David Bowie

This blog takes its title from a David Bowie song so I thought it was apposite to add a few words to the many that are being written.

We are going to see Gustavo Dudamel perform an evening of Stravinsky with the Bolivar Orchestra on Thursday evening.
As my friend Mark Brabazon said yesterday, in the pre internet days, David Bowie was our search engine. We were forever reading about books he recommended, a film to check out or a record to hear. This played a significant part in my feeling that it was okay to go to events like the Dudamel concert. It gave me the confidence to try things that I didn’t know or didn’t understand. What’s the worse that could happen? We forged friendships over his music and those things that he turned us onto. Those friendships live long and fast to this day. New friendships start even now and aside from any musical contribution that Bowie may have made to us, that is a huge enrichment to mine and my friend’s lives.
This is from the last time that we saw Dudamel at the Royal Festival Hall. It is Elgar’s Nimrod and of course, it is heartbreakingly beautiful.

Bowie gracefully wrote on Dollar Days as he approached his death

If I never see the English evergreens I’m running to
It’s nothing to me
It’s nothing to see

From the hills of Malvern to the factories of Wolverhampton to the streets of Brixton and the suburbs of Beckenham, here are those evergreens and they are more verdant for David Bowie having been around.