ABSOLUTE BOWIE – CONCORDE 2, BRIGHTON 20.12.22
The rather wonderful Absolute Bowie, were back in Brighton this evening, courtesy of Black Rabbit Productions, and not surprisingly they completely sold out the Concorde 2 music venue, which is located on Brighton seafront. This tribute act is big business, and you know why? Because they are, simply put, the very best there is! This evening, like every other time I have witnessed a live performance from them, was filled with a demographic audience of 60’s babies, 70’s babies, 80’s babies, 90’s babies and even noughties babies! This being a true reflection of the appeal of the original master himself David Robert Jones aka David Bowie.
There was such an uplifting atmosphere in the air tonight, that frontman John O’Neill (who plays Bowie), was milking it to the full. 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 fourteen years, so it’s fair to say that fans wouldn’t keep coming and selling out venues, if the band were rubbish!
As a result of this, there are a number of obligatory costume changes that John performs in order to get into that particular character and range of years. Whilst he is no doubt frantically changing off stage, his quartet of band mates – Andy Marr (as Mick Ronson on guitar), Sam Ferrari (as Trevor Bolder on bass), Alex Face (as Woody Woodmansey on drums) and playing his farewell gig after nine and half years service Alex Paulilo (as Rick Wakeman on keys and backing vocals) – perform extended versions for a trio of numbers.
This evening was different from previous encounters, with new inclusions, which meant that some classics had made way. There was no support act this evening, instead we were given two David Bowie sets both consisting of nine tunes, with the first 45 minute set running from 8:34pm to 9:19pm and the second 60 minute set running from 9:43pm to 10:43pm.
John said that it would be a rockin’ start and indeed it was, as they launched into the first of five numbers from the classic 1972 ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ album, with ‘Hang On To Yourself’. They moved onto the following year with ‘Aladdin Sane’s’ ‘The Jean Genie’, which saw John take to the tambourine for the first time, whilst Sam strummed away on his Fender Jazz bass, and the others rocked in unison. A trio of ‘Ziggy’s’ followed, ‘Ziggy Stardust’, ‘Suffragette City’ and an extended costume change version of ‘Moonage Daydream’, which allowed John to ditch his Kansai Yamamoto designed outlandish baggy trouser image for Kansai’s silk kimono look, as seen on stage at the Hammersmith Odeon on 3rd July 1973.
The furthest they ventured back was for the 1971 ‘Hunky Dory’ period, with ‘Changes’, which saw John magic up a face mask on a stick from within the kimono. After this number, Andy and Sam got a hold of each side of the kimono and it was ripped in two, in order to reveal a tight figure hugging glam rock style two piece, cue blue acoustic guitar and ‘All The Young Dudes’, found on the 1974 ‘David Live’ album and hit single for Mott The Hoople. The hand clapping friendly ‘Starman’ followed and the first set concluded with ‘Life On Mars?’, which is like fine wine and just gets better with age.
A 24 minute gap allowed punters, including myself, to head to the bar for some well earned liquid refreshment.
I was expecting John to return for the second half by wearing the ‘Serious Moonlight Tour’ suit as found on the cover of the ‘Modern Love’ single, that he had worn on a few previous occasions. But no, he surprised me, by bounding on stage sporting the ‘Reality’ tour image that I had witnessed the great man wearing from my seat in the fourth row at Birmingham NEC in November 2003. It was unfortunately David Bowie’s last full tour. It was right up there as one of the best gigs ever for yours truly!
The reason for the choice of clothing became clear as the quintet launched into 2003’s ‘New Killer Star’, which was the latest (date-wise) Bowie tune of the night. It was the second tune of the Birmingham set that I was at. John donned his other (brown) acoustic guitar and he had nailed the image, the clothes, hair and that bright white teeth smile. I’m pretty certain that many present would have been surprised by this selection, and I reckon many didn’t even know it, but it was an inspired choice! This leads me to flag up what John said at the end of the gig, where he encouraged fans to suggest other tunes for when they return in the summer!
So John, as you are asking, here goes my recommendations of Bowie music from different timelines that would be most welcome:
‘Silly Boy Blue’ (from 1967 self titled ‘David Bowie’ album)
‘Sorrow’ (from 1973’s ‘Pinups’)
‘Golden Years’ (from 1976’s ‘Station To Station’)
‘Warszawa’ (from 1977’s ‘Low’) (as the intro music)
‘Jump They Say’ (from 1993’s ‘Black Tie White Noise’)
‘Hallo Spaceboy’ (from 1995’s ‘1.Outside’)
‘Little Wonder’ (from 1997’s ‘Earthling’)
‘Heathen (The Rays)’ (from 2002’s ‘Heathen’)
‘Where Are We Now?’ (from 2013’s ‘The Next Day’)
Back to tonight and song two of set two was the title track of 1975’s ‘Young Americans’. Being an in-between composition, I reckon that this would have comfortably sat in either of the sets. ‘Look Back In Anger’ from 1979’s ‘Lodger’, saw Andy switch to a ‘flying V’ guitar, and boy the energy of this tune was amazing and was surprisingly quite possibly the pick of the night!
An extended costume change version of ‘Ashes To Ashes’ from 1980’s ‘Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)’ was up next. John called into action an egg shaker for this, although it could hardly be heard. That’s not to say that the sound was rubbish on the night, it wasn’t it was great, but maybe the egg shaker wasn’t being held close enough to the mic.
The new costume was the previously expected ‘Serious Moonlight Tour’ suit as seen in 1983 in support of his ‘Let’s Dance’ album. Thus they delivered ‘Modern Love’, ‘China Girl’ and an extended version of ‘Let’s Dance’, before leaving the stage for a few minutes whilst we all hollered for more. Of course we got it!
First up was ‘Space Oddity’ from the 1969 self-titled David Bowie album, which saw the sole use of lasers as part of the set. This was great, and was equalled by the sign-off ‘“Heroes”’ 1977 album of the same name.
My only gripe of the evening being that tonight’s sets were shorter than previous years, and I could have easily enjoyed a dozen tunes per set instead of the nine!
Having said that, it was still a great way for keyboardist Alex Paulilo to bow out after nine and a half years of service and the perfect venue to do so, as back on 22nd December 2019, I witnessed him get down on bended knee on the Concorde 2 stage and propose to his girlfriend! Thankfully she said “YES!”. I was led to believe that the other photographer in the pit at the front tonight was his replacement, who was taking photos of the band and Alex for the scrap book. The other photographer being Ian Bourn, who has taken the great shots shown in this review.
Well then John, we will see you in the summer then! Have you booked a return date yet? Count me in AND everyone else present, won’t you!
Absolute Bowie:
John O’Neill (as David Bowie) – vocals, acoustic guitar, tambourine
Andy Marr (as Mick Ronson) – guitar
Sam Ferrari (as Trevor Bolder) – bass
Alex Face (as Woody Woodmansey) – drums
Alex Paulilo (as Rick Wakeman) – keys, backing vocals
Absolute Bowie (Part One) setlist:
‘Hang On To Yourself’ (found on the 1972 ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ David Bowie album)
‘The Jean Genie’ (found on the 1973 ‘Aladdin Sane’ David Bowie album)
‘Ziggy Stardust’ (found on the 1972 ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ David Bowie album)
‘Suffragette City’ (found on the 1972 ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ David Bowie album)
‘Moonage Daydream’ (extended version) (found on the 1972 ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ David Bowie album)
‘Changes’ (found on the 1971 ‘Hunky Dory’ David Bowie album)
‘All The Young Dudes’ (found on the 1974 ‘David Live’ David Bowie album)
‘Starman’ (found on the 1972 ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ David Bowie album)
‘Life On Mars?’ (found on the 1971 ‘Hunky Dory’ David Bowie album)
Absolute Bowie (Part Two) setlist:
‘New Killer Star’ (found on the 2003 ‘Reality’ David Bowie album)
‘Young Americans’ (found on the 1975 ‘Young Americans’ David Bowie album)
‘Look Back In Anger’ (found on the 1979 ‘Lodger’ David Bowie album)
‘Ashes To Ashes’ (extended version) (found on the 1980 ‘Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)’ David Bowie album)
‘Modern Love’ (found on the 1983 ‘Let’s Dance’ David Bowie album)
‘China Girl’ (found on the 1983 ‘Let’s Dance’ David Bowie album)
‘Let’s Dance’ (extended version) (found on the 1983 ‘Let’s Dance’ David Bowie album)
(encore)
‘Space Oddity’ (found on the 1969 ‘David Bowie’ David Bowie album)
‘“Heroes”’ (found on the 1977 “Heroes” David Bowie album)
