David Bowie put on a very special bash for his 50th birthday party in January, 1997. Nope, not for Bowie a trip to TGI Fridays or a disco in his local church hall or a reunion of his 11-a-side footy team (although he did all those things too, who knows?) - for his big 5-0, Bowie put on a huge celebratory show at iconic New York venue Madison Square Garden, playing through his classic hits with the help of some famous friends including Robert Smith, Frank Black, Billy Corgan, Kim Gordon and Lou Reed. Foo Fighters performed too, playing with Bowie on a sizzling version of his drum’n’bass-tinged track Hallo Spaceboy. Dave Grohl’s band were still a relatively new bunch at that point – their debut was released in 1995 – and a few years ago, bassist Nate Mendel told this writer how the star-studded bash was a bit of an eye-opener.
“It was kind of a milestone for us because it ended up being the last time our first drummer William Goldsmith played with the band,” Mendel said. “And it was our first time in Madison Square Garden, first time we met Bowie and first time that we probably played a stage anywhere near that big. It was just right on the heels of us having recorded The Colour And The Shape, this came up somewhere in there recording that record. It was pulling us out of the studio, going to New York, meeting a legend and just having all these firsts. It was pretty monumental from my perspective, it was impactful.”
