The Tour That Nearly Killed David Bowie

Few artists of the 20th century enjoyed such an extended run of commercial and popular success as British rocker David Bowie. Famous for his changing looks, music styles, and characters, he began finding his feet as a songwriter in the late 1960s, working mainly in the blues and folk genres, before hitting the big time in the early 1970s as a glam icon with his alien alter ego Ziggy Stardust. Bowie continued to experiment with different characters, looks, and genres on critically lauded albums such as "Aladdin Sane," "Young Americans," and "Station to Station," before becoming a global superstar with the release of the commercial smash "Let's Dance" in 1983. Meanwhile, he collaborated with some of the biggest names in rock, forging a close relationship with Iggy Pop and producing some of Lou Reed's most celebrated work.

While his career faltered somewhat in the late 1980s and early 1990s with a number of artistic missteps and growing commercial indifference, he entered the new millennium as productive as ever, releasing a number of critically lauded albums including 2002's "Heathen" and 2003's "Reality." He also remained a major draw as a live act, headlining the U.K.'s Glastonbury festival in 2000 and continuing to tour worldwide. However, that all came to an end in 2004, when Bowie, who was on the "Reality" tour in Europe at the time, experienced chest pain while performing in Prague, and though he tried to continue he eventually left the stage and was taken to hospital.

David Bowie's former bandmates were shocked by the suddenness of his health issues, with guitarist Earl Slick saying the rock legend appeared rejuvenated and in good spirits as the tour commenced. Guitarist Gerry Leonard agreed: "There was a sense that David looked as young and as youthful as ever on that tour. It did seem like he had the gift from the gods — like he was never going to get old ... It was a little mysterious to everybody as to what [his illness] might be because it really did come out of the blue" (via Music News). Bowie himself initially thought it was a trapped nerve, and despite being in his late 50s, medics in Prague failed to correctly diagnose the source of his chest pain.

Three days after the Prague concert, Bowie and his band were in Scheessel, Germany, when he collapsed shortly after coming offstage. It later emerged that he had suffered two heart attacks while onstage, but had managed to push through the show — plus a three-song encore — with the use of painkillers. He was taken for emergency surgery for a blocked artery.

In a statement, Bowie said: "I'm so pissed off because the last 10 months of this tour have been so fantastic. Can't wait to be fully recovered and get back to work again. I tell you what, though, I won't be writing a song about this one" (per The Guardian). Sadly, it proved to be the moment that signaled the end of his career as a touring artist and would see him keep a low profile for nearly a decade after.

When David Bowie returned to the spotlight, he did so unexpectedly — and entirely on his own terms. On his birthday In 2013, after almost a decade of silence, Bowie released the mournful single "Where Are We Now?" A gorgeously fragile ballad recalling memories of his years spent in Berlin in the late 1970s, the song heralded a new sense of mortality in Bowie's work, an aspect which would continue into his final album, "Blackstar."

Shortly after the heart attack that put an end to his 2004 tour, Bowie made a little-noticed appearance on a BBC Radio 2 Jazz show — the final interview he would give in his lifetime – discussing his love of jazz and his desire to one day release a jazz album. It took more than a decade, but "Blackstar" was arguably that album. Many critics have seen it as his swan song and interpreted it as a reckoning with death itself — Bowie died of liver cancer on January 10, 2016, two days after the album's release — and with the knowledge that he had first conceptualized it around the time of his earlier health troubles, it is reasonable to consider that his celebrated meditation on death was informed by his first brush with it all those years ago.