A David Bowie tribute gig? You may as well hold a car boot sale for Jupiter. Until someone rams Wembley Stadium with the sort of superstar lineup that used to baffle Nelson Mandela in the 90s, no musical memorial could be worthy of such a titanic talent.
Lorde’s Life on Mars? at the Brits awkwardly honoured Bowie’s sublime song-writing; Gaga’s bizarre Grammy medley reflected his chameleonic otherworldliness. This charity show takes a different tack, thriving on close connections to the artist himself, with an array of Bowie’s backing musicians, collaborators and friends performing alongside a few undisclosed singers.
Electric blue lights lower and Ziggy’s keyboardist Mike Garson emerges to perform a concert piano medley of Bowie’s music, an overture of sorts. He’s joined by guitarist Mark Plati and bassist Gail Ann Dorsey – both Bowie tour veterans – and a natty Gary Oldman, lending refined vocals to an acoustic take on Dead Man Walking from 1997’s Earthling album, which boasts an afterlife lyric as heart-wrenching as any on Blackstar: “And I’m gone, like I’m dancing on angels/And I’m gone, through a crack in the past … now I’m older than movies, let me dance away.”
Solemnities served, dancing Bowie away becomes the order of the evening. Cannily out to celebrate Bowie’s 70th birthday rather than commemorate the anniversary of his death, a revolving cast of Bowie band alumni, backed by a string section and gospel choir, take turns to front three solid hours of relentless classics, with the occasional celebrity interloper. La Roux gives us a sweet-but-flimsy Golden Years dressed in Young Americans balloon trousers. Keane’s Tom Chaplin delivers a strangely stilted Life on Mars?, outshone by the crowd singing along to Adrian Belew’s Spanish guitar intro. Tony Hadley laces Changes with his plushest True bellows. These are tasteful personal translations; nobody, thank heaven, comes close to an Adam Buxton “wuzza wuzza”.
The real showstoppers, though, come out of the blue. Fishbone singer Angelo Moore materialises in a variety of masks, capes and pinstripe suits, channelling Bowie’s theatrical flamboyance into Ashes to Ashes and Moonage Daydream, while guitarist Earl Slick solos away like a moisturised Keith Richards. Best of all, Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott carries All the Young Dudes and Suffragette City like an arena rock grandmaster - Tom Chaplin would’ve broken his back.
Occasionally, Bowie’s absence is glaring. In less charismatic, leotard-laden hands, tracks such as Diamond Dogs and Aladdin Sane expose the bar blues boogie and show-tune roots that Bowie so expertly disguised. But his immense songbook is the real star tonight. Starman is bigger than any singer; Mr Hudson need only hold a microphone and hug his guitarist for the crowd to lift the roof. Simon Le Bon struts and poses in tribute not just to Let’s Dance but the era it defined. And “Heroes” and Under Pressure are euphoric beasts, the massed weight of Bowie’s bands on thunderous form. “I can feel him,” concludes Mike Garson. Of course, he’s in the music we breathe.
