Life on Tour with Bowie. Sean Mayes
house lights down. Dennis started the limping drum beat of ‘Five Years’ (something he never quite got right!) and there were shouts and cheers though it was hard to tell if anyone recognised it. Then David appeared to an ecstatic welcome - snakeskin drapecoat and huge baggy white pants. David, you look ridiculous and I love you!
“I’d like to introduce my band… Sean Mayes on piano!”
Careful not to trip over leads, I ran to the front of the stage and gave a thumbs up to the invisible crowd, a broad grin on my face.
“Simon House on violin!” who bowed coolly with a small smile.
So he continued through the band then we crashed out the first chord - THRUM… Pushing through the market square… delight from 15,000… Five years… people were holding up five spread fingers, mouthing the words.
Then the bombshells followed - ‘Soul love’! ‘Star’! David dancing, bouncing, kicking - this is not Bowie posing, it’s David having a ball. ‘Hang On To Yourself’! The neons spill daylight across the jumping crowd. Ziggy played guitar… a roar for this anthem. ‘Suffragette City’… and there’s electric expectancy until Aaaah… Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma’am! as the crowd leapt to its feet shouting.
Tonight and on most of the American tour he played ‘Rock ‘n’ roll Suicide’ and as the lights came up there he was with a cigarette in his hand, a souvenir of conceits of the past.
“What on earth can I do after Ziggy?” he had wondered one day at rehearsal.
“Have to be something to bring the energy right down - you can’t top it,” I said “How about ‘Art Decade’?” And ‘Art Decade’ it now was with the strange coloured spotlights swinging round to discover the crowd. As they realised he could see them they jumped up, waving, hoping to catch his eye and a gentle little instrumental turned into a near-riot.
Then followed ‘Station to Station’, Roger’s steam engine so realistic you could almost see the steam and smell the sulphur. The song built with strong piston strokes, up and up until - It’s not the side effect of the cocaine - I’m thinking that it must be love! It is love. Every light opens up - spotlights stab, floods blaze, neon glares - white out! It nearly lifts me from my seat. It’s too late! It is - it’s a landslide. It’s too late! No wonder he wanted a rock ‘n’ roll piano player. The European cannon is here… is David the European cannon? Who cares - David is here. The final romp, over and over, not wanting it ever to end. The return of the thin white duke, making pure white stains. The guitar pizzicato, pure ‘50s, tiptoes out - a quick bow and we’re running off.
Back for a double encore, ‘TVC15’ and ‘Stay’, finishing with an ecstatic, bouncing ‘Rebel Rebel’, David camp in his sailor’s cap, grinning broadly. The bouncers have given up the task of keeping everyone from the barriers and now it’s just a sea of people on their feet, on other people’s feet, on chairs, on shoulders, waving arms, throwing flowers, scarves… he catches one bunch of roses and the crowd somehow manage to raise a cheer above the rest.
Suddenly it’s over, we run off. The limos are waiting in a line, doors open, engines purring. Ron shouts - “Sean in here - Carlos there - where’s George?” The steel shutter is rolling up, the cars surge forward, a few cops keep the kids outside from making human sacrifices, and we’re zig-zagging fast through the packed parking lot, escaping before the 15,000. More police halt traffic while we swing out on to the main road, then we’re cruising back to the hotel.
“Any beers back there? Someone got an opener? God, turn the heat off! Hi sweetheart! Anyone seen my jacket?”
In the hotel bar David was ecstatic, hugging us and bubbling over with delight. The show had been a success and after the tension of the past few days, we all felt a surge of joy. The lobby was full of fans and they gradually infiltrated the bar. David sat in a corner with the rest of us around him as a buffer. The kids came up in ones and twos for autographs and to say how knocked out they were with the show.
Now imagine the scene - a posh lounge bar full of businessmen and elderly vacationers, on-stage the cabaret band making a polite sound behind the conversation. Then Dennis came over and said it was OK with the band if we wanted to jam on their gear… The next twenty minutes proved that some of us were rockers, others raised on funk and all of us well-oiled. After a few false starts we played the only music we all knew - Bowie songs, ones we had learned but dropped before the show - ‘Sound And Vision’ etc. During one solo, David sat down on-stage and smiled at the audience who just stared from behind their tables. The fans at the back must have been flipping to see David let his hair down but the worthies in front of us didn’t even recognise him! Soon we all fled giggling to our corner and the musak returned. Amazingly our pub-rock gig got a friendly review next day in The Los Angeles Times!
I can remember little of our early departure the next morning which is hardly surprising. We flew over a strange desert landscape scored by straight white roads which seemed to form a geometric pattern and lead nowhere. Phoenix, Arizona, welcomed us with hot sunshine and the gig went well. We had the next day free and lazed around the hotel pool. David, who wishes he could swim like a dolphin, cannot swim at all but lay there in dark glasses and turquoise trunks improving his tan while a handful of fans huddled bug-eyed behind the fence.
That evening, to my surprise, we were able to saunter out of the hotel and walk down the road to a Japanese restaurant. We were on the outskirts of town and the road was quiet, the sky very dark and distant. We seemed to be out of time and place - two days into a world tour and we could step aside for an evening.
The restaurant was traditional and we removed our shoes at the door and sat on the floor at a long, low table. I had never tasted Japanese food before but David ordered the unusual delicacies (raw fish, seaweed) for those of us with the courage to try. He told us about Japan, a place he loves. He takes holidays there but has only toured once, in 1973.
When we left, David thanked the kimonoed waitresses and they laughed with high, tinkling voices behind delicate hands. One or two shyly requested autographs. We shall be in Japan in December and I try to imagine it as we walk back under the palm trees.
Fresno is a large industrial town in California - not my image of that sunshine state. This was the gig where we shook out all our mistakes - and left them there! But Los Angeles was waiting.
CHAPTER 3
WEST COAST
Monday, 3rd April
I caught a glimpse of the ocean as we flew down over green hills and canyons into Los Angeles. Soon buildings were flashing past our wing-tips and the plane bumped gently down on the hot tarmac. We emerged into dazzling sunshine, palm trees shading the sidewalk, and everyone was in good spirits as the limos cruised across the city to Hollywood - and they really do cruise on the wide LA boulevards.
Hollywood is not a giant film set, as I used to imagine, but the central area of Los Angeles where the film studios are based. Sunset Boulevard runs right through it for miles till it meets the ocean. Our hotel was on a steep hill just off the Boulevard - a bright white two-storey building with a striped awning almost lost in lush tropical vegetation. The hotel suites formed a square around the swimming-pool edged with plastic grass. I unpacked and made a few phone calls trying to track down friends, then we were off to the gig.
The Forum is a huge sports auditorium - 19,000 and very impressive. A TV crew arrived for a brief interview with David. As we walked the long route to the stage, they scuffled backwards before him and the rest of us jostled cheerfully for camera angles. Then Eric gave the shout, cameras were forgotten and we strolled out to mount the scaffolding of our first real biggie. I felt as if my heart was pumping pure adrenalin round my system and it was an effort to breathe. The audience must have felt the same way as ‘Warsawa’ boomed round this space age forum.
Back in 1973, the crowds at smaller gigs were always full of freaks, red-headed and otherwise. Today, the thousands who come are mostly regular rock fans