Special Friars Aylesbury Bowie tribute this Saturday 16th January

    Following the untimely death of David Bowie on Monday 11th January and the very considerable response locally, Friars Aylesbury has organised a memorial event this Saturday 16th January under the arches at the bottom of Aylesbury’ Market Square. The event will start at 12.00 noon and finish at 12.00 midnight.

    This low key event will give those who wish to, the chance to lay flowers and cards and to sign a Friars Aylesbury book of condolence in memory of David Bowie.

    The event will have some Friars memorabilia on display and there will be music and audio-visual projection. The event will tie in with BBC6Music who will be playing nothing but Bowie music this weekend.

    David Bowie unleashed the world debut of his iconic album ‘Hunky Dory’ at Friars Aylesbury in September 1971. It was in the Friars dressing room that night that he formed what were later to become ‘The Spiders from Mars’.

    Three months later he was back at Friars this time performing the world debut of ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’. He returned again in July 1972 when his Ziggy Stardust persona was fully developed. 50 US journalists were flown in to witness this gig which resulted in Friars and Aylesbury firmly arriving on the world map. Bowie returned to Friars again in March 1977 as keyboard player with his best friend Iggy Pop.

    Friars Aylesbury would like to thank Aylesbury Town Centre manager Diana Fawcett, Aylesbury Town Council, Aylesbury Vale District Council and Buckinghamshire County Council for their cooperation in organizing this event at short notice.

    ‘What’s a clean cut kid like you still doing in a small town like this?” 

    I was walking from the Friars Aylesbury Phase Three Civic Centre venue up in to the Market Square on Tuesday 1st March 1977. A couple of guys were coming towards me. One was a slim figure in a white silk scarf who greeted me with the above line. It was the Thin White Duke. It was David Bowie. 

    Bowie was in town that day to play keyboards with Iggy Pop. It was the opening night of Iggy’s UK tour. We’d heard a rumour that the keyboard player could be someone special.  Bowie was playing stage left and it was the only time in Friars history where the audience was unsymmetrical. There was a huge concentration of people in the Friars Phase Three Civic Centre venue on the side where Bowie was playing. 

    Bowie was the greatest Friars Aylesbury hero. In September 1971 he debuted his ‘Hunky Dory’ album at Friars and in January 1972 he gave us the world debut of his iconic ‘Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ album. The third Friars Aylesbury gig was in July 1972. Friars was so special to Bowie that he flew in 50 of the top US journalists to witness this gig. Friars Aylesbury was featured in the US Rolling Stone magazine, a magazine dedicated to Andy Warhol and many other US publications. That really put Friars and Aylesbury on the world map. 

    I had been aware of Bowie from his 1969 hit ‘Space Oddity’ but he didn’t take playing live seriously at that time. That changed when in the summer of 1971 he met American keyboard player Al Kooper at a party in London. Al had just played Friars and told him what a great gig it was. Bowie and his manager Tony Defries got in touch and a date was agreed at Friars for 25th September. Bowie put together a band from musicians he knew and almost apologetically and nervously came out on to the Friars stage at the Borough Assembly Hall in Aylesbury’s Market Square and played one of the most significant musical sets of the 20th Century.  

    He had just recorded his album ‘Hunky Dory’ and gave it its world debut at Friars that night.

    He ended the set with Chuck Berry’s ‘Around and Around’ and the Velvet Underground’s “Waiting for The Man’. After the show I was in the dressing room with him and the band. He had enjoyed it so much that he said to the band ‘This was brilliant. Let’s form a band and go out and do it properly.” We didn’t know at that moment but we were witnessing the formation of The Spiders from Mars with Mick Ronson on guitar, Woody Woodmansey on drums and Trevor Bolder on bass. We knew we had witnessed something very special. When ‘Hunky Dory’ finally came out it went to No 1 in the Aylesbury album chart but was nowhere in the national charts. 

    On January 29th 1972 Bowie played Friars for the second time. It was an immediate sellout. Everyone was looking forward to hearing Hunky Dory. Whilst Bowie played a few songs from Hunky Dory most of the set was a whole suite of new songs which would later be released as the iconic album ‘Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars’. The opening line of the opening song on the Ziggy album ‘Five Years’ referenced Aylesbury’s Market Square. 

    “Pushing through the Market Square

    So many mothers sighing

    News had just come over,

    We had five years left to cry in”

    In June 1972 Friars put on Bowie at Dunstable Queensway Hall. By this time Bowie had fully developed the Ziggy character, but it was the final Friars Aylesbury Ziggy show on 15th July 1972 that we will remember. 

    Our most recent contact was in March 2014 when Bowie sent us a text wishing us well with the Friars Exhibition.

     David Bowie is gone. We will miss him. He was the greatest Friars hero of all. He had a huge impact on Friars, Aylesbury, music, fashion, culture, sexuality and life. There should be a permanent monument built in the Market Square in memory of him.

    David Stopps