It is footage of Bowie’s 1978 Isolar II tour, filmed at Earls Court in London but never released. A remastered version is due to be staged in arenas in 2027 under the title Stage.
What has actually been announced?
The Guardian reports that a concert film of David Bowie’s 1978 world tour will be presented in arenas in 2027 in a multimedia show. The film was shot that year and never released. The production is billed as Stage, and the footage has been remastered by the director of the 2022 documentary Moonage Daydream. According to the report, the show aims to give audiences the impression that Bowie is performing on stage in front of them. Much is still unannounced, including which cities and venues are involved, the exact dates, ticketing and how long the show will run. This article covers the project, the tour it comes from and the format it will use. Readers should treat any detail not yet confirmed by the organisers as unknown.
What was the Isolar II tour?
Isolar II was Bowie’s world tour of 1978. It is often called the “Heroes” tour or the Stage tour. It followed two albums released in 1977, Low and “Heroes”, which were made in Bowie’s Berlin period. Both records combined conventional rock songs with long, atmospheric instrumentals, and the concerts followed the same pattern. The tour played Europe, North America, Australia and Japan. The name echoes his earlier Isolar tour of 1976. The double live album Stage came out in 1978 from recordings made on the North American dates, so the title of the new arena production refers back to that album. Fans tend to rank the tour among the strongest live periods of Bowie’s career.
Who filmed the concerts, and where?
The Guardian reports that Bowie hired David Hemmings to film two of the tour’s shows at Earls Court in London in the summer of 1978. Hemmings is best known as an actor, particularly for Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow-Up, but he also worked as a director. Earls Court was a large exhibition and concert venue in west London that hosted many major tours for decades. It has since been demolished. The report links the commission to the two shows built around Low and “Heroes”. It is not publicly known how many cameras were used, how much of either night was filmed or what condition the original film stock was in.
Why did Bowie choose this particular director?
The two men had just worked together. Hemmings directed Bowie in Just a Gigolo, a feature film set in Berlin after the First World War. Marlene Dietrich also appeared in it, in what became her final screen role. The Guardian notes that critics treated Just a Gigolo harshly, and it is generally remembered as one of the weaker films of Bowie’s acting career. Hiring a director he had recently worked with for a concert film would have been an obvious choice. No public account explains in detail why Bowie picked Hemmings for the Earls Court shoot. Any explanation beyond the timing of their work together would be speculation.
Why was the film never released at the time?
The reasons are not clear from the available reporting. Unreleased concert films are common in rock history. Some stalled over money, some over rights, and some because the artist or label lost interest once a tour ended and attention moved to the next record. Bowie released Lodger in 1979 and Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) in 1980, so his work moved on quickly after 1978. Whether any of these factors applied to the Hemmings footage has not been publicly established. The reporting describes the material as never seen before, which suggests it stayed in an archive for almost five decades rather than being officially screened or broadcast.
What does remastering old concert footage involve?
Remastering usually starts with scanning the original film at high resolution. The image is then cleaned of dust, scratches and other damage, and the colour is corrected. The sound may be rebuilt from multitrack tapes if they still exist, and those tapes can be remixed for modern playback systems. The Guardian describes the work on these reels as painstaking, but the specific techniques used have not been detailed. It is not known whether the original audio was recorded separately to a professional standard or whether any of it had to be reconstructed. Moonage Daydream had already shown how archive Bowie material could be restored and reworked for very large screens and immersive sound.
How will the arena show work?
The Guardian reports that the show is meant to create the illusion that Bowie is present on stage. In recent years, music productions have used large projection surfaces, layered screens, lighting rigs synchronised to the footage and high-end sound systems to put late or absent performers in front of live audiences. Some productions have used digital avatars, while others project restored archive film at very large scale. Which of these approaches Stage will use, and whether live musicians will play alongside the footage, has not been confirmed. Until the producers publish technical details, any description of the staging beyond the stated aim of creating that illusion would be guesswork.
Why are archive concerts being turned into live events?
The music industry has found that heritage acts can still draw arena crowds when the original performers cannot tour. Archive footage is a known quantity, and a restored performance from an acclaimed period can appeal both to people who saw the artist live and to younger listeners who never had the chance. Arena presentations also bring in revenue in a way streaming and home video rarely match. There are open questions about authenticity, consent and how far a posthumous show should go in simulating a performer. Bowie died in 2016, so this production depends on decisions made by the people and companies who now manage his archive and rights.
Is this connected to Moonage Daydream?
The link is the director. Moonage Daydream, released in 2022, was a feature-length collage of Bowie footage, interviews and performances. It was made with access to the Bowie archive and designed for cinema screens and immersive sound formats. Its approach relied on restoring and reworking existing material rather than recreating events with actors. The new production appears to apply similar archive restoration to a single tour, this time for arenas instead of cinemas. Beyond the shared director and the Bowie archive as the source, it has not been stated whether Stage uses material or techniques developed for the earlier film.
What is still unknown?
Many basic details are missing. There is no public confirmation of the venues, the cities, the start date in 2027, ticket prices, the running time or the full setlist. It is also unclear whether the footage will later be released as a conventional film, on streaming services or on physical media. Nothing has been published on the technology behind the illusion of a live presence, or on whether the two Earls Court nights will be combined into one performance. Readers should wait for official announcements from the producers before relying on any reported dates or venues.
Sources and further reading
- The Guardian: music desk report on the restored 1978 concert footage and the planned 2027 arena presentation
- British Film Institute: background on David Hemmings’s career as an actor and director
- Rock music reference works: discographies covering Low, “Heroes” and the 1978 live album Stage
- London local history resources: history of the Earls Court exhibition and concert venue
Surfaced from the rss:guardian_music signal “restored archive concert film”. AI-assisted draft, editorially reviewed.
