A Bowie Celebration – The David Bowie Alumni Tour

It was not just the band, but the audience too last Saturday who were David Bowie alumni: the (majority sexagenarian) crowd would likely have been the ones in attendance the four times that Bowie himself toured New Zealand. But despite their age (I overheard a middle-aged couple saying that they felt young), songs like ‘Rebel Rebel’ and ‘Suffragette City’ swiftly bought out the teenagers in them; the fabulous Mike Garson, who played on 20 Bowie albums, and who was particularly brilliant on piano for the terrific ‘Time’, often had to step back to avoid being grabbed at by thirsty OAPs. Other highlights included the resurrected Space Oddity outtake ‘Conversation Piece’, and the classic masterpieces ‘Space Oddity’, ‘Ashes to Ashes’, and ‘Life On Mars?’. The only disappointment was in the set list, where some of Bowie’s greatest works that were played at previous concerts (Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide, Station to Station, Sweet Thing) were switched out in favour of somewhat poorly-handled tracks off Aladdin Sane (‘Aladdin Sane’, ‘Panic in Detroit’).

7/10: Or, Hot and Sweaty Boomers and Me