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David Bowie’s ‘Brilliant Live Adventures’ CD and vinyl available again

Frustrated Bowie fans get their second chance

By Paul Sinclair

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54

17 months after apologising to David Bowie fans for the Brilliant Live Adventures debacle (“a poor shopping experience”, Parlophone admitted) and 15 months after asking the same fans to register their interest in represses of the live albums in question, the label have finally confirmed that second pressings are coming.

All six albums are available to pre-order, on both vinyl and CD and both empty boxes (yep, they are sticking with that) are also available. This link will offer you the option of purchasing via the David Bowie shop or Warner’s Dig store. 28 Nov update: Only the empty boxes on Dig! but the David Bowie store still has some of the individual albums.

Note that these are not shipping just yet. The release date has been set to 2 December 2022.

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54 Comments

54 thoughts on “David Bowie’s ‘Brilliant Live Adventures’ CD and vinyl available again”

  2. Mine’s just arrived. When I saw the flimsy envelope stuck together with “Repaired By Yodel” tape I was Not a Happy Man. Luckily the contents had survived – six CDs and a mercifully uncrushed box. But what appalling packaging! – a thin-paper envelope with bubble wrap lining. The repaired tear had pierced the bubble wrapper. Won’t use DIG! any more.
    Oh yes, and I too couldn’t trace my purchase (done on 18 Aug) on their website and had to email their helpdesk!
    Has anyone noticed any difference between this issue and the original?

  4. Hi,
    I ordered some CDs from Dig! (at the time Rhino Eurostore) on August 17, 2022 but I can no longer find any trace of this purchase in my orders on the site… But I did pay via Paypal!
    Are there people like this?

  5. Order something else from Dig!/Warners – 6 double CDs and a box set (cost £75). The numpties send them loose in a soft envelope. Result: 4 cracked cases and a crushed box set. Going straight back. Cancelling Bowie set – can’t stand the grief again.

  6. I was lucky enough to get all 6 CDs the first time and I am glad that everyone who was left frustrated will get a 2nd chance. Usually I am one of those “limited means limited” guys but in that case it would feel unfair not to complete your set because of this disastrous order system.

    Let’s hope any further Bowie releases will be sold via the usual retailers…

  7. Dig!’s incompetence knows no boundaries. Pre-ordered the Brilliant Live Adventures CD set the other day – £97 taken in pre-payment from credit card. First, twice sent a new customer money off voucher that expired on 7 August 2022! Second, decided to cancel my order and get refunded – will the beggars answer me, will they hell. Deal with this comapny at your peril.

  8. A disgraceful turn of events. When the set was originally announced, Parlophone said there would be one, limited edition pressing. Real fans, like myself, imported the albums they couldn’t get on the UK sites, at considerable cost compared to UK prices. If I had known they would renege on their original statemet, I could’ve waited and saved myself a load of money. Plus, this now renders the original albums more or less worthless. Very, very shoddy from Palophone. But when you look at their logo, you can see what this is really in aid of.

  9. If you smoke you will be left with a empty cardboard box ,£15 out of pocket,black lungs , terrible breath and yellow fingers!! At least with this you get a sturdy box that in 20 years will seem like a bargain ( I think),,,, just going for a fag!! Have a nice weekend people!! And since nobody has mentioned it R.i.P Darius!!!

    1. I picked up an “unofficial” cd of Kit Kat on Amazon a couple of years ago for £10 – don’t know if it’s still up there but pursuing a copy would be the cheaper option and the sound quality is excellent.

  11. The concept less is more is the mindset here. No book with liner notes, incomplete concerts. Buy an empty box, it really does come across as the most crass marketing plan, even worse than the old singles marketing: Cd1 this week, Cd2 next week. The manufactured scarcity. But good for them for letting people finish their sets.

    1. Yeah, “final”. Good luck with that. Now that UMC is in charge of the Bowie musical estate, there’ll be a hell of a lot more to come. Still, if they reissue the Five Years box, I will certainly buy that. Its all I need to “complete my collection”.

      1. You have contradicted yourself. Your recent post you mention it was a disgrace for “real fans” that these sets are getting reissued and your sets are now worthless, but on the other hand wanting to make everyone’s Five Years box sets rendered as worthless, for a second repress so you can complete your collection (sic). Can’t have it both ways, just saying…

  13. All up I spent almost £100 the first time in postage to NZ for the first 5 albums, (only got the first 5 as Kit Kat was for whatever reason cancelled). Plus the stress of having to wake up in the middle of the night to order due to time difference, as each album became more and more of a fight to purchase once the flippers got in on it. Wish I’d known that there was a possibility to order all 6 together in the future. 1st world problems I guess.
    Glad that these albums are finally being made available to all the fans, but can’t help feeling I was ripped off first time around.
    Regardless have ordered album 6 and looking forward to giving it a spin in December when it arrives.

  14. This time around it does say only 1 per customer. Also, I bought all LP’s + box (I already had the cds + box) and it gave me free shipping. Hallelujah. I wonder how limited it is and if they printed more of the later albums as the first few were easily available. Only the last two albums were impossible to find unless on EBay. All in all, the entire thing is ridiculous of course, having to pay for the empty box and especially when you bought the separate albums at the time of release, the shipping was absolutely ridiculous. It is one of the, if not THE, most expensive box sets I own.

    1. Hi Kauwgompie,

      boy, am i glad that i’m more of a casual Bowie fan.

      I followed the mess Parlophone made out of this shaking my head whilst informing myself about the latest developments regarding the matter here on SDE.

      I must say i had forgotten of the promise that they’re doing a second run of the albums and the empty box until i saw Paul’s post here.

      Having some time on my hands i followed the link given here, chose ‘Dig’ as the seller and started scrolling.

      I was almost disappointed when i had all six albums plus box in my cart after merely minutes then went to the checkout and saw a total of about 100€ including tracked shipping from the UK to Germany.

      I then scrolled through the complete offers of the Bowie/Dig-shop, added one of the BLA-shirts to my cart and then paid 123€ for the whole experience, which is (by far :-) ) NOT the highest amount i’ve ever paid for a music box set.

      Of course it’s still three and a half months to go until the release date so it is uncertain at the time of writing what else could go wrong with these albums and i await 30€ more for German VAT and the dreaded handling fee that DHL will charge but for now i must say i’m almost satisfied with my purchase.

      Looking at the point of the empty boxes i can say that i already had that once before which was when Blank & Jones decided to celebrate the 10th release in their So80s series by letting print several hundred cardboard boxes to house all ten (by then) released albums.

      To their credit i must say that they also offered a box filled with all ten volumes with no extra charge for the box but as i already owned most of the earlier releases i decided to buy not one but two empty boxes for 15€ each.

      One of them fills its purpose of housing my So80s Vol. 1-10 collection now, the other holds Vol. 11-13 plus most of the album specials for different artists, the ZTT-label and German ‘Formel 1’ tv show.

      It’s also not that unusual that artists release cardboard boxes which are by far not filled to the brim, speculating that buyers will fill the empty space in such boxes by buying the later releases that would also fit nicely into them.

      For instance Phil Collins and Kölsch-Rock band BAP came to mind instantly when thinking about this point.

  15. Sorry to *that* guy, but I really didn’t have any issue last time around. Bought five of the six without any issue and the only thing that went wrong was I accidentally bought two boxes. Big deal.

    In Parlophone’s defence (as was pointed out first time around), six live albums from Bowie’s heritage years (and most of my music-loving friends thought Little Wonder was hilarious, which I suspect wasn’t Bowie’s intention) is a niche product, so they underestimated the interest.

    I can guarantee you that if these albums had normal press runs (for Bowie), they’d be the staple of bargain bins the world over.

  16. So – do we know if this pressing is limited in any way? I had the ones I missed last time in my basket, but haven’t really got the enthusiasm to actually check them out yet. Also a bit pissed off that they seem to be using this as a covert way of selling shirts in bundles rather than packaging complete box sets of CDs and vinyl.
    Will be interesting to see if the 2nd edition is exactly the same as the originals or whether it will be slightly different

    1. Hi Simon,

      regarding bundles i absolutely loved their approach that every site for the cd album offer showed me as a “If you buy this you might also like…” suggestion a bundle of said cd plus the same album on vinyl.

      Sorry to say but “No, i don’t…”

  17. I was going to try to leave a coherent comment but I’m still getting PTSD flashbacks of original sh1tshow. What a mess it was. A long winded, frustrating, anti-consumer, environmentally wasteful, and expensive mess. A case study on how not to do it.

  18. If you’re annoyed that the Bowie Brilliant Live Adventures set has been repressed to reduce the obscenely overpriced second hand scalper market, you don’t like music – you like gloating “I’ve got that and you haven’t.” That said, as someone who paid about £80 in postage buying these month by month, it would be a thoughtful gesture to refund us that bought this bite by bite to be refunded the extra expense caused by their frankly hostile sales approach.

  19. The David Bowie shop states in small print:

    “By signing up (to the mailing list) you agree to receive news and offers from David Bowie”

    Anyone else feeling an unholy semblance to ‘The Conjuring’ ? :)

  20. Warner Music Australia’s website has the CDs for AUD $20.00 each (same as last time).

    For anyone wavering on the slipcase box, yes it is a shitty way to sell it, but it sure is beautifully produced. They scream sturdy quality.

  21. Hehehe. Warner Music Canada has “stock” but for Canadians only. Ordered all 6 on CD. Surprisingly the shipping is quite cheap. But still about $160 after taxes and shipping.
    A bit pricey when each CD is $20 [$25 for the double]. And no way I’m buying that box to fit them in for $15….

  22. I had the Kit Kat cd missing so I’m glad that’s going to be complete, but why on earth not a complete box set in the first place? I can see a Moonage Daydream soundtrack for Christmas, and please a blu ray

  24. Oh lord, I ordered the cds right in time, did get an mail on one or two cds saying ” sold out ” and did get them twice but had to pay only one time. Crazy, brrr. I am glad to get the box AND all CDs.

  25. Very cool to see this, but would selling the whole set in the box be that much of a hassle for the vendor? Let’s say it’s all just a matter of not having the resources to shove the discs or records in the appropriate container. Since they weren’t assembled at the factory, I can imagine that being a hangup. But at least throw in the box for free if you buy all the titles in one purchase.

  26. Having got all the LPs and CDs first time around with a fair amount of trouble (twice ordered from US site) and too much wasted time, I wish I had known about this at the outset and could have ordered them all in one go. The eBay hawking could have been dealt with as well. Never got the boxes and never will. £30+p&p is ridiculous.
    Shame the RSD LPs and CDs aren’t been reissued, I would like to get some of them I missed out on.
    Still there is the vinyl Brilliant Adventure box to spend £235 on. Must resist…

  27. I was just wondering what (if anything) was happening with this the other day. I started putting the CDs in the basket and while doing that I started thinking ‘Do I actually really need more DB live albums’? I came to the conclusion that I did not :)
    I’m not saying I can’t be bothered to click many buttons, but it feels rather numbing paying £12 for an empty box, given the current cost of living crisis we are experiencing. If they’d have just whacked them all together in a box and charged about £80 I might’ve actually bought it.

  28. Note they are trying the one per customer jive again simply for a CD. The marketing previously and now renders a non purchase. I’ll stick with my live Outside Tour bootleg from Amazon thanks all the same far cheaper and a better track listing.

    1. The (automatical) translation into German on the Dig! site sounded more like ‘only one per order’ not ‘…per customer’.

      Has anyone here tried multiple orders already?

  30. Strange how among everything else the ‘obvious’ options off all CDs + box or all LPs + box are not offered as such on either of these two websites. Of course, just a bunch of clicks will solve that, but he same can be said for people who want to buy the CD, the LP and the hoodie of a particular album? They seem to make a deliberate effort to not sell/market/present this release as a boxset, while, after all, it is one, isn’t it? In any case, this time I’ve ordered it/them.

  31. To Bowie fans outside of the UK : be aware that these will be shipped out of the UK so customs duties and fees will have to be paid. A shame that Warner couldn’t think of a way to ship the records from mainland Europe. Also prices between the Davidbowie.com and Dig! sites are different (?): Dig! being lower in both prices and shipping charges. I first ordered from the Bowie site only to cancel my order and reorder from Dig! (and saved 90 euro…to pay for the customs fees!). I owned the first 4 LP’s from the first pressing and missed on the 5th LP which was sold out so rapidly. Eventually sold the ones I had as I was so disgusted….

  32. It was so exciting first time around…especially missing out on one and then discovering it on sale on eBay at a crazy price..worked it out that to buy all 6 plus box [cds} plus p&p will set you back nearly a 100 pounds…not really a bargain is it?

  35. Hmmm. Pleased I held off buying the last one I needed for the going rate of over 100 quid, but slightly annoyed that I did pay over fifty for one of the others. Didn’t think this was ever going to happen but good to see that it’s now on the cards. It’s not a perfect series but there are some brilliant performances in there

  38. I never scrambled to get any of these when they first came out, and I just can’t pull the trigger now either. Buying the box separately! Let’s hope that doesn’t catch on.

    I did finally pick up the Conversation Piece box-set last week on the basis of Paul’s review on SDE. Paul is right: it’s a quality package. THAT’s how to do it.

  39. All the scalpers on Discogs and ebay are going to be majorly disappointed.

    I was lucky to nab all the LPs and box on the original run but the later ones tooks hours online since did not always know the time they would go on sale.

    Glad to see them being made available again.

  40. As one of the lucky ones who got all the albums first time round (the last one was a nightmare to get though!) good to see all Bowie fans finally have a chance to collect the whole set, hopefully hassle free

  41. Just wondering about this the other day. Will be able to buy the 50% of those I missed in the first botched round of releases. Might even bother with a box ! Some glacial pace these things move….

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