Bowie at 65. Where does the time go? Can it be that my childhood, and indeed adulthood, idol is a pensioner?
For me, it all began with Top of the Pops. I guess I was just waiting for Pan's People really. And suddenly, without warning, everything changed. There he was performing Starman and it felt like I was witnessing something from another galaxy.
I'd never heard, or indeed seen, anyone remotely like Bowie before and yet though he seemed so otherworldly, it was the first music I remember that seemed to speak directly to me.
Click here for 'David Bowie 65th birthday: 65 iconic images of the ever-changing star'
Within seconds it was clear that here was the soundtrack of my youth. The Beatles and The Stones and Dylan and Zeppelin were all great but were regarded by me and my mates as something handed down to us by parents or elder siblings. Bowie was ours and it was love at first sight.
The first time I went to see him in concert was in 1973. It was at the Manchester Hardrock, a long defunct venue now re-modelled as a branch of B&Q next to Lancashire County Cricket Ground where, nearly 30 years later in 2002, I would introduce David on stage at a rain-lashed festival. That a Bolton boy from the front stalls should eventually come to know the actual Ziggy Stardust personally blows my mind to this day.
I've met him a few times and I can tell you he is the most charming company. Compact, slender and always effortlessly stylish, his sense of humour is playful and slightly disarming.
So great are his artistic achievements you expec
t to meet a serious and intense man. It was a shock to discover that he prefers any interview or broadcast to be a larky affair. When he came on my Radio One afternoon show before that Old Trafford show, he killed time in my scruffy office giggling over the Viz Annual. Unbelievable. Here was the creator of Ziggy, Hunky Dory and Aladdin Sane sniggering over the exploits of The Fat Slags.
But the most incredible meeting was later that year, backstage at Hammersmith Odeon where many years before he had sensationally killed off his Ziggy Stardust character.
I had been invited to introduce him live on stage and he asked me into his dressing room to ask my opinion on that night's greatest hits setlist. I was close to having an out of body experience. Here was my idol, the man who fell to earth, the Thin White Duke, soliciting an opinion from the Lancashire lad who paid £1.25 to stand in awe and wonder in front of the Hardrock stage where B&Q now display vinyl flooring. How had that happened?
There are countless records that I have come to love deeply, but the Bowie classics remain ever precious, ever close to my heart. If I was forced to take just five LP's to a desert island (or perhaps on a mission to see if there really is Life on Mars) then two of them would be Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory.
But there are so many other works of genius: the folk whimsy of Space Oddity and subsequent acid rock of The Man Who Sold The World, where you can hear glam rock being born. Aladdin Sane is still thrillingly brash, Station to Station croon-some yet mysterious, Young Americans convincingly soulful. And that's before he hooks up with Brian Eno and re-invents himself, and pop music in general, on Low and Heroes.
I once asked him which albums he thought were his best and after thinking for a while he said he was undecided between Diamond Dogs and Lodger. That's the wonderful thing about his back catalogue. All of us, including David, have our favourites.
Now David is out of the public eye. His heart trouble may have something to do with that but we should not be tempted to pry when he chooses to withdraw. He has given us so much already... a peerless archive of innovation that still ventures into new areas in the "autumn" of his career with albums like Outside and Earthling.
Even if we never hear from him again he has left us with more than enough. And when I listen to these songs, or see him in all his glam glory on the recently unearthed Top of the Pops clip swaggering through Jean Genie, I'm back to being that impressionable teenager. He was the closest thing I've ever had to a hero. And not just for one day. For a lifetime.
All the young dudes are older now.
This wide-eyed boy from Bolton is 53 and the Starman is 65. It's been a fantastic voyage.
Happy birthday David.
For me, it all began with Top of the Pops. I guess I was just waiting for Pan's People really. And suddenly, without warning, everything changed. There he was performing Starman and it felt like I was witnessing something from another galaxy.
I'd never heard, or indeed seen, anyone remotely like Bowie before and yet though he seemed so otherworldly, it was the first music I remember that seemed to speak directly to me.
Click here for 'David Bowie 65th birthday: 65 iconic images of the ever-changing star'
Within seconds it was clear that here was the soundtrack of my youth. The Beatles and The Stones and Dylan and Zeppelin were all great but were regarded by me and my mates as something handed down to us by parents or elder siblings. Bowie was ours and it was love at first sight.
The first time I went to see him in concert was in 1973. It was at the Manchester Hardrock, a long defunct venue now re-modelled as a branch of B&Q next to Lancashire County Cricket Ground where, nearly 30 years later in 2002, I would introduce David on stage at a rain-lashed festival. That a Bolton boy from the front stalls should eventually come to know the actual Ziggy Stardust personally blows my mind to this day.
I've met him a few times and I can tell you he is the most charming company. Compact, slender and always effortlessly stylish, his sense of humour is playful and slightly disarming.
So great are his artistic achievements you expec
t to meet a serious and intense man. It was a shock to discover that he prefers any interview or broadcast to be a larky affair. When he came on my Radio One afternoon show before that Old Trafford show, he killed time in my scruffy office giggling over the Viz Annual. Unbelievable. Here was the creator of Ziggy, Hunky Dory and Aladdin Sane sniggering over the exploits of The Fat Slags.
But the most incredible meeting was later that year, backstage at Hammersmith Odeon where many years before he had sensationally killed off his Ziggy Stardust character.
I had been invited to introduce him live on stage and he asked me into his dressing room to ask my opinion on that night's greatest hits setlist. I was close to having an out of body experience. Here was my idol, the man who fell to earth, the Thin White Duke, soliciting an opinion from the Lancashire lad who paid £1.25 to stand in awe and wonder in front of the Hardrock stage where B&Q now display vinyl flooring. How had that happened?
There are countless records that I have come to love deeply, but the Bowie classics remain ever precious, ever close to my heart. If I was forced to take just five LP's to a desert island (or perhaps on a mission to see if there really is Life on Mars) then two of them would be Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory.
But there are so many other works of genius: the folk whimsy of Space Oddity and subsequent acid rock of The Man Who Sold The World, where you can hear glam rock being born. Aladdin Sane is still thrillingly brash, Station to Station croon-some yet mysterious, Young Americans convincingly soulful. And that's before he hooks up with Brian Eno and re-invents himself, and pop music in general, on Low and Heroes.
I once asked him which albums he thought were his best and after thinking for a while he said he was undecided between Diamond Dogs and Lodger. That's the wonderful thing about his back catalogue. All of us, including David, have our favourites.
Now David is out of the public eye. His heart trouble may have something to do with that but we should not be tempted to pry when he chooses to withdraw. He has given us so much already... a peerless archive of innovation that still ventures into new areas in the "autumn" of his career with albums like Outside and Earthling.
Even if we never hear from him again he has left us with more than enough. And when I listen to these songs, or see him in all his glam glory on the recently unearthed Top of the Pops clip swaggering through Jean Genie, I'm back to being that impressionable teenager. He was the closest thing I've ever had to a hero. And not just for one day. For a lifetime.
All the young dudes are older now.
This wide-eyed boy from Bolton is 53 and the Starman is 65. It's been a fantastic voyage.
Happy birthday David.
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