Waiting In The Sky

It’s Saturday night, so it must be David Bowie night.

Astute readers who pay attention to current affairs may have noticed that David Bowie shuffled off this mortal coil earlier this year. So what’s this? A tribute concert, obviously.

We headed into town early to try and find a parking space. We were thwarted in this ambition, so had to pay for parking in the multi-storey. Undeterred, we went for a quick dinner at The Tasting Room, before trotting up Courtenay Place to St James Theatre to see Bowie: Waiting In The Sky, a tribute concert by New Zealand and Australian acts including Eddie Rayner (Split Enz), Finn Andrews (The Veils), Jordan Luck (The Exponents), Alistair Riddell (Space Waltz), and Zaine Griff (Human Instinct). I trust you’ve heard of all these megastars. Yeah, me neither. Also, introducing Olympia and Skyscraper Stan, apparently.

Despite never having heard of any of these people, they were all accomplished musicians, and, importantly, were all able to bring something to the unique style of David Bowie’s singing voice. They mostly picked songs which suited their own vocal range.

The concert started a bit clunkily. Lazarus, from his final album Blackstar, had everyone politely applauding whilst looking at each other in a WTF? kinda way. This was followed by Space Oddity, but then Sorrow? OK, I get why you’re choosing these songs, but are you sure? After that it improved, with Olympia giving us Starman, and then it was pretty much hit after hit. They included all three singles from Let’s Dance, and Cat People, but nothing of a newer vintage than that after the opening song. Significant omissions included Fashion, Scary Monsters, and John, I’m Only Dancing. Also, none of his collaborations made the cut, despite having topped the charts twice with them.  But they managed to cram in a good lot of classics, and rotated the strike well. Once again, unusually for Wellington audiences, there was dancing in the seats (d'you see what I did there? ;-) ).