And it won’t be forgotten…
As exclusively revealed in yesterday’s news, David Bowie performed three songs at last night’s Black Ball benefit for Keep A Child Alive at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom.
Looking incredibly good in a black (or Navy) suit and tie with white shirt, (Blam note: Don’t worry fashion folx, I’ll post the full details later) David strolled on to a mighty roar from the crowd, to sing Wild Is The Wind accompanied only by Mike Garson on piano This was a similar arrangement to the version the pair performed back in July 2000 for the Yahoo! Internet Life Online Music Awards.
Next up was the emotionally charged Fantastic Voyage with host Alicia Keys‘ band, followed by a duet of Changes with Alicia herself.
And so, over to our first guest reviewer and ticket winner, BowieNetter Ficara…
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“I’ll never say anything nice again, how can I?” – excerpt from a review by Ficara…
Tonight’s show was outstanding, and though Bowie performed “only” three songs, they were gems, well chosen for the evening and beautifully sung. His set was the cap to a night of excellent performances which, I hope, left everyone thinking hard about how lucky we are and what we owe to the children in Africa who were the real point of the evening.
Bowie opened the set with “Wild In the Wind,” performing it alone with Mike Garson on piano. If there is a recording of the show, this performance would be the highlight. Garson’s piano was transcendent and Bowie sang the song more gently and intimately than I’ve ever heard it sung before. No lush strings or drum rolls, the magnificent gestures muted, just a gorgeous vocal performance.
Next up was “Fantastic Voyage,” an extraordinarily appropriate song for the evening. “Think of us as fatherless scum / It won’t be forgotten,” he sang, to a crowd ostensibly there to raise money to care for African orphans and to provide antiretroviral drugs so that perhaps some children will not become orphans.
Then he brought Alicia Keys back out to sing “Changes,” stepping back so she could sing the second verse:
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through
I hope every one of us, most particularly those of us who were lucky enough to get in free to a fundraiser for such an important cause, takes seriously our obligation to help save some lives in a truly horrifying and preventable crisis. Put it this way: the deaths in Africa from AIDS — deaths from a treatable disease amount to a 9/11 every day for more than a decade.
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Thanx Ficara, much appreciated. BowieNetters can read the full thing on the MBs
We’ll be posting more pictures and reviews in the next couple of days, but in the meantime you can view a whole bunch of Kevin Mazur‘s brilliant DB pix over at
Thanx to both Kevin and Lauryn at WireImage.com for the pix, and to everybody who has sent in their reviews thus far, which to be honest, is not a very long list just yet.