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Woody Woodmansey: The
Aylesbury Friars Club gig sticks in my mind as one of Bowie and the
Spiders favourite gigs. I remember the first time we played we'd spent
weeks working out the show and it was the first airing of a Bowie and
Spiders concert that we then took around the world! The audience reception
was the best.
Rick Pearce, Friars fan from Aylesbury:
Above everything else I really remember a sense of occasion. I had
heard the singles, Space Oddity, Prettiest Star (with Marc Bolan)
and Memory Of A Free Festival. I had also heard chunks of Man Who
Sold The World on the radio so I knew that whatever happened this
was going to be something special.
Having arrived at the Borough Assembly Hall
and seated ourselves on the floor (as one did back then) we heard that
America would not be appearing as support were being replaced by Mick
Softley and Lol Coxhill. It was shaping up to be an interesting evening,
although this anticipation was not shared by the two girls seated in
front of us who were loudly complaining that they had only come to
see America (by this time Middle England was well into its
infatuation with almost anything Californian and acoustic)
Mick Softley was on first and did not go
down well with some sections of the audience. The two girls in front
were becoming more strident with every song. Incensed by the
background noise and lack of attention, he walked off briefly but
was persuaded to return. The only song I really remember was Time
Machine, which reminded me of Roy Harper in some ways. Mick deserved
a better audience.
Lol Coxhill came on stage almost
immediately. Wearing a granddad vest and longjohns (or maybe a set of
combinations of the kind one was sewn into for the winter back in the
glorious days of Empire), Lol perched on a stool with his Soprano Sax and
made it clear that he was just there to improvise and we could
listen, go to the bar or talk amongst ourselves and he wouldn’t mind
a bit
We did all three but I’m afraid most of the
music went right over my head. These days I know I’d really appreciate all
the textures subtleties and nuances but back then I was just a simple
rockophile. Meanwhile the two girls in front kept up their ceaseless
complaint.
Bowie arrived on stage to a collective OOOH!
worthy of Frankie Howerd. I’m not sure what some people were expecting.
Major Tom, or a drag act or something of both, but he certainly looked
different. Wearing huge dark blue oxford bags, a white satin jacket and
the red and black platforms seen on the reissue of the Space Oddity
album, he was light years away from your average beardy, shaggy muso
bloke. Mick Ronson, who was accompanying on bass and acoustic guitar also
looked fairly individual in a grey smock thing with pleats that
looked like a schoolgirl’s gymslip, white shirt, jeans and girl’s
shoes
Moving on from the fashion notes and
getting to the music, Bowie and Ronson were an awesome duo. Doing Biff
Rose and Jacques Brel covers and, of course Space Oddity they made the
hall as intimate as your living room. Eventually they brought on the other
two soon to be Spiders, who did look like beardy, shaggy muso blokes, and
later someone who had been in The Animals. They played a quiet and
thunderous version of Supermen and a nicely unadorned Oh You Pretty
Things/Eight Line Poem and Changes. Even the two girls in front had shut
up and started to take notice. I had recently discovered The Velvet
Underground and was delighted to hear the band and Lou Reed eulogised from
the stage as part of the between song chat before Queen Bitch. Bowie did
some great Lou impersonations that night finishing the set with Waiting
For The Man. From memory it was all very similar to the BBC In Concert
from earlier in the year but without the guest vocalists.
t was a brilliant evening and I could
never run out of superlatives describing it. Almost everyone I knew
at the time was there and most of us agreed that we had been given a
glimpse of something truly wonderful and very different. Although
I’m afraid hindsight always helps at times like these.One thing I do like to imagine
though, is the two girls in front forgetting all about America, lost in
the desert with their nameless nag, and instead spending the last three
decades dining out on how they saw the pre Ziggy Bowie for 50p
Melody Maker got in on
the act (sorry about the quality)
Melody Maker press
cutting (thanks Neil Storey)
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