ABSOLUTE BOWIE – CONCORDE 2, BRIGHTON 19.12.25
OK so it’s heading towards Christmas and things start to get a tad cheesy on the music front, and so we thought, “Yeah, why not!” and so we booked in to review a trio of vastly different tribute (or if you prefer homage) performances across three consecutive days here in Brighton. Day One featured the London Concert Orchestra performing their take on the film music of Hanz Zimmer and John Williams at the Brighton Centre – Read that review HERE. Day Two is today and features David Bowie tribute Absolute Bowie who I haven’t seen performing live for 511 days.
Once again Absolute Bowie have been booked into the popular Concorde 2 venue opposite Brighton Beach by Black Rabbit Productions. This event has been taking place twice a year over the past few years as such is the demand! The punters keep on coming and those who can’t or choose not to attend are eagerly replaced by new inquisitive souls and thus you always get in a good crowd for an Absolute Bowie night. In fact during proceedings this evening, Bowie who is played by East Sussex resident John O’Neill, conducted an arms in the air survey, asking who has seen them before and then who hasn’t, and the split was according to John 60/40 in favour of those that have seen them before.
As always, John O’Neill (who plays Bowie and even shares the same birthday as the great man himself, 8th January) takes care of lead vocals, acoustic guitar, tambourine, and metal güira which is a comb-style Latin percussion instrument. He is joined by his “Spiders From Mars” who are also in character, these being regular stalwarts Andy Marr as Mick Ronson on guitar and backing vocals, Sam ‘Telegram Sam’ Ferrari as Trevor Bolder on bass, Alex ‘Monster’ Face as Woody Woodmansey on drums and backing vocals, and new boy Danny Mattin as Rick Wakeman on keyboards (Korg Nautilus music workstation, plus Studiologic Numa X Piano), harmonica and backing vocals.
Those that know me will be aware that I can be a bit of a music snob, and tribute acts and bands very rarely sit well with me, but there are literally just a handful that I’m aware of that are actually that good, that it would be rather amiss of me not to go along and check them out! The best of these I have ever seen, and I’ve been continuously gigging in Brighton and elsewhere since 1978, is Absolute Bowie. Trust me, I saw the real David Bowie live in action from the fourth row of the NEC Arena in Birmingham on 20th November 2003 on what turned out to be his final tour, ‘A Reality’ tour. This was an out-there experience, having first discovered him in my pre-teen years when ‘Space Oddity’ originally arrived. That night David Bowie and his band let loose no less than 29 tunes and 9 of these are also performed by Absolute Bowie this evening, which is not a great number when you think of it, but David did release 26 studio albums, nine live albums, two soundtrack albums, 26 compilation albums, eight extended plays, 128 singles and six box sets, so there are a whole host of top quality tunes to choose from.
Tonight at the Concorde 2 the Absolute Bowie performance is split into two acts, with the first running for 48 minutes from 8:05pm to 8:53 and comprising 9 quality tunes, and after a 29 minutes gap, the second set arrived at 9:22pm and ran for the next 56 minutes until 10:18pm. There’s true anticipation as the band take to the stage and are eventually followed by John. It’s already evident that the demographic audience of 60’s babies, 70’s babies, 80’s babies, 90’s babies and even naughties babies are up for a great time this evening….they aren’t disappointed!
At the start of the first set “The Spiders From Mars” were kitted out in their sparkly glam rock garb with high heel boots. John has sparkling silver lipstick and is wearing the striking ‘KABUKI’ wide-leg jumpsuit made from black vinyl with white stripes which was designed by Kansai Yamamoto for David Bowie. It’s fair to state that John is an entertainer par excellence. He clearly has spent hundreds of hours sifting through video footage of David Bowie in order to accurately emulate every move and copy his various clothing styles down the years. Absolute Bowie have been playing live for around eighteen years, so it’s fair to say that John certainly knows what he’s doing. Tonight there’s even a screen on the rear of the stage which hosts David Bowie images throughout the evening which adds to the believability of the performance.
The first choice is not one that you would expect, ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ which is the title tune from the album of the same name from 1970 and I note that John’s vocals are even altered to provide a slight echoing effect. He is using a tambourine as well as a güira which is likely made of aluminium and this appears as though he’s holding a coffee thermos flask whilst scraping the ribbed sides of it with an afro-hair comb. I remember Lulu covering this tune when it climbed as high as No.3 in the UK Singles Charts in 1974. As with all of my previous Absolute Bowie encounters, John is out there to entertain the fans and so there are a number of obligatory impressive costume changes that he performs backstage in order to get into that particular character and range of years. Whilst he is no doubt frantically changing off stage, his quartet of bandmates perform the occasional extended version of a number of tunes.
John says “Let’s have some rock’n’roll” and tune two is ‘Suffragette City’ from 1972’s ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ album. This bounces along nicely with the guitar to the fore. After which John states “Oh yessss, the energy is high already!” and he’s not wrong. It feels like an office Christmas party where everyone is finally letting their hair down. Another cut from ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ follows in the form of ‘Moonage Daydream’ which features some notable guitar parts which are cheered by some of the punters. It’s an extended version of the tune, as it allows John time to vacate the stage and swiftly change his clothes and return on the song’s completion dressed in Kansai’s silk kimono look, as seen on stage at the Hammersmith Odeon on 3rd July 1973. John’s big red boots have been ditched and is now barefoot.
Track four was ‘Changes’ from 1971’s ‘Hunky Dory’ album which begins with the familiar keys riff, and later in the song the keys stand in as replacement to the saxophone parts. John utilises a hand held David Bowie facemask from within his kimono which works rather well. Just as the tune is concluding the kimono was split apart by Mick Ronson (Andy Marr) and Trevor Bolder (‘Telegram Sam’) to reveal the Kansai Yamamoto figure-hugging dance style colourful costume, with its one leg and one shoulder free, which no doubt was inspired by Bowie’s previous work with dancer Lindsay Kemp whose work was influenced by kabuki. They were immediately away with the glam rock anthem ‘The Jean Genie’ from 1973’s ‘Aladdin Sane’ album and John tapped away at the tambourine and Danny Mattin (as Rick Wakeman) was on harmonica for a short while as well as his keys.
‘All The Young Dudes’, the hit single for Mott The Hoople and from 1974’s ‘David Live’ album proved a very popular choice judging by the sea of waving arms in the air and the deafening roar by the crowd on its conclusion. For this John utilises his blue 12 string acoustic guitar which could have the image of just being a prop but we can see that he is actually playing it. There’s more waving of arms in the air for ‘Starman’ from 1972’s ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ album and this is noted for its distinctive keyboard riff. The track’s delivery is added to by the best use (thus far) of white lighting reflecting off of the disco ball above the band. The crowd were singing along with “la la la la la” and handclapping too. After this John referred to the next track as “the biggest song in Bowie’s catalogue”, cue ‘Life On Mars?’ from 1971’s ‘Hunky Dory’ album, which thankfully had the keys to the fore. This track has certainly matured with age, although at the time of release was not one of my Bowie favourites, but it certainly is now, and judging by the punters excitement I’m not alone. I noted the attention of detail in this track as ‘Monster’ even used the padded drumsticks for that crescendo ending section.
The final offering for set one we were informed was requested the most by fans to the band on their social media, this was ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’ from ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ and during which John stated that this will be the last gig they will ever do. Of course he’s in Ziggy character as is famously the line delivered by David when he retired Ziggy at Hammersmith Odeon (now Eventim Apollo) in London on 3rd July 1973.
Set two begins with arguably a deeper Bowie cut in the form of ‘Cracked Actor’ from 1973’s ‘Aladdin Sane’ album. The Bowie look for this was a red tasselled jacket, sky blue suit and hat with a white band, and dark glasses. Being a “cracked actor” he needed the use of a film directors chair as a prop, and he also made good use of a skull prop which was held in hand and even kissed. John played tambourine as the band, now sporting the rock look as opposed to their glam rock look from set one, played merrily on. ‘Fame’ from 1975’s ‘Young Americans’ album was the next selection and I must confess that the guitar levels were too high on this one and as a result it felt rockier than on the original release, and I don’t really think that they pulled this one off as well as the others in the set. The guitar was still too high for the first half of the next tune, this being an extended version of ‘Ashes To Ashes’ from 1980’s ‘Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)’ album. The keys were being drowned out, and this is an essential part of this Blitz Club New Romantic electronic anthem. Half way through the track John vacated the stage and left the boys to it. Danny summoned his innermost Rick Wakeman and very good it was too, as was Sam’s bass licks, but I did feel that maybe the second half instrumental section did drag on a little bit.
John returns with the ‘Let’s Dance’ creamy yellow suit look and naturally they offload a couple of tunes from the iconic 1983 album of the same name. The first being the Iggy Pop cover, ‘China Girl’ and this segues straight into ‘Let’s Dance’, which I reckon might actually be David Bowie’s biggest ever hit tune. There are certainly some screams of joy from some punters as the first few notes are played. The bass licks are particularly good here and once again this is an extended version. The musicians then vacate the stage, but it’s not long before they make a return and begin the encore with ‘Space Oddity’ from 1969’s self-titled ‘David Bowie’ album. For this John plays his 12 string acoustic guitar and the Concorde 2’s green lazers are used for the only time tonight, which gives the song the desired sci-fi space feel to mirror the tune.
For about eight years ‘Space Oddity’ was my favourite David Bowie tune and one I never expected him to eclipse, that is until the title track of his Berlin Trilogy ‘”Heroes”’ album was released. Toyah’s husband’s guitar work was never bettered! Suffice to say that tonight’s punters went wild. According to the setlist I had seen beforehand, this was to be the final number, but thankfully so loud were the crowd that we were rewarded with an extra track, this being ‘Rebel Rebel’ from 1974’s ‘Diamond Dogs’ album, which incidentally was the track that David played when I saw him live in Birmingham. On track completion, the crowd screams were so intense that it felt as though we’d just witnessed the “Thin White Duke” himself performing live. I guess that’s probably the best compliment that Absolute Bowie could receive, so we will leave it there!
Absolute Bowie:
John O’Neill (as David Bowie) – vocals, 12 string acoustic guitar, güira, tambourine
Andy Marr (as Mick Ronson) – guitar, backing vocals
Sam ‘Telegram Sam’ Ferrari (as Trevor Bolder) – bass
Alex ‘Monster’ Face (as Woody Woodmansey) – drums, backing vocals
Danny Mattin (as Rick Wakeman) – keys, harmonica, backing vocals
Absolute Bowie setlist:
Set 1:
‘The Man Who Sold The World’ (from 1970 ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ David Bowie album)
‘Suffragette City’ (from 1972 ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ David Bowie album)
‘Moonage Daydream’ (extended version) (from 1972 ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ David Bowie album)
‘Changes’ (from 1971 ‘Hunky Dory’ David Bowie album)
‘The Jean Genie’ (from 1973 ‘Aladdin Sane’ David Bowie album)
‘All The Young Dudes’ (from 1974 ‘David Live’ David Bowie album)
‘Starman’ (from 1972 ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ David Bowie album)
‘Life On Mars?’ (from 1971 ‘Hunky Dory’ David Bowie album)
‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’ (from 1972 ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ David Bowie album)
Set 2:
‘Cracked Actor’ (from 1973 ‘Aladdin Sane’ David Bowie album)
‘Fame’ (from 1975 ‘Young Americans’ David Bowie album)
‘Ashes To Ashes’ (extended version) (from 1980 ‘Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)’ David Bowie album)
‘China Girl’ (Iggy Pop cover) (from 1983 ‘Let’s Dance’ David Bowie album)
‘Let’s Dance’ (extended version) (from 1983 ‘Let’s Dance’ David Bowie album)
(encore)
‘Space Oddity’ (from 1969 ‘David Bowie’ David Bowie album)
‘”Heroes”’ (from 1977 ‘”Heroes”’ David Bowie album)
‘Rebel Rebel’ (from 1974 ‘Diamond Dogs’ David Bowie album)
