David Bowie Performing at Gaumont Worcester June 1973

On 5th June 1973, the Ziggy Stardust tour rocked up at the Gaumont in Worcester UK. (original photo onstage in Worcester above). It was only a few weeks later that Bowie killed off Ziggy forever. What tends to be forgotten now is the massive impact he had culturally on early 70’s Britain. Here is an original review that I reconstructed from fragments (with the permission of the author, Worcester News reporter Mike Pryce), that shows how he was viewed by the more traditional Brit. (Excerpt from ‘Pretty Thing’ by Stephen Burrows).

‘The night ‘spaceship Bowie’ landed’

5th June 1973. Worcester News. Reporter – Mike Pryce

‘All the he-men’, ‘she-men’ and ‘in-between’ men descended on Worcester last night to see their hero David Bowie. He landed at Worcester Gaumont from his planet far away, as part of his latest ‘Ziggy Stardust’ and ‘Aladdin Sane’ tour. I’ve covered loads of rock concerts at the Gaumont, from Jimi Hendrix to ‘The Seekers’ by way of Cliff Richard and ‘The Faces’, but never has there been an audience like Bowie’s. It’s as if a box has been opened and all these weirdly dressed people climbed out. Where are they all in the daytime? Do they dress like that working the lathes at Heenan’s or is it their dark secret?

            Bowie is the strangest dressed rock star I’ve ever met, outside of pantomime. I’ve never met a man wearing so much female make-up and sporting such strange clothes, but he is disturbingly beautiful for a man. It’s a look his fans try to replicate, with mixed success, and the queue outside the Gaumont seemed to comprise of travellers from a charabanc spaceship from Planet Zog.

            Musically, it was a great night though. With the aid of the excellent Mick Ronson and the rest of ‘The Spiders From Mars’, Bowie powered his way through his back catalogue from ‘Space Oddity’ to ‘Ziggy Stardust’. There was also a rendition of ‘All The Young Dudes’, which he wrote for Herefordshire group ‘Mott The Hoople’, plus new songs from the recently released ‘Aladdin Sane’ album.

            Bowie, or is it ‘Ziggy’? It’s difficult to see a difference these days, performed throughout with huge energy, Bowie puts on a show, not a rock concert, with numerous costume changes. He jumped on the speakers, performed an ‘exotic’ strobe-lit solo with Ronson, and even climbed up the ornate embellishments of the Gaumont walls.

            He finished with Chuck Berry’s ‘Around and Around’, and then he was gone, leaving us with ears ringing from the volume, back to whatever planet he comes from.’*

(*Constructed from excerpts from the original review and used with the kind permission of Mike Pryce)

‘Pretty Thing’, is available from Amazon worldwide as a Paperback or Kindle ebook.

Link to Pretty Thing Amazon Uk site

Latest two reviews:

21 June 2019

Testing at Defford – John Young

Laboratory at Malvern

Bag yourself a great Father’s Day present – a signed copy of ‘Top Secret Worcestershire’. Meet Mike and Steve in Malvern and Evesham next Friday and Saturday.

Yesterday I was chatting to a police pensioner in his 90s who has many great memories of how he first joined Birmingham City Police and went on to serve in traffic, driving the old Westminster’s,

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and on CID at Lloyd House Police Headquarters. Everyone I know who becomes a police officer always refers to it as ‘the job’. Don’t ask me why but that’s the way it is. My meeting prompted me to reflect on my forty-two years service and the many aspects of that journey. I was born in Wheeler Street, Lozells near to the Lucas Factory. The cover of our little book ‘Tara A Bit’ features me playing at an early age with my elder sister in a back-yard. I later went to primary school at St. Silas’s. I realised at an early age that I didn’t like school and determined to make the experience as short as possible. At an early age I was a Marine Cadet at TS Vernon which was then situated at Gas Street Canal Basin, off Broad Street, and learnt the art of ‘bulling  boots’ which was to become useful later in life. (Photo) My abiding memory was of falling in the canal whilst canoeing. My father George (RIP) was at one stage a Special Constable in Birmingham City Police, as well as a Parks Policeman for a short time. (Photo) He was later to become the first civilian Warrants Office at Victoria Law Courts in Birmingham and spent many happy years there. (Photo). I later attended Lordswood Boys Technical School on the Hagley Road, and found technical drawing to be an impossible art. The lines simply never connected and I left school at the age of sixteen years with five ‘O’ Levels and one ‘CSE’ having promised myself that academic achievement was probably not going to be top of my list of things to strive for in life. I originally wanted to become a Police Cadet in the Birmingham City Police but was rejected because I was too thin. My doctor recommended a banana a day to increase weight but it simply didn’t work and I was eventually accepted by the British Transport Police as a cadet in 1968 and spent much of my time working at Rail House in Broad Street, at the Divisional HQ or at the old New Street Station which was a great place to learn your trade in the police. There is not one section of society that does not travel through a train station at some time or another. Football hooliganism was on the rise and at some stage it seemed like every phone box with a coinbox underneath was being broken into on the station which had a circular bank of them. I later attended an outward bound course at Elan Valley in Wales (photo) where I struggled to keep up with my West Midlands Police colleagues who were all pretty much twice my size and super-fit. In 1972 I transferred to Birmingham City Police and originally served in uniform at Ladywood before transferring to the CID. In 1974 the Force became the West Midlands Police and so the story goes on. Hairstyles have changed over the years but the job remains the same. (Photos) Some of those police experiences are chronicled in books – not glamorous, although occasionally exciting, and routinely intriguing they have been my life. The first picture is of me being presented with the Queens Police Medal in 2003 by HM The Queen having been awarded it in the New Years Honours List. From Wheeler Street to Buckingham Palace but not the end of the story and I still only have  five ‘O’ Levels and a CSE certificate!