David Bowie - Glastonbury 2000 (3LP)

Some live albums feel like documents. Glastonbury 2000 feels like a celebration that happened to be recorded. David Bowie walked onto the Pyramid Stage at Worthy Farm on 25 June 2000 and delivered a headliner’s masterclass, the sort of career-spanning set that turns a Sunday night field into a communal memory. The 2018 release finally gives the whole show the space it deserves, with a clear, warm mix that catches both the band’s muscle and Bowie’s playful charm.

Part of the thrill is the context. Bowie had first played Glastonbury back in 1971, at dawn, long before the fields grew into a city. Coming back nearly three decades later, he treated the festival like an old friend. He jokes, he grins, he glides from era to era. The set is stacked with the songs that stitched his world to ours. Life on Mars? lands like a hymn. Ashes to Ashes shimmers with synth glow and memory. Let’s Dance turns the field into a moving mass, and Heroes still climbs the night air in that way only he could manage.

The players make it sing. Gail Ann Dorsey’s bass is a steady pulse and her harmonies wrap around his lines with care. Mike Garson, the pianist who could move from classical runs to jagged art rock in a breath, sprinkles colors everywhere and then takes the wheel when the songs need to exhale. Sterling Campbell keeps the grooves tight and unhurried. Mark Plati’s guitars snarl and sparkle as required. Listen close and you hear a band proud to be in the moment, adjusting tempos, letting intros breathe, giving Bowie space to tell a story and hit a note that people in the back will remember on the ride home.

Parlophone put the show out in 2018, and the care shows. The audio comes from the BBC’s recording of the night, mixed with a fan’s ear for dynamics. You get the cheers that greet the opening lines and the hush that falls when the ballads start. You hear Bowie’s voice as a living thing, a little weathered, still elegant, and often playful. He needles the crowd just enough, thanks them often, and never slips into autopilot. The whole thing flows like a proper festival set should. Peaks, sweeps, a breather in the middle, then a run of songs you did not think could stack up any higher.

For vinyl people, this one is a treat. Glastonbury 2000 vinyl arrived as a roomy multi-LP set that gives the performance space to breathe. The pressings are solid and the packaging pulls you further into the field. If you collect David Bowie vinyl, this sits in the sweet spot between archival treasure and party starter. It is the record you pull out when someone says they never quite got Bowie, and it is the record you lean on when you want to feel like a huge field just opened up in your lounge room. If you are crate digging in a Melbourne record store or searching vinyl records Australia listings late at night, keep an eye out. It can vanish as quickly as it arrives. Of course, you can always buy David Bowie records online, but this one begs to be brought home and played loud.

Reception to the release was warm for good reason. Live Bowie can be many things, from edgy experiments to sleek stadium turns. This sits in the rare middle where the hits do not feel like obligations. They feel renewed. Ziggy-era glam brushes up against Berlin cool and early 80s pop gloss, and the transitions feel natural. You can tell he is enjoying the crowd, and that kind of energy cannot be faked. In a year when Glastonbury was already bursting with stories, he wrote one more and then let it echo for years.

Among David Bowie albums on vinyl, Glastonbury 2000 stands as a vivid postcard from the last great sweep of his live prime. It captures the artist in a generous mood with a band that understood the assignment. It sounds like summer and sun on wet ground and the buzz of a hundred thousand happy conspirators. Spin it, and the field appears. Spin it again, and you start planning the next listen.