Let’s face it….David Bowie was a genius. Without him, the world of music might have taken years to evolve. Without him, the world in general would have been a more “gray” place. David Bowie was more than just a musician, he was a visionary, a showman and fearless chameleon when it came to presenting his music. There was nothing ordinary about this man, and when he died, we lost that extraordinary light, but thankfully for us, we have all of his amazing music to keep him in our hearts. To that note, the dancers of the Empire Room took to the stage to pay tribute to a musical inspiration and we had a lot of fun doing it 🙂
We had a little fun at the beginning of the show, and by fun I mean all out stresstastic nightmare when Baby and Gunner crashed simultaneously courtesy of their telecom provider. Kellan was a goddess and we all flung our music across the interwebs to her and she got us rolling just a couple of minutes past usual. I have no idea how she did it, I would have had a stroke rolled up in a conniption with a chaser of a heart attack! Bless you Kellan for keeping us sailing along with a minimum of fuss and lost time and thank you wonderful audience for not freaking out and fleeing 🙂
Jilley opened for us with Paul to a duet of David Bowie and Tina Turner singing “Tonight”. Jilley wore a beautiful white gown with a polka dot accent and a sugar skull mask and Paul was of course….Bowieish 🙂 The set was an ethereal evening with moonlight, a dance stage suspended in air and a starlit background that accentuated the beautiful dance where each danced alone to start and then Jilley met Paul and the higher platform and they danced together. I wanted the song to be longer so I could see more!
Ally took to the stage next with David Bowie’s “Putting out Fire”from the movie Cat People. This set was so hot it was on fire! The backdrop was two huge glowing cat eyes. The song is sultry….Ally was a cat and she had some large, intimidating cat friends lounging on stage with her. Her stage literally burned….and the audience was desperately in need of one of my two future inventions…”the dump of cold water sploder”. It was quintessential sexy Ally and a great set.
I hit the boards next and I chose “Fame”. I saw the Grammys and took my inspiration from Lady Gaga’s performance. I chose a different approach than usual, I came onstage from out in the audience….it was a red carpet walk to a red carpet dance…with some strategically placed searchlights and a dress I found from Faster Pussycat that I’m having a sordid affair with…I may not take it off for a month 🙂 Fame…what you like is in the limo…. Fuki did the coolest picture of this!
Wiz chose “Ashes to Ashes” a song that Bowie wrote like an epitaph to the Ziggy Stardust era. There are pointed references to drug use and dealing with the consequences and Wiz took inspiration from the video where there is an actual shot of Bowie in a padded room and he also switches characters while producing a picture of the next character. I love the set, it’s an amazing adaptation, once again the Wizard is in 🙂
Kellan chose “Dancing in the Street” with Bowie and Mick Jagger. The lyrics to this song shout out cities and countries and a continent as the boys encourage us to get out and dance. Queenie, Ridley, Cyan, Ame, Mona, Nevar and I were there to represent and danced our little hearts away out in the street. I loved the animations for this…they were really upbeat and fun!
Next we had JenzZa and her Misfits with my favorite Bowie tune “Pressure” with Freddy Mercury. I could binge listen to this song for hours and JenzZa did the funniest and most amazing interpretation…from the vantage point of the very stressful life of the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland. She was joined by a marching palace guard (Rendezvous), the cheshire cat (Phoebe), the ten of hearts card (Rumour) the mad hatter (Dulcikate) and the…er….cuppycake?? (Paul). That darned cupcake just about stole the show, but I had more fun watching this set…I need to see it again…and again…and giggle more!
Queenie (our very own Red Queen) chose “Life Mars” and she had a Bowie outfit made for her by a friend which was just awesome. It even color changed!! She put on a fabulous head of hair and Bowie eyes and her set was a series of frames, two with media with shots of Bowie and one with her in the middle. Her animations were sort of flowy and zen to go with the song and she looked just fabulous. She and Wiz need to do a duet with their Bowie outfits…they both looked great.
This brings us to the mind of Babypea…and the iconic “Major Tom”. I’m not sure you can do a Bowie show without this song…I know that I couldn’t. Who doesn’t have a vision of this song in their head. Like Baby, I envision a sort of 2001 a space odyssey on acid sort of vibe when I hear this song. I say like Baby, because that’s kind of exactly what she did. She finds the most awesome avatars and this one was no exception. I’m pretty sure that she also bought out most of the particles on the grid as she floated and twirled and swooshed her way through space, where it looked much prettier than it does on a lot of NASA websites. It was cool, it was psychedelic, it was hip, it was perfect!
Sadly, that was the end of the show, but we all got to enjoy ourselves just a wee bit longer as Ame did our crowd dances to “Blue Jean”, “Modern Love”, and “Magic Dance”. There was a great Bowie backdrop and bless SL for being faster than usual with loading us all and letting us have fun. I hope that you all had as much fun as I did last night…and I hope that Mr. Bowie…wherever he is on some eternal plane was able to look down and see how much we miss him and love his music. Catch you all next Friday night!
Elysium Cabaret 