Classic David Bowie Ziggy Stardust Era TV Performance Goes HD

Bruce Henne | 06-28-2022

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(hennemusic) David Bowie's team is revisiting footage from a 1972 UK television performance as part of the ongoing 50th anniversary celebrations of his album, "The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars."

In newly-available upgraded HD video, Bowie - as Ziggy and joined by his band, The Spiders From Mars - can be seen delivering the record's opening track, "Five Years", on the classic music series The Old Grey Whistle Test.

"Five Years" was one of three songs - alongside "Queen Bitch" and "Oh! You Pretty Things" from "Hunky Dory" - that the rocker delivered just days before the launch of the first Ziggy Stardust tour.

"Hunky Dory" had been released less than two months earlier and the Ziggy Stardust album opener wouldn't be available to fans for a few months yet.

As Bowie's team notes: "So, of the songs recorded, 'Oh! You Pretty Things' would probably have been the best advert for the tour, in that it was freshest in the public memory, having spent several weeks on the UK singles chart for Peter Noone the previous May and June, when it peaked at No. 14.

"However, in their wisdom, the BBC didn't broadcast 'Oh! You Pretty Things' for another ten years, probably considering the song a little too mainstream (due to the Noone connection) for the often chin-strokingly serious TOGWT."