While no tribute may ever go down as the one David Bowie actually deserves, Saturday’s three-hour “A Bowie Celebration” livestream came within spitting distance of giving the duke…
Although “Life on Mars?” has been Garson’s go-to when anyone asks him to play even a snippet of a Bowie song, he wisely turned over that song to the man who played piano on the original track, Rick Wakeman of Yes, who had not lost a step in his ability to bring splendor to that part, even though he’s played it at least hundreds or thousands of fewer times in the intervening half-century than Garson has.
While most of the webcast had performers singing in front of Garson-led ensembles made up mostly of alumni from Bowie’s touring and studio bands, Duran Duran opened the show without any outside assistance, with “Five Years,” the song most obviously befitting the anniversary setting, even if that “Ziggy” number’s sci-fi theme looked ominously five years ahead to a looming disaster instead of five years tragically back on a devastating loss.
Actor Taylor Momsen earned Garson’s approval, he said in an introduction, by telling him that she’d become a Bowie fan at age 2. One of the few performers to shoot herself in closeup in a home studio, the “Gossip Girl” star chose the not-often-revived “Quicksand,” from “Hunky Dory,” an album released more than 20 years before she was born. Although Garson made only sparing comments about the 30 songs performed, he called “Quicksand” “one of the deepest songs David ever wrote.
For “Young Americans,” sung by Living Colour’s Corey Glover, Garson managed to virtually assemble an impressive six people who’d appeared on the original 1974 single: himself, Alomar, drummer Andy Newmark, saxophonist David Sanborn and backup singers Ava Cherry and Robin Clark.