David Bowie looked abnormally normal Friday night at the Nissan Pavilion. His latest album, Outside, is a pseudo-cyberhip concept album about vivisection for art's sake, circa 1999 -- you know, that sort of thing -- and so one might expect the show to play off that narrative angle. Not so. Bowie did most of the album in no particular order, dropping in a fairly random selection of oldies as well, which made for a show full of sound and fury, signifying...whatever.
The evening started with a series of collaborations between Bowie and Nine Inch Nails, with Bowie and NIN singer Trent Reznor pairing up on "Hurt" and other NIN songs. But Bowie's vocals sounded too slick and too smooth by half on that kind of angst-ridden material. After that, he moved into the bulk of Outside, with the help of an enormous chrome-flash-and-smoke set. (In a show so self-consciously high-tech, it was annoying to see only one of the two video screens at Nissan working.) Most of the songs came off sounding little different from the recorded versions, except for the space Bowie gave for guitarist Reeves Gabrels's aggressive soloing.
Outside material from Outside, Bowie -- who's vowed that he will no longer perform anything from his "Sound + Vision" greatest-hits tour in 1990 -- dipped into his catalogue sporadically. Among others, he recast "The Man Who Sold The World" in a nearly unrecognizable arrangement, covered "Under Pressure" with the help of some incandescent vocals from his bassist, and closed the show with "Teenage Wildlife." It all ended rather abruptly, without encores -- and before 11, something no rock show should ever do.