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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:
'Some
authorities will tell you that it all started at the Toby Jug, Tolworth on
the 10th February but that was still twelve days away. Friars
was where it really began. Almost everything was in place, from the
new image with its attendant publicity, to the new songs. There was just a
six month wait until the album was released.
We piled into the Borough Assembly Hall full of eager
anticipation. So fast in fact that Ronno, still on stage fiddling with his pedals, had to
exit rapidly as we staked out an area at the front and settled down to
wait. Things seemed to be shaping up for a great night but unfortunately
there was a serpent in the garden in the form of support band Grand
Canyon. Where this ghastly bunch of sub Stones chuggers came from and what
they were doing sharing a bill with DB will remain one of life’s
mysteries. The best that can be said is that amongst the tired riffs and
sock stuffed split white trousers (weakened seams one assumes), there was
an overdose of arrogance which just about got them through, although even
this failed to save them from being a pile of
llama dung. Anyway, these empty vessels came and went, all bluster
and bull, no substance. Ian Hunter once described the fate of many
support bands as “a passing irritation before the headliner”. Let
that serve as Grand Canyon’s footnote in history
The almost named Spiders looked a little uncomfortable in their new stage
gear and Trev had yet to grow his sidies to their full silver sprayed
garden gnome glory but Bowie and band were tight and well rehearsed which
was just as well with the teething problems that followed. It started with
the pickup falling off Bowie’s new guitar which was quickly gaffa taped on
for the rest of the set, but worse was the intermittent fault that caused
Ronno’s guitar to cut out continuously. He had a brief respite when he
switched to piano for Life On Mars but this gig was clearly full of
frustrating moments for him.
Eventually Bowie and Ronno swapped amps which seemed to solve the problem.
An enduring memory comes from the end of the set during Waiting For The
Man with Ronno producing an uncharacteristically clean sound from his Les
Paul while Bowie, thrashing great fuzztoned washes of sonic chaos from his
twelve string, thrust and gyrated the neck lewdly in the direction of his
guitarist’s hindquarters. All great stuff and an amusing precursor to the
‘electric blow job’ which became a regular feature after its debut at
Oxford Town Hall that summer. The set finished with Rock & Roll Suicide
and I have a clear memory of seeing a magazine photo some time later, of a
friend, instantly recognisable by her long blonde hair and bright yellow
floor length cardy, clutching Bowie’s hands as he reached down from the
stage.
This was a huge leap forward for Bowie and a massive change made in only
four months. Rebirth? Metamorphosis? Your choice. And so, unlike Yeats’
rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born, Ziggy came sashaying
out of Beckenham fully formed and in the process made our little corner of
the world a better brighter place."
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