Outside Tour

Lore & Background

Bowie said of why he chose to tour with Nine Inch Nails, "I personally did like the combination of NIN and me, but my fans didn't. Bad luck!! It also was an extremely young audience, between about 12 and 17 years old. My starting point was simply: I've just made an adventurous album, what can I do now to turn the concerts as adventurous." Trent Reznor has gone on record numerous times as being heavily influenced by David Bowie. When asked in 1995 if his album Outside was influenced by Nine Inch Nails, Bowie answered, "the band that I was actually quite taken with was three guys from Switzerland call The Young Gods." Early in the tour, the "almost 100% Nails audience" provided a challenge to Bowie, who said "In those first weeks, we had to adjust emotionally to the fact that we were going to be challenged every night to get in sync with what people were coming to the show for."

In Their Own Story

Bowie opened an interview for the tour with USA Today on 14 September 1995 with the question "How do you commit commercial suicide? Well, you do this: play songs from an album that hasn't been released yet, and complement it with obscure songs from the past that you've never done on stage." A review of the opening night said that "Moving from NIN to Bowie was like moving from Kansas to Oz. Instead of the stark white stage light beating down like investigation lamps, the stage became awash in color and texture." A review of the following night in Mansfield, Massachusetts was unkind, saying that by the end of the set, "Bowie proved he was not up to sharing the stage with NIN, yet insisted on dragging out his overlong performance to its embarrassingly self-indulgent end." Morrissey was slated to be the opening act of the European tour, but he suddenly and unexpectedly quit just before the Aberdeen Exhibition Centre performance on 29 November 1995.

Reader's Guide

For the tour, Bowie went with a modest stage design ("some banners, some mannequins") and avoided theatrical presentation like his previous Glass Spider Tour. The stage "resembled a building site, with paint splashed crumpled sheets draped about", and included an old fashioned table and chair. Above the stage, a neon sign displayed the phrase "Ouvrez le Chien". During the US portion, an additional neon sign hung above the stage displayed phrases like "Strange Ko", "Noise Angel", "Man Made" or "Street Volva" that changed nightly. Bowie had a few outfits including three jackets designed by Alexander McQueen. During the tour, as Nine Inch Nails reached the conclusion of their performance, the two bands played together performing "Subterraneans", "Hallo Spaceboy" and "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)", followed by two Nine Inch Nails songs "Reptile" and "Hurt" after which Bowie continued with his own set alone.

Did You Know?

• In a 2012 Rolling Stone reader's poll, the tour (pairing Nine Inch Nails with Bowie) was named one of the top 10 opening acts in rock history.
• The Kremlin Palace Concert Hall performance on 18 June 1996 was recorded and a 50-minute broadcast was later shown on Russian Television.
• Bowie signed copies of his album at a local record store while in New York on 26 September 1995.
• The support slot after Morrissey quit was filled by The Gyres, Echobelly, Placebo, Electrafixion (with Ian McCulloch) and a variety of local bands.
• Ouvrez le Chien charted at #32 on the UK albums chart.