All the days of my life…
BBC DJ Mark Radcliffe has a new book published through Simon & Schuster in April entitled: Thank You For The Days.
Described as ‘A Boy’s Own adventures in radio and beyond’ the book dedicates a whole chapter to DB with the heading: ‘The day I introduced David Bowie on stage’.
Mark asked David for a little something he could hopefully use in the book and DB responded thus…
“Having read Mark’s chapter on heroes I broke into a small sweat recalling that initially my song ‘Heroes’ had been jokingly titled ‘Herons, a song about birds and fish’. it’s the kind of info you don’t let Mark have. Do steal this book.” – David Bowie
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The day I told Bowie what to sing
I first saw David Bowie on Top Of The Pops in 1972 doing Starman. To an adolescent grammar school boy, he appeared to have arrived from another planet and it seemed like a world worth visiting.
I bought his album, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, the next day. Putting it on in my bedroom, it became clear from the opening bars of the first track, Five Years, that the future I had been waiting for had arrived.
And then there was the whole image thing. The Bowie look was intoxicatingly daring but presented problems for the pubescent imitator. Even if you were lucky enough to stumble across a Japanese-print jumpsuit in Bolton, you ran the risk of getting a good kicking if you wore it in Yates’s Wine Lodge.
I got to meet Bowie years later and found him incredibly friendly – though heaven knows what he thought of our behaviour when Marc and I compered his gig at Old Trafford cricket ground in 2002.
As 25,000 people waited in the rain for Bowie to appear, Marc and I – much the worse for wear and hardly able to string a sentence together – rambled about on stage for eight minutes.
Looking back, that was seven minutes and 45 seconds longer than we should have been there. We just kept repeating plugs for the show’s sponsor, the Manchester Evening News, and pointing out that the paper now cost just 10p every Friday.
Fortunately, Bowie forgave us because later that year he asked us to introduce him at a gig in London.
Turning up at the stage door, the signs were immediately good – among the signs was one saying ‘Mark and Lard Dressing Room’.
However, before we got to our billet, one of the greatest moments in my life occurred. As we sauntered down a gloomy corridor at the Apollo, we saw before us a figure in a cream-coloured jean jacket. David Bowie.
He greeted us as proper friends, not two drunkards who slurred their way through proceedings at Old Trafford, and invited us into his private dressing room.
In a room containing fresh flowers, lots of fruit and some mid-priced hotel furniture was Marc Riley, me and the biggest rock star in our world.
After a few moments of Bowie’s trademark joshing, he pulled a handwritten list from the pocket of his caramel-coloured trousers. ‘I was thinking of doing this tonight. What do you reckon?’
Stunned, Marc and I cast our eyes down the list, which included Life On Mars, China Girl, Rebel Rebel and Heroes. Then Bowie started to ask us about the running order: should Changes come before Starman or vice versa?
It was one of the moments where life just seemed unreal. Of course we all fantasise about meeting our idols, but to be in the same room, and for him to be genuinely interested in my opinion, was too much to take in.
That night me and Marc introduced David Bowie on stage. We didn’t say anything worth repeating, but we were sober, and we didn’t mention the Manchester Evening News or its cover price.
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Thank You For The Days by Mark Radcliffe is published on April 6 by Simon & Schuster.