The It's My Life Tour was a concert tour by the Anglo-American hard rock band Tin Machine. The tour commenced on 5 October 1991 after two warm-up shows, one press show and three trade-industry shows, visiting twelve countries and concluding after seven months and sixty-nine performances, a larger outing than their first tour in 1989.
To start the show at some venues, an old TV was placed on stage, playing old sitcoms while the prelude to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde played over loudspeakers.[2]
The band purposefully booked intimate venues of a few thousand seats or less so that they could focus on the music without any theatrical trappings, a stark change from lead vocalist David Bowie's previous Glass Spider and Sound+Vision tours;[4] Bowie also wanted to avoid playing larger venues and arenas lest his fans show up "hoping I'd be doing old songs or something. We don't want that feeling at all."[5]
Bowie claimed that the setlist for the tour was made on the fly each night, saying "We have no setlist whatsoever. We have a complete list of all our songs on the floor of the stage and we yell it out as we feel it. If you catch us on a bad night, it can be one of the most disastrous shows you've ever seen. But on a good night – and fortunately with this band most nights have been good nights – it really happens".[6]
Critical reception
The review of the performance at the trade show at Slim's in San Francisco was not kind: "It's hard to imagine people walking out on a David Bowie show at Slim's, but all you had to do was look around the room Thursday at the end of the appearance by Tin Machine. (...) Bowie and his associates gave a more than hour-long display of his latest incarnation, and the music turned out to be nearly unlistenable."[7]
The show in Seattle was met with positive reviews: "Let it first be said that on every level, Tin Machine is an outstanding band. (...) [they] may well represent the next evolutionary step in rock and roll – or just another blind alley. In any event, it is powerful stuff."[2] During the show, Bowie played alto and baritone sax and electric, acoustic and 12-string guitar.[2]
The Los Angeles Times had a positive review of the first New York show, complimenting the band on their desire to tinker with songs' arrangements and appreciating Bowie's "theatrical gift" for performing.[8]
Live recordings
Their performance on 1 September 1991 at the Los Angeles airport was taped for broadcast in America as part of the ABC In Concert series, and was aired on 6 September 1991.[9]
The show in Hamburg on 24 October, 1991, at Docks, was filmed and later released on the video, Oy Vey, Baby: Tin Machine Live at the Docks, with the song "Baby Can Dance" from the same performance appearing on the compilation album Best of Grunge Rock.
The following set list was obtained from the concert held on 30 October, 1991, at Le Zénith Paris in Paris. It does not represent all concerts for the duration of the tour.
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