Bowie abruptly revealed he was retiring his famous alter-ego near the end of the concert at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on July 3, 1973.
Mike Garson, former pianist for David Bowie, has shared that he fears he’s to blame for the late singer quitting touring.
“So he called me in 2006 and he said, ‘Well, Mike, do you think we should go out again?’ Now, I think the band and my wife want to kill me because I said something absurd, but actually deep and correct and honest,” Garson said. “I said, ‘David, only if you’re feeling it’, because he wasn’t feeling it. I knew it but he wanted to give work to the band – our tour was cut short in 2004, so he was feeling guilty.”
“Of course, my first thought was, ‘Yeah, let’s go’. But my second thought was, ‘I don’t want to be on the road with someone who is miserable and doesn’t want to be there.'”
“Right before he died, I was working on my biography and was asked to listen 60 songs we’d recorded together,” shared Garson.
He continued: “I was overwhelmed, because I never usually listened to our old songs – like David, I’ll be on to the next thing. I emailed him, saying I was in shock at how good we’d been. Within minutes, David wrote back saying, ‘Mike, we did a great body of work together.’ I suddenly felt tears, knowing something was wrong.”
“I said to my wife Susan, ‘That’s the last time I’m going to speak to David.’ I couldn’t explain why, but I was right,”
Related: David Bowie Was Told About His Death Years Earlier /Mike Garson says Bowie met a psychic during the late 70s who accurately forecasted his Jan. 2016 passing.- You can read the story HERE
Woody Woodmansey, the drummer of David Bowie’s band, the Spiders from Mars, has revealed the very unique way the iconic performer used to prepare for their gigs.
On July 3, 2023, The Eventim Apollo Hammersmith (formerly the Odeon) hosted the global premiere of the newly restored version of D.A. Pennebaker‘s film Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars: The Motion Picture which will also being shown in over 1,000 cinemas worldwide during the month of July.
Speaking exclusively to virginradio.co.uk, Woody revealed the incredible technique Bowie had while preparing for tour, and naturally it involved dancers, stage performers and non-stop planning.
When asked what separates Bowie from artists of his time and beyond, Woody shared: “You have to put it down to talent, just the quality of the songwriting, and that it didn't stop there. It was like, how do I present that? How do I make an entertaining show that I would want to watch, that is exciting, that does create all those different emotions, whether down there in hell or in heaven?
“What will make it more impactful? What can I do lighting-wise? What can I do choreography-wise, that had not really been in rock'n' roll before. People did things naturally, that look choreographed, but he purposely worked things out song by song.”
It turns out the secret to Bowie’s success in curating those otherworldly gig experiences was watching other shows not for their content, but for their technical prowess.
Reminiscing about a moment he was blindsided by the Aladdin Sane hit-maker, Woody added: “I remember one day, we just finished rehearsals, and he said, ‘we're gonna see a play tonight in London.’ I was like, ‘what's it called there?’ And he went, ‘I don't know what it's called… I don't care about the play, the lighting director is the best one in London at the moment. So just sit down and watch how the lights change the atmosphere, because when we put a show together, I'm going to be saying what colours do you think suit this song? I want you to know what you're talking about.
“He took us to ballets, and said, ‘watch the choreography and watch how they use the stage.’ He was thinking 24/7, getting us all on the same page. So that everybody was creating in the same direction. It's amazing that somebody thought that wide and inclusive about rock and roll, and the whole show and he did that through his life.”
