A special tribute concert in memory of David Bowie has been announced for his birthday in his birth place of South London.
The ‘Heroes’ and ‘Blackstar’ icon will be celebrated with a unique show at Brixton Academy on Sunday 8 January – led by a host of friends, collaborators, former bandmates and special guests.
Taking place on what would have been his 70th birthday, the show is the first to be announced in a run of gigs around the world that will “all take place in cities that have a strong connection with David Bowie and his work.”
Each show features a core 30 musicians, teaming up with “40 or more local musicians, to create a sound like no other”. The London edition will be led by David Bowie’s close friend, acting icon Gary Oldman – who featured in his video for ‘The Next Day’ and gave an emotional tribute speech to The Thin White Duke at The BRIT Awards 2016 – along with Lorde and Annie Lennox.
Spanning much of his touring past from the 1973 Ziggy Stardust tour up to his final ‘Reality’ tour shows and the musicians that featured on his final albums ‘The Next Day’ and ‘Blackstar’, the London edition features former Bowie band members Mike Garson, Earl Slick, Adrian Belew, Mark Plati, Gerry Leonard, Gail Ann Dorsey, Sterling Campbell, Zachary Alford, Holly Palmer and Catherine Russell – with many other special guests to be announced.
Tickets are available through O2 Priority from 9am on Wednesday 16 November, before going on general sale on Friday 18 November.
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This comes after the designer of David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’ album artwork revealed that the sleeve ‘holds many more secrets that fans are yet to discover’.
“This thing of keeping the meaning open, I think is better,” said designer Jonathan Barnbook. “There’s one big thing which people haven’t discovered yet. Let’s just say, if people find it, they find it. If they don’t, they don’t.”
Barnbrook was speaking at the launch of Bowie’s personal art collection – which sold for auction for £33million last week.
Speaking to NME, Bowie’S former drummer in Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars has recounted his last contact and the final days of the ‘Blackstar’ icon, while Woody Woodmansey also spoke to NME to reveal how he and Visctonti turned down the chance to perform with Lady Gaga for her GRAMMYs tribute show – slamming it as ‘tacky’ and claiming it ‘didn’t represent anything good about him’.
Bowie passed away in January at the age of 69.