The evening begins with Five Years, and that drumbeat remains haunting.
Woody Woodmansey is not simply recreating the past; he helped shape it, and hearing him play the opening of the song that began the Ziggy Stardust era gives it a weight no tribute act can manufacture.
Tony Visconti and Woodmansey lock in together on The Supermen and The Width of a Circle, recalling the chemistry they first summoned when recording The Man Who Sold the World in 1970. Something about that material still feels mysterious, especially the title track, which Nirvana later brought into another generation’s consciousness.
Glenn Gregory steps into the songs, and the relationship between singer and crowd becomes something approaching a love-in. He celebrates the crowd’s enthusiasm, suggesting all 22 dates should be played in Glasgow. It feels like they would happily accept the offer. Gregory is completely at home in the material.
On Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me, co-written by Bowie and his childhood friend Geoff MacCormack, later known as Warren Peace, he brings a sense of warmth and connection that suits the song perfectly. Visconti’s daughter Jessica Lee Morgan, on 12-string, switches to sax for an evocative version of Drive-In Saturday.
One of the most arresting moments comes with Panic in Detroit. For over 50 years, the song has been loved by Bowie fans, its rock ‘n’ roll rhythm and Mick Ronson’s distorted guitar riff give it a distinctive place for those who continue to cite Aladdin Sane as Bowie’s greatest long-player. Tonight Woody’s driving, pulsating beat delivers a spine-tingling moment. Many of us watch in awe as he thunders around the kit and hammers out the rhythm first cut at Trident Studios under the guidance of Bowie and Ken Scott.
Woodmansey recently reflected that this was the only time Bowie told him what to play. Woody had arrived with his own idea, but Bowie wanted something more straight ahead, a Bo Diddley beat. He eventually realised the singer was right. Tonight it sounds magnificent, the rhythm still carrying attitude and menace. The spirit of Bowie and Ronson is everywhere.
Paul Cuddeford and James Stevenson share the guitar duties, with some particularly fine work from Cuddeford, who delivers a distinctive Eight Line Poem from Hunky Dory, reminding us that Ronson remains one of the great unfinished stories in Bowie’s career, a musician who died too young after giving so much to the sound and shape of Bowie’s music, not only through his guitar playing but through arrangements that helped define songs such as Life on Mars? His production work with Lou Reed and Morrissey also delivered definitive albums for those artists.
One of the night’s most memorable moments was the audience delivering a massive singalong of Starman, perhaps remembering when some of them first saw Bowie on Top of the Pops in the summer of 1972. Tonight, Woody is the last Spider From Mars standing, and there’s something poignant about it. These are songs he helped create more than half a century ago. They still have the ability to shake a room, whether it is the opening drumbeat of Five Years, the strange beauty of The Man Who Sold the World or the sheer force of Panic in Detroit.
Holy Holy, O2 Academy, Glasgow
