The CD portion of Bowie’s 1999 VH1 Storytellers appearance
redundantly contains the audio from the eight songs heard on the VH1
show, but irritatingly omits the four “bonus performance” outtakes
included on the DVD. Although they’re not “unplugged,” Bowie’s
top-notch electric band sounds wonderfully warm and intimate here. The
low-key nature of the show yields some powerful performances of cool
Bowie oldies like “Can’t Help Thinking About Me” and “Drive-In
Saturday.” Bowie used the Storytellers appearance to promote his
current album Hours, the weakest of his 1990s albums. Although
the Hours songs here aren’t completely awful, their relative
weakness and disproportionate representation bogs things down.
Bowie introduces the show, “I wish I had more time. Oh, the things I
could tell you … you don’t know the half of it!” It’s fair warning,
but Storytellers feels light and less than fully satisfying
after consumption. Sure, the anecdotes about Marc Bolan, Mott the
Hoople and Iggy Pop are fun, and Bowie gets vulnerable introducing
“Word on a Wing.” But his thoughtful depth and profundity, along with
Storytellers’ narrative premise, set up expectations for
something richer and deeper than what’s spread across these two
discs.
— Michael David Toth
This article appears in Jul 22-28, 2009.
