In honour of what would be David Bowie’s 74th birthday his former pianist and close friend, Mike Garson, has planned a Covid-19 friendly tribute on January 8th, 2021. Today it was announced that Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails, along with The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan have been recruited to perform during the upcoming livestream event.
Corgan and Reznor are the latest acts set to play the Bowie birthday-show; among the long line-up are big names including actor Gary Oldman as well as musicians such as Gavin Rossdale, Macy Gray, Judith Hill, Perry Farrell and many more. The musicians will each give their own rendition of one or more of the songs off Bowie’s extensive discography and it is expected they will bring unique and genre-spanning covers to the live-show.
The event will take place near the 5th anniversary of Bowie’s death and will follow the new-release of the album Metrobolist which is set to be released next month. This year, previously unreleased live-show recordings and re-cut songs, such as The Man Who Sold The World, have been given to fans and even last month saw a limited edition of the 1975 album Young Americans.
Bowie has had great success from posthumous releases including winning multiple Grammys, selling over 5 million records in just the 2 years following his death and being named Rolling Stone’s ‘Greatest Rock Star Ever’. This upcoming live-stream concert will pay tribute to fallen star with collaborations and arrangements of his music spanning all the decades of his career.
Producers of the live-stream event include Kerry Brown, Stacey Sher and Bowie’s long-time producer Tony Visconti, and they are calling it ‘A Bowie Celebration: Just for one day!’. Past band-members and old collaborators are banning together in an alumni fashion to play as one in honour of Bowie.
This all-star band will include players such as the main band-members from his last touring act and other musicians including Carlos Alomar, Zack Alford, Alan Childs, Kevin Armstrong, Emm Gryner, Omar Hakim, Robin Clark, Clare Hirst, Tim Lefebvre, Erdal Kızılçay, Martha Mooke, Mark Plati, Holly Palmer, Charlie Sexton and Carmine Rojas.
Spanning the end of 2020 and into 2021 a collection of 6 live and unreleased albums from the years 1995 to 1999 will be available in a limited CD and vinyl form. This collection will be called Brilliant Live Adventures and will follow the release of the upcoming album Metrobolist.
Tickets for the Bowie livestream birthday celebration concert are available here and the early-bird pricing is at 20USD (15 GBP). All shows from the ‘Bowie Celebration Tour’ that was set to go off next year have been cancelled due to safety concerns surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic.
