Life on Tour with Bowie. Sean Mayes
play piano for David Bowie?” Would I just! I was still with Fumble, appearing in Elvis!, the West End musical, so we found another piano player to take my place for a while. I said “See you!” to Fumble and caught the plane.
Now I was sitting at a grand-piano at one side of the stage and had a good view of the rest of the band. Just near me in front of the piano was Simon House, the only other British musician - he used to be in Hawkwind. Tall, thin and very laid back, Simon was playing electric violin and had a look somewhere between Paganini and Keith Richards.
At the front of the stage was Carlos, singing and conducting us with sharp chops of his guitar neck. He is David’s musical director and first met him when his wife Robin Clarke was doing vocals on Young Americans and she invited David back for dinner. He’s from Puerto Rico, relaxed and friendly with a smile you could read a contract by.
On this tour, David was using his usual black rhythm section - Carlos on guitar with Dennis Davis on drums and George Murray on bass - but the rest of the band were new - Adrian Belew on lead guitar, Roger Powell on keyboards and synthesizers, Simon and me. At first I was a little nervous of the others. I thought they might snub a rock ‘n’ roll player, but in fact they were all as friendly as could be - no prima donnas.
Dennis is crazy and irrepressible, always joking, sometimes deadpan, possibly the original inspiration for Animal, the Muppets drummer. George is the complete opposite, very quiet - Lonesome George Murray as Carlos says. These three had been with David ever since ‘the plastic soul’ days in 1975.
At the far side of the stage were the other two ‘new boys’. Adrian is from Kentucky, a slight figure. In his dungarees he looks like a farmer from a Norman Rockwell painting. David spotted him in Frank Zappa’s band in Berlin and asked him to join. He has a quirky sense of humour which Zappa appreciated on-stage but not so much off.
Roger, surrounded by synthesizers, is a college graduate type - he links up computers to his keyboards and flies to Japan to demonstrate them for the manufacturers. A dry sense of humour mellows his academic personality but I think David was wary of his obvious intellect.
We were a mixed bunch but somehow got on well together. The different musical styles blended too and soon we began to feel like a band.
On Wednesday afternoon while we were rehearsing, a small group of people came into the gloom at the back of the studio, closing the door on the brilliant sunshine outside. As they approached the stage I recognised a slight, nondescript figure with fair hair and completely forgot what I was playing.
David looked tired and drawn after his 11,000 mile flight from Kenya. He had been relaxing there after filming Just a Gigolo in Berlin. He wore baggy trousers and a neutral short-sleeved shirt with a narrow tie, loosely knotted - “This one’s from Bromley Tech!” - and looked quite ordinary compared with the last time I had seen him.
“Look,” he grinned proudly, “I’ve got a suntan.”
“You call that a tan?” drawled a Texan voice from the back of the room and we all laughed.
Though exhausted by travel, he was really excited at having a new band to play with and immediately jumped on-stage and started going through numbers. Finally Coco had to drag him away before he wrecked his voice.
Coco, aka Corrine Schwab, was David’s constant companion - his personal assistant, wet-nurse and wardrobe mistress, who kept a very low profile with the press. Coco is small and bird-like with close-cropped hair. She is French- American, grew up all over the world including Haiti and Switzerland and has, as you may imagine, an unplaceable accent. Her knowledge of several languages proved very useful on their travels, but so too did her natural instinct for coping with anything. She is not unflappable but her panics are good for getting things done! I believed it was more important to get on with Coco than with David and fortunately we took to each other immediately!
The next day things really got moving and the ordinary young man began to generate energy, excitement and humour. There was a chemistry about the band which was subtle but crucial and it was a great feeling as the music came together.
The atmosphere at rehearsals was not what I’d expected. Anyone watching would think Carlos was in charge and David seemed like a kid who’d been allowed to sing with the band but doesn’t think the musicians are going to take him seriously. I know he is shy and got the impression that much of his joking and bounce were intended to cover his diffidence. He never told us what to do but suggested things - “How about this… Let’s try that…” He was very quick to pick up on good ideas. “What was that? - it sounded great! Can you make it a bit more raunchy?”
He told me later on the tour, “I’m very suspicious of virtuosity. I like people who play with an original style and I choose people who I think can contribute something.”
He allowed us great freedom and encouraged us to be creative but it was still very much his music - he seemed to direct by a process of inspiration and there was never any doubt that the final result was just what he wanted. Still he clowned, grinned, cavorted, forgot words, made up silly ones and constantly glanced at Carlos to make sure he was doing the right bit of a song. It made for a relaxed atmosphere. Time takes a cigarette… sticks it up your arse…!
Rehearsals were fun but exhausting. We worked solidly from 10 in the morning till 8 or 9 at night. Most tours take a month to prepare but we had only two weeks so the pressure was on.
The studio was comfortable with all the gear, a complete monitor system and a small PA. Showco was the tour company, based in Dallas, which is why we were rehearsing there. The crew was an entertaining mixture of Texans and Californians. David was rather taken with the southern accent and Adrian’s all-purpose Texan exclamation, “Hell-God-Baby-Damn!” became a tour catch-phrase. We were well looked after - they’d bring food in and you only had to raise an eyebrow to get a beer or juice rushed over. After one or two near-spills I stuck a tape across the black Steinway piano with a notice NO DRINKS BEYOND THIS LINE before anything got upset into the works.
Diary Notes:
Friday 17th March: Dallas: Notes on my birthday. D down to breakfast - seems strange but of course he doesn’t excite attention, dressed very conservatively. People don’t know he’s here. His tan is less pink and more becoming. Pushes his hair back off his face and is looking more like the old DB as he loses his tie, and dons a cream gaberdine cap.
In ‘Hang On To Yourself’, everyone jamming madly on the last section, he pogos to the obvious feel of the number and gives a quick grin. In ‘Blackout’ he starts to bop, throws a leg up in a ballet/karate move. Everyone is moving more now anyway. The first show, it just struck us, is only twelve days away. San Diego, wow!
In the car coming across this afternoon a few of us were discussing what we would wear, and that David would look so smooth that everyone else would look ridiculous. There’s a girl downtown who makes spacesuits, someone remembered…
(A few days later we made a hilarious trip there with Adrian but he decided such a suit would be too hot on-stage.)
That afternoon I came into the studio to discover three huge dark bottles of Moët & Chandon champagne on the piano standing firmly on the wrong side of the NO DRINK line. Also a shoe box tied with a mauve lurex leg warmer. The box was bulging with crazy striped socks - A very merry birthday for Sean from Bowie 78.
It was indeed a merry birthday. At that point we had never ventured beyond the hotel, being too tired most nights for more than a quick nightcap and sleep. But I was determined my birthday should be our first escape into downtown Dallas, and we all drove into town to a raunchy Texan rock club called Mother Blues. Drinks were on the house and we’d already polished off the champagne back at the studio. The live music was loud, so someone led us upstairs. We just found a wreck of an old dressing-room and sat around on broken chairs and burst cushions. The ‘air-conditioning’ was a gaping window frame through which I could see David’s dark blue Lincoln limousine. Tony, his huge driver