29/01/2022
Today is the 50th anniversary of Bowie giving Friars Aylesbury the world premiere of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders from Mars album, which has to be one of the most significant gigs in Friars long 52-year history…….and of contemporary music in general.
On 29th January 1972 we were expecting Hunky Dory and he did Changes, Song for Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Life on Mars, and Queen Bitch but what came next was a complete surprise. It was a completely new suite of songs which turned out to be the Ziggy Stardust album.
The photo below, by the legendary Michael Putland, was taken that night and is also the front cover of The Thin White Book – a history of David Bowie and Friars Aylesbury.
Big thanks to Mark Adams who runs the excellent official Bowie website and social media pages for all his support.
This weekend every song played above Earthly Messenger in Aylesbury’s Market Square (the world’s first and so far only Bowie Statue) will be a Ziggy track. At 2.00pm today (Saturday) the whole of the Ziggy album will be played including of course ‘Five Years’ which references Aylesbury Market Square. See you there.
