‘Lost’ 1978 David Bowie tour film to play arenas in 2027, remastered by Moonage Daydream director Brett Morgen

David Hemmings’ never-released concert film from Bowie’s 1978 world tour will be presented in a multimedia show that aims to ‘create the illusion’ that he is present on stage

Almost 50 years after its original run, David Bowie’s 1978 Isolar II tour will return to arenas in 2027, billed as Stage, thanks to Moonage Daydream director Brett Morgen’s painstaking remaster of never-before-seen footage.

Bowie originally commissioned David Hemmings, the Blow-Up star turned director, to film two shows centred on the “Heroes” and Low albums at London’s Earls Court arena that summer. Bowie had recently been directed by Hemmings in the critically maligned Just a Gigolo, alongside Marlene Dietrich.

Bowie intended for the footage to be released as a concert film that could, according to his associates, play in nontraditional venues such as concert venues in lieu of him touring himself. After the Isolar II tour, Bowie would not tour again until the 1983 Serious Moonlight run.

But the always fast-evolving musician soon became busy with other projects: recording and releasing Lodger, working with John Cale on music that was never released and Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps).

While an acclaimed live album of the tour, Stage (recorded at US dates that spring), was released in autumn 1978, the footage never saw the light of day. “I simply didn’t like the way it had been shot,” Bowie said in 2000. “Now, of course, it looks pretty good and I would suspect that it would make it out some time in the future.”

For fans, it became a holy grail of Bowie footage, alongside his lost lost TV debut on Ready Steady Go! in 1966 (as David Bowie and the Buzz) and the original 1972 TV performance of Starman on the regional TV show Lift Off With Ayshea, two weeks before the infamous Top of the Pops performance that changed young viewers’ lives across the UK.

When Morgen got the Moonage Daydream gig, he asked to see Hemmings’ original film. Hemmings’ footage of “Heroes” made its way into Morgen’s documentary – which won best music film at the 2024 Grammy awards – and was noted by many fans as a highlight, heightening excitement about the full, mostly unseen tour film.

The idea of bringing it to arenas was born in 2018, and Morgen subsequently spent years working on the original 35mm, including meticulous colour grading, relighting and hand painting.

The Earls Court shows “stand among the most important British concerts” of Bowie’s late-70s career, according to fan site David Bowie World, “a period in which Bowie had moved away from the elaborate stage characters of earlier years and placed an increasing emphasis on musicianship, arrangements, sound and atmosphere”.

The Isolar II tour ran from March to December 1978. The concerts were split into two parts, the first focusing on Low and “Heroes”, the second dwelling on his early 70s hits, including plenty of songs from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

Guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist George Murray, drummer Dennis Davis, keyboardist Roger Powell, pianist Sean Mayes and violinist Simon House provided backing: “his finest [band] by a mile”, according to a review by NME’s Nick Kent. Brian Eno was set to be part of the touring band but had to pull out owing to health issues.

In his rave review of the Earls Court show, Kent wrote: “Bowie was constantly onstage, a model of agility, and physical grace, determinedly ‘projecting’ while singing loud and dear in a voice that has seldom sounded better … That shimmering sizzle, that fizzy brilliance that is undeniably attuned to Bowie’s work, was all there … It impressed me, it entertained me and very occasionally had me almost spellbound.”

In the new Stage incarnation, footage of the concert will play across multiple screens accompanied by a lighting show designed by Patrick Woodroffe and an immersive audio mix by Paul Massey. The use of advanced transparent LED screens will “create the illusion that Bowie and his band are physically present on stage”, according to a press release, “enveloping audiences in the atmosphere of a full-scale rock concert for an unprecedented live experience”.

The trailer for Stage shows a young man in a leopard print jacket with his girlfriend. That was Mark Adams, who 21 years later would begin working for Bowie – and still does – and had no idea the footage existed until it was shown to the team recently.

Stage will have its premiere as part of the 77th Berlin film festival in February before touring.

Morgen also directed the documentaries Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, and Crossfire Hurricane, about the Rolling Stones. Woodroffe worked on lighting for artists including Abba, the Stones and Michael Jackson, as well as at the London 2012 Olympic Games.