Tourdates

On this page I tried to compile all the dates, setlists and lineups of musicians from the four world-tours:
Slow Fire - a personal retrospective (1995)
The Road to Graceland (1993)
The First Day (1992)
In Praise of Shamans (1988)

I would like you to check the dates, venues and setlists, especially the ones from the Slow Fire and First Day tour. Dates may have been added or cancelled, venues or setlists changed. Please report inaccurancies to [email protected]
Thank you for your help.

Slow Fire - a personal retrospective 1995

Tourdates according to http://www.weatherbox.com/ and http://www.trophies.org/.
It would be very nice if you could confirm or correct the given dates. [email protected]

Set of Songs: The Boy with the Gun, Red Guitar, Brilliant Trees, Jean the Birdman, Orpheus, Weathered Wall, Every Colour You Are, I Do Nothing, It'll Never Happen Again (Tim Hardin), Maria/Rain Tree Crow, Damage, September/Under Ingrid's Wheels, Blackwater, Before the Bullfight, Ghosts, Waterfront
Encores 1: Let the Happiness In, The First Day
Encores 2: Eartbound, Pulling Punches

It's been said that Sylvian also played Nightporter on the first show in Bari.

David Sylvian: accoustic guitar, keyboards, vocals

The tour was "humbly dedicated" to his guru or spiritual teacher Sri Sri Mata Amritanandamaji (Amma).

The Road to Graceland 1993 (Sylvian/Fripp)

Although the booklet of the official live release "Damage" only states that it was recorded somewhere in December 1993, David Singleton (assistant producer and digital editor) confirmed in an interview, that the whole recording was taken from The Royal Albert Hall shows in London. The bulk of the material is from the final show on 5th December, with only one track taken from the previous night for technical reasons.

Set of Songs: God's Monkey, Brightness Falls, Every Colour You Are, Firepower, Jean the Birdman, Damage, Exposure (Gabriel/Fripp), Gone to Earth, 20th Century Dreaming, Wave, River Man, Darshan
Encores: The First Day, Blinding Light of Heaven

Musicans:
David Sylvian: vocals, keyboards, guitar
Robert Fripp: guitars
Trey Gunn: stick
Michael Brook: guitars
Pat Mastelotto: drums, percussion

The tour was dedicated to the birth of Ameera-Daya Sylvian and the memory of Edie Fripp.

The First Day 1992 (Sylvian/Fripp)

Italien tourdates according to the "Kings" boot.
Japanese tourdates according to http://www.permanence.de/

Set of Songs: Soundscape (instr.), Firepower, Ascension (instr.)/Under Ingrid's Wheels/20th Century Dreaming (ending), The First Day, Jean the Birdman, 20th Century Dreaming (first part), The House in which we live, Chromatic Fantasy (instr.), Blinding Light of Heaven, Blockhead (instr.), Asturias (instr.), Ghosts
Encores: Jean the Birdman, Blinding Light of Heaven

Musicians:
David Sylvian: guitar, keyboards, vocals
Robert Fripp: guitars, frippertronics, soundscapes
Trey Gunn: stick

Supporting act: The California Guitar Trio. They performed nine songs before the show, also Blockhead and Asturias.

Since the material for the tour was written within two weeks before the tour started it kept evolving and changing throughout the whole tour. The album The First Day was released one year after.
This is what Sylvian had to say about the tour and playing with Robert Fripp (20.04.99):

There’s always something to be taken from collaborative work – on a number of levels – regardless of the success or otherwise – of the project itself. Working with Robert was quite an experience. I got a lot out of the collaboration – in the context of live performance particularly. The beginning of the collaboration started as … a tour of a trio – Robert Fripp, myself and Trey Gunn. We convened two weeks prior to the start of the tour, in my home in London and wrote material together for about a week. The second week we rehearsed it and then we were out on the road performing it, so … a great degree of concentration and focus was necessary to keep everything intact (laughs) – you know; to stop it from falling apart. Because it was still – obviously taking form – during that period of being out there on tour. It was evolving, as time went on, and there was quite a challenge. I think it was the degree of concentration, focus that we had to bring to the performance each night that allowed me to immerse myself in the performance – more so than in the past – in terms of live performance – and enabled me to enjoy the context of live performance a great deal more than I ever had. I got a lot more out of it. And also influenced by Robert’s degree of focus that he would bring to the performance night after night. He – there’s a tremendous amount of commitment brought to a performance each night with Robert. It’s something I hadn’t experienced to that degree before. So that was a wonderful experience. We went on from there to record an album together in the studio, which was … a difficult time for both of us, actually. Both going through enormous upheavals in life and the album reflected that to some degree. In a sense I was working within a context of Robert’s making – in that he selected the musicians and … it was an interesting provocation. It allowed me to express certain emotions and themes that had been absent in my work to a large degree in the past. So, I could deal with … themes such as anger, frustration, anxiety – that I’d been feeling for a number of years – and hadn’t found the right context in which to express them. And, this afforded me that opportunity. But it wasn’t necessarily an easy album to make. Following on from there, we toured together one more time and that, again, was a great experience.

In Praise of Shamans 1988

Set of Songs: Ancient Evening, Incantation, Orpheus, Before the Bullfight, Taking the Veil, Weathered Wall, The Boy with the Gun, River Man, The Grand Parade (from Mark Isham's album "Castalia"), introduction of the band, The Ink in the Well, Nostalgia, Forbidden Colours (intro), Backwaters, Brilliant Trees, Steel Cathedrals, Let the Happiness in
Encores: Gone to Earth, Awakening

Musicians:
David Sylvian: keyboards, vocals, guitar
Steve Jansen: drums, percussion
Richard Barbieri: keyboards, programming
David Torn: lead guitar
Ian Maidman: bass, percussion
Robby Aceto: guitars, keyboards
Mark Isham: flügelhorn, trumpet, soprano-sax, keyboards