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| Celebrating David Bowie @ the San Jose Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Since the death of David Bowie in 2016, an ever changing collection of artists have toured to celebrate the work of the man himself. This years' 'Celebrating David Bowie' (CdB) show -- the first since Mike Garson's 'A Bowie Celebration' closed out San Francisco's pre-pandemic concerts in March of 2020 -- re-assembles with Rock’n’Roll Hall of Famer Todd Rundgren, Adrian Belew (Bowie, NIN, King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Talking Heads), and CdB creator, producer, and featured artist Angelo "Scrote" Bundini bring Spacehog’s Royston Langdon, Fishbone’s Angelo Moore, Saxophone great Ron Dziubla (Jon Batiste, Joe Bonamassa), Narada Michael Walden bassist and Bay Area native, Angeline Saris, and drummer Travis McNabb (Sugarland, Better Than Ezra) to interpret Bowie’s greatest hits.
The tour will also be celebrating music education in partnership with Todd Rundgren’s Spirit of Harmony Foundation which advocates for the moral imperative of music education for children. Volunteers will be at all shows to provide music fans the opportunity to learn of their grassroots work and how they can get involved in their communities.
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| Scrote & Angelo Moore @ the San Jose Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Prior to the show, we had the chance to speak with CdB creator, artist and co-producer behind the show, Scrote, and you can find our full interview here. In the meantime, the star-studded instrumentalists walked onstage just after 8pm to a crowd that unfortunately only half-filled the SJ Civic Auditorium. Most likely due to Sir Elton John's sold out show at Levi's Stadium just down the street in Santa Clara. And a double-whammy for the band was that the audience skewed older (much older!) and as I soon saw throughout the night -- only rarely reciprocated the energy that the band radiated from the stage. So not only was the band playing to a half-full venue, but the retirement community in attendance only barely got out of their seats no matter how hard the onstage musicians tried. At one point late in the evening, during "Rebel, Rebel", Angelo Moore *finally* got the majority of us up on our feet and actually came down into the crowd, walked about 10 rows deep, and then hopped up onto the chairs to walk directly into the center of the seated area to keep us on our feet and get folks singing with him. The band gets full credit for the performance they gave last night! They probably worked twice as hard, but although the crowd may not have shown it, the performance was appreciated and well worth the price of admission!
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| Angeline Saris, Adrian Belew, and Royston Langdon @ the San Jose Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Speaking of performance, let's get back to what matters, the music and the show! Leading off the night was the incredible guitarist, Adrian Belew. He belted out "Sound & Vision" before relinquishing the stage to Todd Rundgren's "Young Americans". I was surprised to hear how closely the two of them sounded to Bowie, and it was a great start to the evening. Next up was Angelo Moore who replaced Todd for "Mooange Daydream" and immediately upon walking out on stage, I realized that Angelo was going to bring a true 'performance' to the show. Angelo was dressed in an elaborate costume and the only one to don face paint for at least his first song of the night. Angelo's stage presence was incredible -- he did a cartwheel at center stage, danced all over the place, and his chemistry with his bandmates seemed legitimately fun -- not to mention his incredible voice! "Rock & Roll Suicide" was next and led by the artist I knew the least about, Royston Langdon. Dressed in all-white and complete with a white fedora and white-framed glasses, Royston impressed with not only his vocal chops, but his keyboard and guitar playing as well.
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| Todd Rundgren @ the San Jose Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
The quartet of Rundgren, Belew, Moore and Langdon rotated vocal duties throughout the night with both Adrian and Royston remaining on stage (for the most part) for the duration. Both Todd and Angelo each competed with each other for the most costume changes they could do, and Angelo impressed with his Theremin skills on at least two songs in the evening.
Highlights for me included Belew's atmospheric guitar and Bowie-like vocals on "Fame." And both Todd and Adrian had dueling guitar solos during "Fashion" which caused Scrote to actually stop playing, cross his arms and stare and say 'sometimes you just want to sit and watch Adrian play guitar.' I couldn't agree more!
Before "Station to Station", Angelo and Adrian had their own head-to-head but with Angelo on the theremin to Adrian's guitar workmanship. Given that this was only the third show on the 30-date tour so far, it felt like the two were playing around a bit and it was fun to see them ad lib.
Ron Dziubla had a couple of amazing saxophone solos, but the one that stood out was just before "Space Oddity" where he just rips it and shows everyone why he's worked with Jon Batiste.
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| Royston Langdon @ the San Jose Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Langdon had a few highlights as well, and for me, I was super impressed with how closely his voice matched Bowie's, especially on some of the more recent tracks like "Afraid of Americans" and "Hallo Spaceboy." It was also fun to see that during "Afraid of Americans," the stage lights turned to red, white and blue during the chorus of the song. Scrote even asked Langdon (who's British) if he's afraid of Americans after the song. To which he replied 'no, he loved Americans.'
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| Celebrating David Bowie @ the San Jose Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
"Pretty Pink Rose" was also notable for a number of reasons, but the one that stood out was that Angeline finally had some company when Langdon joined her with his acoustic guitar up on the right side of the riser that she was perched on along with McNabb (center stage) and Dziubla who was on the far left of the stage. Angeline didn't get enough credit in the night and she was one of the unsung performers who was simply fantastic in an understated way. Her bass lines were pronounced enough throughout, but she seemed to be lurking in the shadows for the majority of the night. I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of the audience didn't realized that she used a string bow to play her electric bass during the show opener. Sure I'm biased because she's a Bay Area native, but it was easy to see how much fun she was having on stage and yet she didn't move from her perch all night. She's a super bassist, so if you're reading this from outside the Bay Area and are able to catch one of the remaining dates, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for what she's up-to on stage!
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| Angeline Saris, Adrian Belew, and Royston Langdon @ the San Jose Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
But that's just a taste of what this show brings... Whether you're a fan of Bowie or not -- and really, how can't you be?!? -- the collection of artists that Scrote & co-producer Miles Copeland have pulled together are just phenomenal performers in their own right -- and to put them together to play a collection Bowie's hits is truly remarkable.
The ensemble closed with "Heroes" where each of the main vocalists (Todd, Angelo, and Adrian) took a verse from the song after Scrote started things off... And by that point in the night, everyone in the audience was finally on their feet after Angelo had made his way into the crowd during "Rebel, Rebel" a few songs prior. The only thing that would have made the closing song stronger was if Langdon had a verse as well, but either way, it was still the icing on the cake from what was an amazing night. It's a shame all of us in the crowd didn't return the love and energy that the performers brought, but I take solace in thinking that we were all just too old to move, but yet we were all moving in the inside!
As I mentioned above, this was only the 3rd date on the tour, so be sure to check the remainder of the dates here, and don't miss this show if/when they come to your town! Thanks for reading and while you're at it, you can follow us as well here: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter.
