in the area. Normally, there was nothing (oh look, Metallica are playing a small gig here, NEXT week) , but on this occasion I struck gold.
I’d forgotten to look at the options before the trips so it was only during a break in the first day at the client that I thought to do a search. There was the Bowie gig! I figured it would be sold out – after all, Bowie always sold out, everywhere. But, apparently not in Singapore. My ticket was not brilliant. Being a stadium, the arena is rectangular, with seating to match, and I was right up in the corner. Still, it was a night out and made a change from ambling the shops.
On the evening I rocked up and noticed a couple of things. Firstly, the seating sloped all the way to the stage, with no barriers. Secondly, there was next to no security in the hall; this is Singapore: people are polite and obey the rules. Thirdly, there were lots of empty seats below me… So, I gently sauntered down the steps and grabbed a better seat. Not so close that the security folk who were present would have to deal with me, but close enough that I was no longer looking down on Bowie’s head. And everybody was really polite, and didn’t talk, or rush the stage or misbehave in any way (I vaguely recall there was no alcohol available).
The gig itself was great, of course – a slightly different set to the one we saw at Wembley the year before, including ‘Changes’ and ‘Suffragette City’ in the encore – you can’t ask much more than that!
The politeness stopped when the gig ended (at a civilised time of 10pm – we all had work tomorrow), and a few thousand people charged out for the taxi scrum. I’d pre-booked and I still had to throw a couple out of my taxi who had jumped in it as soon as the vehicle stopped. All’s fair in love and transport.
And, yes, Bowie did play ‘China Girl’.