David Bowie’s Legendary Long-Lost Footage Is Finally Being Released

Getty

The passing of David Bowie in 2016 is a loss that continues to be felt in the music world, more than a decade later.

However, The Guardian reports that fans will have one more chance to see the iconic rocker perform, thanks to the discovery of a long-lost concert film considered to be one of Bowie’s more legendary shows.

Bowie Returns in ‘Stage’

Almost 50 years after it took place, David Bowie’s 1978 Isolar II tour will be returning to arenas next year.

Billed as “Stage,” the presentation features never-before-seen footage shot by filmmaker David Hemmings (“Blow Up”), whom Bowie commissioned to film two shows at London’s Earl Court arena (Hemmings had recently directed Bowie and screen icon Marlene Dietrich in the 1978 movie “Just a Gigolo”).

Featuring material from Bowie’s groundbreaking “Heroes” and “Low” albums, the footage was painstakingly remastered by Brett Morgen, director of the critically acclaimed 2022 Bowie documentary “Moonage Daydream.”

An Ambitious Plan

Per The Guardian, at the time Bowie was eager to get off the road, and had shot the footage with the intention of releasing a concert film that would tour in his stead, replacing him in concert venues while he took a break from performing.

While Bowie did indeed press the pause button on live performing — after the Isolar II tour, he would not tour again until 1983 for the smash-hit Serious Moonlight tour — he ended up becoming entrenched in other projects, and never got around to releasing the film.

A critically acclaimed live album from that tour, also called “Stage,” was culled from recordings made at some U.S. shows.

That album was released in 1978, while the footage Hemmings had shot was placed in storage due to Bowie’s dissatisfaction with it.

“I simply didn’t like the way it had been shot,” Bowie said in 2000, reported The Guardian. “Now, of course, it looks pretty good and I would suspect that it would make it out some time in the future.”

Lost and Found

As the years passed, Bowie fans began to see Hemmings’ footage as the “holy grail” of lost Bowie performances. As it happened, the footage was discovered by Morgen when he began accumulating archival material to use in “Moonage Daydream.”

Indeed, some of that discarded footage did wind up in the documentary, with many fans singling out a Hemmings-shot sequence of Bowie performing “Heroes” as being the film’s highlight.

Morgen wound up spending years working on the original 35mm footage, labor that The Guardian noted “included meticulous colour grading, relighting and hand painting.”

According to fan site David Bowie World, those Earls Court shows “stand among the most important British concerts” from that stage in Bowie’s career, “a period in which Bowie had moved away from the elaborate stage characters of earlier years and placed an increasing emphasis on musicianship, arrangements, sound and atmosphere.”

Bowie’s “Stage” will begin its tour early next year. The world premiere will take place on February 14, 2027 at the Berlin’s Uber Arena Berlin, in conjunction with the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).

Meanwhile, next month marks the the beginning of Bowie80, a year-long celebration of the late artist that will include a series of “events, exhibits, releases, collaborations and experiences beginning in November and spanning 2027,” per an announcement from the website bowie80.davidbowie.com.