Top bands boost Bowie confidence

Working with top rated bands at pop festivals in the mid-1990s boosted David Bowie’s flagging self-confidence, he says.

For although he has been on stage for nearly 40 years, performing live had always been a challenge for him.

“If something went wrong, my self-confidence would disappear,” the British singer told the New York Post. “I was so fragile that way because I didn’t actually believe I was a stage performer. Then we started doing festivals in the mid-’90s, working with top-rate bands like Prodigy. It was like: ’Phew, I’ve got to measure myself against this.’

“And you know what? We were going down really well considering all these bands were half my age and some of them a third of my age.

“I think that did such a lot for my confidence as a performer.”