I still love David Bowie, and still very much would have loved to see one of his Ziggy Stardust shows... but this video is a cruel teaser. I couldn't understand why a videotape book I saw called it "practically unwatchable, and unlistenable"--now I know why. Bowie does his best to put on a good performance, but that's not the problem here--the problem is that this may very well be the WORST filming of a concert ever made. The cameras, obviously handheld, are constantly refocusing themselves and forgetting their places, they are shaky, the quality is no better than your typical home movie, they all too often focus on the audience for far too long when we wish we could see the changes going on on stage in the show instead, the sound quality is hideous, and worst of all, we only get an IDEA of what the concert was like (I still have no idea what even the full STAGE looks!). If it weren't for the fact that this is a legitimate release, I would swear that it was an illegally-filmed movie made by a group of fans who snuck cameras into the concert. It's THAT bad. It's really terrible when the cameras are so set on awful closeups and are so shaky and unsteady that you can't even understand most of what's supposed to be going on on stage. After watching it, I felt like I had only been given a hint of what one of those Ziggy-era shows was like... and I still have no more of a full idea of what the experience was like than I did before sitting down to watch this. It's terribly, terribly sad that this is apparently the only footage shot of one of those shows--because we Bowie fans who weren't there would STILL love to see the show in its entirety.
