{"id":667897,"date":"2026-10-28T15:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T15:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/667897\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T15:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T15:04:10","slug":"david-bowie-concert-film-stage-reveals-unseen-1978-performances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/667897\/","title":{"rendered":"David Bowie Concert Film ‘Stage’ Reveals Unseen 1978 Performances"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brett Morgen, director of the acclaimed 2022 David Bowie<\/a> documentary Moonage Daydream<\/a>, said his upcoming concert movie Staged\u00a0shows the late musician performing without an alter ego for the first time.<\/p>\n

After gaining access to Bowie\u2019s personal archive in 2017, he found several cans of film marked \u201cStage,\u201d which turned out to be footage from two shows at London\u2019s Earls Court in 1978. He spent nine years assembling his own version, which will be shown in arenas, not movie theaters, in 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had access to every filmed performance in existence of David Bowie,\u201d Morgen told\u00a0The Guardian<\/a> in a recent interview, \u201cbut when I saw this one I knew this was without question the greatest filmed performance of his career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked to speculate why the originally planned movie was never completed, he replied: \u201cHe was moving on to other things at the speed of light. So at that point I think the idea of looking backwards was distasteful to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Earl Slick Recalls David Bowie\u2019s Onstage Heart Attack<\/a><\/p>\n

Near\u00a0the end of his life<\/a>, Bowie began considering finally releasing the footage, and the task eventually fell to Morgen.\u00a0\u201cIt became something of an obsession,\u201d he said. \u201cWe spent over 1,000 hours colour-grading the footage, which I believe is some sort of record, but we really wanted it to look and feel like something you would experience today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stage\u00a0takes songs from both nights, thanks to Bowie\u2019s improvisational approach to the shows, with live audio recorded by Tony Visconti.\u00a0\u201cDifferent arrangements two nights running,\u201d Morgen pointed out. \u201cYou can feel the danger and excitement that it could have gone off the rails at any moment, and David was very charged by that.<\/p>\n

Key moments include the first-ever performance of \u201cSound and Vision,\u201d during which Bowie struggles not to laugh. \u201cHe\u2019s cracking up throughout the song because I think the electric violin was trying to do the horn section, which David thought was kind of amusing. It\u2019s a great moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the camera stays with David when he goes off to the sides, having a glass of beer or smoking a cigarette, and he\u2019s so engaged, dancing and smiling. It\u2019s very joyous. I think this was the first time he\u2019d performed without a mask or \u2018character,\u2019 so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the Teaser for David Bowie’s\u00a0‘Stage’What\u2019s Left Out of David Bowie’s ‘Stage’ Concert Movie<\/p>\n

Morgen said he left out one significant part of the raw footage. \u201cI found a lot of footage of a young boy playing David that I was a bit confused by,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not in the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that offered more opportunity to focus on Bowie himself. \u201cHe looks amazing. I\u2019ve looked at close-ups, and I think, \u2018How on Earth is this man not sweating?\u2019<\/p>\n

He described his production as \u201cnot a movie being shown in arenas,\u201d explaining: \u201cThere\u2019s multiple screens, a fully integrated lighting package, a 7.1 sound mix. The performance is 1978, but the presentation is 2027. The audience is invited to gaze where they want to gaze \u2013 choose your own adventure. Eleven years after his passing, it makes perfect sense that Bowie will be trailblazing again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concert film Stage will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February before being toured.<\/p>\n

David Bowie Year by Year: 1965-2012 Photographs<\/p>\n

David Bowie’s fashion sense fueled his chameleon-like career, from the early days as a mod and a folksinger through Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke and beyond.<\/p>\n

Gallery Credit: Dave Lifton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brett Morgen, director of the acclaimed 2022 David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream, said his upcoming concert movie Staged\u00a0shows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,270,278,43],"class_list":["post-667897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-music","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}