Ziggy killed off forty years ago tonight

 

“Not only is it the last show of the tour”

 

 

Today marks the 40th anniversary of David Bowie’s final Ziggy and The Spiders show at Hammersmith Odeon on July 3rd, 1973.

 

And around about now a sold out Riverside in Hammersmith (a stone’s throw from the original venue) is just closing its doors following the screening of D.A. Pennebaker’s Ziggy Stardust The Motion Picture that we told you about recently. http://smarturl.it/BNetZSMOPI40

 

And that’s around the time exactly 40 years ago that a largely stunned and generally bewildered throng were making their way home, having witnessed Ziggy’s final show to a paying audience, complete with a farewell speech that many weren’t sure if they had heard correctly.

 

Of course, the WE of “the last show that we’ll ever do…” referred to Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars collectively, as Bowie himself was back on the road in North America less than a year later with Diamond Dogs.

 

Nevertheless, that farewell speech followed by one of the more emotional performances of Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide is now the stuff of legend, and we’re going to be commemorating that most theatrical of rock ’n’ roll moments with a new contest in the next couple of days.

 

Above is a teaser of the first prize that will be up for grabs, an acetate of the following impossibly rare single-sided disc.

 

 

 

Stay tuned for more.