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It's My Life Tour

Tour by Tin Machine
"It's My Life" Promotional Band Image From L to R: David Bowie, Hunt Sales, Reeves Gabrels, Tony Sales
Associated album	Tin Machine II
Start date	5 October 1991
End date	17 February 1992
Legs	3
No. of shows	69
Tin Machine concert chronology
Tin Machine Tour (1989) It’s My Life Tour (1991–1992)
David Bowie tour chronology Sound+Vision Tour (1990) It’s My Life Tour (1991–1992) Outside Tour (1995–1996)

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.

Tour details

The band rehearsed and warmed up for the tour in Dublin in August 1991. Joined onstage by guitarist Eric Schermerhorn, Tin Machine presented songs from the Tin Machine album and the Tin Machine II album, augmented with cover versions of songs from the Pixies, Neil Young and The Moody Blues.

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.

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; 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."

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".

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."

The show in Seattle was met with positive reviews: "Let it first be said that on every level, Tin Machine is an outstanding band. (...) may well represent the next evolutionary step in rock and roll – or just another blind alley. In any event, it is powerful stuff." During the show, Bowie played alto and baritone sax and electric, acoustic and 12-string guitar.

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.

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.

Tin Machine were the musical guest on Saturday Night Live's 17th season on 23 November 1991.

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.

Songs from the concerts in Boston, New York City, Sapporo and Tokyo were recorded and released on the live album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby (1992).

Setlist

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.

1. "Bus Stop"
2. "Under the God"
3. "A Big Hurt"
4. "Baby Can Dance"
5. "Shopping for Girls"
6. "Stateside"
7. "Goodbye Mr. Ed"
8. "I Can't Read"
9. "Go Now" (Bessie Banks cover)
10. "Baby Universal"
11. "Sacrifice Yourself"
12. "I've Been Waiting for You" (Neil Young cover)
13. "Betty Wrong"
14. "You Can't Talk"
15. "Debaser" (Pixies cover)
16. "If There Is Something" (Roxy Music cover)
17. "Heaven's in Here"
18. "One Shot"
19. "You Belong in Rock 'n' Roll"

Tour dates

Songs

Notation:

• Included on the Oy Vey, Baby album
• Included on the Oy Vey, Baby video album
• Included on both versions of the Oy Vey, Baby album

Personnel

Tin Machine

• David Bowie – vocals, guitar, alto & tenor saxophone
• Reeves Gabrels – lead guitar, vocals
• Tony Sales – bass guitar, vocals
• Hunt Sales – drums, vocals

Additional musicians

• Eric Schermerhorn – rhythm guitar, vocals

References

1. Murray, Charles Shaar (October 1991), "And the Singer's Called Dave...", Q magazine, no. 61, pp. 56–64
2. ^ "Bowie, Tin Machine offer what may be rock's new frontier" by Cary Smith, Journal-American, December 1991
3. Pegg, 2004, pp. 594–595.
4. "David Bowie Music Interview" by George Varga for The Star Entertainment Weekly, 1–7 January 1992, pp 2 & 10
5. di Perna, Alan (1991), "Ballad of the Tin Men", Creem, 2 (1): 50–59
6. "Beaming Bowie excited about current direction of his life, music" by Patrick MacDonald, The Seattle Times, 20 December 1991
7. "Bowie's Band Unimpressive at Slim's" by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 14 September 1991, C4
8. Pareles, Jon (30 November 1991), "Review/Rock; For Bowie, One More Change of Pace", Los Angeles Times, retrieved 29 October 2013
9. ^ Tin Machine Rockline Interview 1991. Retrieved 8 August 2021.

• Nicholas Pegg, The Complete David Bowie, Reynolds & Hearn Ltd, 2004, ISBN 1-903111-73-0
• David Buckley, Strange Fascination: The Definitive Biography of David Bowie, Virgin Books, 1999, ISBN 1-85227-784-X

• 1991 concert tours
• 1992 concert tours
• David Bowie concert tours