Given five minutes and a rock orchestra, which David Bowie would you be? Jake Shears dashes and gyrates across the Festival Hall stage in a glittery jumpsuit to “Watch That Man”, every inch the glam-pop starman. Anna Calvi, the grand dame, expands into the austere Gallic elegance of “Lady Grinning Soul”. Battersea’s Tawiah finds the plastic soul of vaudevillian oompah classic “The Prettiest Star”. And Lynks – sashaying through the moral detritus of “Cracked Actor” in fashionista head-mask and a sci-fi outfit that could only be described as glam-gimp – sets out to encapsulate Bowie the alien art god.
It’s only the rock orchestra, really, that holds them back. This full performance of Bowie’s sixth album has been reinterpreted by the Nu Civilisation Orchestra for the Southbank’s Aladdin Sane: 50 Years anniversary season, and somewhat misses the point of the thing. Bowie himself undersold the record by calling it “Ziggy Stardust goes to America”. This portrait of madness, depravity and Stateside collapse certainly emerged from Ziggy’s US tour, and his breakthrough, other-worldly persona endured. But as the first album that Bowie produced as a bonafide glam superstar, its adoption of avant-garde and jazz touches, largely courtesy of pianist Mike Garson, have marked it out as a bold sign that artistic evolution mattered more to Bowie than any transient success.
