ICONS
DAVID BOWIE
R. I. P | 1947- 2016
There is so much serendipity in writing this article about Bowie that, fittingly, it ' s almost as if stars have collided throughout my, and I ' m sure your, travels with Mr Jones. Travelling home tonight after experiencing‘ Lazarus’, his parting gift, I was reminded of my joy at the beginning of 2013 when he gave us the single‘ Where Are We Now’ after we had had been starved of any new offerings for almost a decade. I would have settled with that, from his unannounced retirement, his subtle hibernation but he then dropped the album‘ The Next Day’ on us. We all should have known then, our seer, our leader, has always sent us songs full of perception and wisdom and here he was, hinting about something dreadful and yet we were too full of our own happiness to see his troubles. Indeed, we were reigniting the party as‘ Black Star’ was unveiled to us. By now he wasn ' t being subtle and yet our party was so fully swinging we still didn ' t hear him, not waving, but drowning.‘ Lazarus’, it really couldn ' t have been called anything else. Meticulously planned, the resurrection not of the body but of the music and the words, the gifts remain, even if the giver has since departed. The play that he so passionately wanted to leave for us, once more picked the itchy scab of madness that haunted his childhood and recurred through the various personas he created for Mr Bowie to unveil his talent. His character Thomas Newton is now played by the huge talent that is Michael C Hall. All of the cast will astound us with their abilities especially their vocal performances.‘ Lazarus’, the sequel to‘ The Man Who Fell to Earth’, Bowie ' s most famous role, sees Thomas
Newton in his New York Apartment descending into understandable madness as he finds himself forever shipwrecked on Earth, far from the loving family he will never see again. This theme began a career of stardom in 1969 for David Jones with his own Starman,
Major Tom, and saw Bowie touch on the theme of madness and isolation over and over. Lazily labelled pop ' s Chameleon, he was so much more. A leader, a prophet, he always happened to be there first. Out of his folk / rock beginning to pioneering the glam rock seventies it was no surprise that he was accepted and continually praised throughout the punk / new wave / new romantic turn of that decade, why? Because he had already done tha. Half the punks’ and new romantics’ inspiration was owed to a young man growing up in the South London / Kent suburbs who owed his own success to the need to know, his quest for knowledge, particularly the arts. Ironically, it was a quest for acceptance. In the following decades, before any stars were issuing their music independently, Bowie had offered his back catalogue on the stock market andbefore the great download deluge, Bowie had conquered the internet. We marvel at his quiet ingenuity, his calm dignified transition to the other side and yet we should have known that he had planned every last detail, just as he always did. My love for his music began in the mid-seventies and his gift to me outside of both an aural and visual inspiration was the fun in still finding new things in there four decades later. To still be moved by his passion, whatever current trends are in music. He remains current, contemporary and visionary. I have met some of, indeed most of, my heroes and many more besides. I generally feel comfortable in their company, " treat them like a star and they ' ll treat you like a fan " has been my observation and rule of thumb. But when I met David Bowie, our conversation was brief yet friendly and he did not disappoint, my Starman, my star. I can honestly say I got butterflies and I did what every fan shouldn ' t do: I told him I loved him, then signed a couple of things for me, including a painting. For fifteen years I regretted saying that. Since January 2016 I haven ' t. From January 10th the obituary column writers were about to get the most overtime they had seen in decades, the year offered up a host of the most loved and talented human beings on the planet, as they, like Thomas Newton’ s dream, shuffled off this rock. Guess who was leading the way, standing at the front of the queue? When David Bowie’ s image appeared at the end of the play, the standing ovations and rapturous applause melted away to leave a kind of holy reverence, a cool respect for this man. The cast of‘ Lazarus’ were inspirational tonight, led by the light of his glittering star and so I urge you to see this amazing performance and if you can, with this current cast. They exude Bowie’ s magic in their performances, they are so heartfelt that they reduced my other half to tears. I guess that they don ' t want to disappoint the old man. You feel he is there in the room, somewhere. Hey look up here. I ' m in heaven.
James Wilkinson is Artist in Residence at Hylands House and Official Artist to the V Festival
James Wilkinson of Paint Pop and Memorabilla
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