Michael Hodges – Drummer on David Bowie’s Sound+Vision Tour
Michael “Mike” Hodges played drums in David Bowie’s Sound+Vision Tour band in 1990. The tour revisited songs from across Bowie’s career with a compact group led musically by guitarist Adrian Belew.
Hodges had worked with Belew before the tour. On stage with Bowie, he helped give familiar songs a live rhythmic foundation while using both acoustic drums and electronic instruments.
- Name: Michael “Mike” Hodges
- Date of birth: Not publicly verified
- Place of birth: Not publicly verified
- Instrument: Drums; electronic percussion on the 1990 tour
- Bowie link: Drummer, Sound+Vision Tour (1990)
- Tour band: David Bowie, Adrian Belew, Erdal Kızılçay, Rick Fox and Michael Hodges
- Other association: Adrian Belew’s touring group
Working with Adrian Belew
Hodges’ connection with Bowie came through Adrian Belew. Belew knew the drummer from his own musical circle and selected him for his Mr. Music Head tour. When Bowie invited Belew to act as guitarist and musical director for Sound+Vision, Belew brought Hodges and keyboard player Rick Fox into the band. Bowie’s longtime collaborator Erdal Kızılçay played bass.
Belew later recalled a friendship with Hodges that went back to their teenage years in northern Kentucky. His account explains why the two musicians already had an established working rapport when they joined Bowie’s touring band.
Adrian Belew on Mike Hodges
“the perfect drummer for my solo music”
— Adrian Belew, Big Electric Chat newsletter, quoted in a published account of the musicians’ early friendship
The Sound+Vision band
Bowie launched Sound+Vision in March 1990. The group on stage consisted of Bowie on vocals and instruments, Belew on guitar, Kızılçay on bass, Fox on keyboards and Hodges on drums. The schedule took them from North America to Europe and other international dates before the tour ended in September.
The musicians moved between songs associated with very different periods of Bowie’s career. Hodges’ drumming helped carry the changes of pace within a set that looked back across that repertoire.
The concert presentation also featured large projected images. Bowie described the screen and specially prepared film and video as a major part of the production. The five musicians therefore worked within a show whose visual cues were planned alongside its arrangements, rather than a conventional sequence of songs played against a static backdrop.
A smaller sound for familiar songs
David Bowie and his band during the Sound+Vision Tour in Japan, 1990.
Bowie presented the 1990 tour as a retrospective of songs that audiences knew well. He also wanted the band to sound less heavily arranged than some previous touring line-ups. The smaller group left more of the rhythmic detail exposed: drums, bass, keyboards and guitar each had a clear place in the live mix.
Hodges had to support the direct pulse of Bowie’s rock songs and adapt to material originally built from different studio sounds. The concerts presented those songs through the specific sound and instrumentation of the 1990 band.
David Bowie on the tour band
“It’s a much smaller sound.”
— David Bowie, New York pre-tour press conference, quoted in contemporary tour reporting
Acoustic drums and electronics
A contemporary account of the tour listed Hodges’ Tama drums and Zildjian cymbals alongside a Roland R-8 drum machine and Roland Octapad. This equipment list shows that the touring set-up included both acoustic and electronic means of producing percussion sounds.
The equipment list does not specify which device he used on each song. The combination gave the band options for presenting songs from several eras within one live show.
After the Bowie tour
Hodges continued his association with Belew after Sound+Vision. Belew’s official biography names him in the touring group for Inner Revolution in 1992. Years later, Belew again identified Hodges as the drummer in his touring trio. Their shared work thus continued beyond the Bowie concerts.
Article Origin
This article was researched and written for DavidBowieWorld.com. The personnel and later Belew tour credit were checked against Adrian Belew’s official biography. Contemporary tour reporting and a 1990 musician interview and equipment note informed the account of the band and its instruments. Belew’s recollection of Hodges is reproduced in a published account citing his newsletter. A later interview with Belew documents their continuing work together.
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