Brighton remembers David Bowie

A Brighton Bowie fan who shares the same name as the pop icon has shared his memories of seeing him perform at the Dome almost 50 years ago.

David Bowie’s family announced the musician had died from cancer yesterday, two days after his 69th birthday.

And this morning, Davy Jones reminisced about seeing him supporting T Rex in the late 1960s – probably 1968 – when he was last on the bill and performing mime rather than music.

Mr Jones, who is well known in Brighton both as a yoga teacher as as the Green’s parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown last year, said: “I first saw him here at the Dome in the late 1960s – he was a support artist doing his mime performance before Space Oddity – second on the bill behind Tyrannosaurus Rex (Marc Bolan).

“I went with my girlfriend Debra and in truth we went to see Tyrannosaurus Rex whose single Deborah had just come out ! I had heard of Bowie (via John Peel) but from memory I think his performance that night was just mime.

“The Dome apparently are frantically checking their files to date the performance – I think it was summer 1968, but I could be wrong – Space Oddity came out in 69.

“I lost contact with Debra and she moved to Australia. But I tracked her down and went to visit her in 2003 – she had kept this programme as a memento and I photographed it. A year or so later she had a stroke or some other debilitating illness and remains not very well to this day.

“I posted this pic on her FB page this morning and her daughter replied – they had rung Debra and read the piece to her and she was apparently very emotional. Sad day.

“His real name of course was, like mine, David Jones. Spooky just a few years after Davy Jones of the Monkees died, my other famous namesake has gone to Rock Heaven.”

After his death yesterday (Sunday 10 January) a statement on Bowie’s official website said: “David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer.”

The music legend – born David Jones in Brixton in 1947 – played a number of gigs in Brighton as well as the T-Rex support.

He performed one of the first gigs on his Ziggy Stardust tour at the Dome in Brighton on Monday 14 February 1972.

Towards the end of the tour he also played two gigs at the Dome in Brighton on the same day on Wednesday 23 May 1973.

One of those in the audience in 1973 was Brighton radio presenter Melita Dennett, who tweeted:

RIP #DavidBowie – he played an amazing 1973 gig in #Brighton @brightdome. A true original https://t.co/OZZ340I1Ac pic.twitter.com/A18dQve4oU

— Melita Dennett (@MelitaRadio) January 11, 2016

And others spoke of their memories of his Brighton gigs:

first saw #Bowie in 1969 @ TheDome in Brighton touring Space Oddity & mixing song with mime. Still replay it in my mind now. Class act

— Farside1 (@farside1) January 11, 2016

Kind of trivial and shallow at this time but on 23 May 1973 at Brighton Dome, my first Bowie concert, I held his bare foot as he sang. 🙂

— Lambretty (@Lambretty) January 11, 2016

Bowie, who had a string of hits over decades, including Space Oddity, Starman, Changes, Ashes to Ashes and Let’s Dance, had only just released his latest album – Blackstar – on his birthday on Friday.

He created the stage persona Ziggy Stardust and later acted in a number of films including The Man Who Fell to Earth and Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence.