One of the best Bowie bootleg videos that’s been floating around for at least 25 years is the professionally shot recording of six numbers from his 1978 tour. I’ve read variously that this came from one of the shows recorded for the Stage album, but I’ve also seen claims that it was shot either in Dallas or in Norway. Tony Visconti, who produced Stage, mentions nothing in his liner notes for the 2005 reissue of the album about the shows he recorded also being videotaped. I’m pretty sure that this was taped at The Dallas Convention Center performance of April 10th, 1978

Wherever it was shot, and no matter the short running time, this is one of the finest live Bowie documents we’ve got and it hails from one of his most creative and fertile periods as a mature artist.

It’s incredible to me that neither this nor the “1980 Floor Show” (Bowie’s Midnight Special special from 1973) have been made available for the home market. There were also German and Japanese television broadcasts of the 1978 tour. Surely Bowie fans would rather have one of these programs on DVD than another bloody Ziggy anniversary release! Enough’s enough, already, EMI…

Well, until that day, here’s a great quaklity YouTube upload.

SET LIST: “What in The World,” “Blackout,” “Sense of Doubt,” “Speed of Life,” “Hang On to Yourself,” and “Ziggy Stardust.”
 

 
(Note, forget what the uploader says about this being “part one”—this is the whole thing. Parts 2-4 are from the NHK Hall show in Toyko later that year)