Standing between a beaming, gap-toothed Space Cadet and a cheery Brit who operates the extraterrestrial xenophobic mutants known as Daleks on Dr. Who, I think, David Bowie would love this. The phrase “celebration of life” is insufficient for the joy and camaraderie suffusing Deryck Todd’s BowieBall, on June 17 at Racket, a Chelsea club formerly known as the High Line Ballroom where Bowie curated the inaugural High Line Festival, in 2007. This past Saturday night, a band led by singer/guitarist Jeff Slate, featuring longtime NYC Bowie performer Michael Tee, capped a day of panel discussions and signing events. Hundreds of fans from NYC, Japan, the U.K., and California respectfully worshipped producer Tony Visconti, guitarist Carlos Alomar, and performer Joey Arias, beloved Bowie collaborators and co-conspirators.
As for the aforementioned duo: The Dr. Who Dalek operator, actor Nicholas Pegg, is one of the world’s foremost Bowie authorities and author of The Complete David Bowie. His voluminous knowledge, affable mien, and critic’s eye were put to good use as moderator for many of the three-day convention’s panels and quizzes.
And the Space Cadet? She’s Hannah Lulu Breschard, captured on film by Cracked Actor director Alan Yentob for his 1970’s BBC documentary series, Omnibus. “I was 16 in Tucson, Arizona, of all places,” Breschard tells me during the convention. ”I was an obsessive Bowie fan, all glittered up. Yentob goes, ‘What is it about Bowie?’ I said, ‘He’s my fantasy.’ He asked, ‘Well, what is your fantasy?’ I said, ‘I’m just a space cadet. He’s the commander.’”
That iconic line has been everywhere in the decades since; Breschard is even in the film Moonage Daydream, which she didn’t know until she saw it. Post-teen years, the ebullient New York native went on to become an editor and writer — notably for the late-’70s glossy Punk Rock and Groupie Rock magazines — as well as a prolific freelancer. She interviewed such giants as Black Sabbath and Patti Smith, but never Bowie.
“Even if it’s bad, like a snake, shed that skin and let it go. Bowie told me, ‘Let go or be dragged.’”
Pegg and Breschard are here among their people: Brian Eno, Mick Ronson, Carmine Rojas, and Tim Palmer are household names for the gathered. Yet there seems to be no indignant jockeying for the title of Superfan, even during the evening’s onstage costume contest or among those sporting competing red shags or teased blond Labyrinth-style wigs. It was a warm and welcoming coming together of supplicants, whose devotion hasn’t paled since the object of their affection left his earthly body, in 2016.
Alomar, a beacon of light and energy as both a player and personality, has endless tales and studio and sonic details, which he demonstrates with vocal scatting and time signatures stamped out using his hands and feet. His Bowie era began in 1974, and many of his most treasured moments revolve around Bowie’s humor and collaboration appreciation. Backstage after his Saturday afternoon “Golden Years” panel discussion, with singer/wife Robin Clark and Bowie bassist George Murray — who Alomar hadn’t seen since 1980 — the guitarist shares more stories. “David let me read a book called Who Moved My Cheese?” he recalls. The gist? “You cannot use the same methodologies for everything. Music and life evolve, mature, and then you apply what you learn. Even if it’s bad, like a snake, shed that skin and let it go. Bowie told me, ‘Let go or be dragged.’”
Bowie lived that motto to the nth degree, and many of his eras and incarnations were represented by the creatively dressed convention goers, quite a few on the far side of middle age and sporting Aladdin Sane-era glitter lightning bolts across faces, arms, and clothing. Some preferred to display their fandom with glam bespoke Bowie shirts and purses, others sporting glitter and sequins as their homage. While some locals in attendance lamented that the convention’s Saturday events coincided with the equally colorful and inclusive Coney Island Mermaid Parade, the fest sold out, to the tune of 700 tickets, according to reps.
Fanfests can be tacky affairs, but David Pichilingi, a live-music veteran who is CEO of entertainment company Modern Sky, is careful to honor the high aesthetic that Bowie inherently embodied. “We decided what kind of philosophical stance we had from day one, simple things like making sure that in the marketplaces there are no counterfeit products, all the way down to the way we manage logos, the way we use images,” Pichilingi explains in a chat the night before the convention’s kickoff.
That respect pervaded the World Fan Convention, an event and personal experience Alomar had clearly thought a lot about. He volunteered that he hadn’t listened to Bowie’s final album, Blackstar — “But I don’t need to,” he explains. “The door in my heart that has David, I can visit that anytime. I can hum any song because David still has a place. But should I close that door and close that chapter … then woe is me.”
Alomar appreciates the international aspect of the gathering. “[Bowie and his band members] mean just as much in the European sensibility as we mean to the Japanese or any of the other places that we’ve gone to,” he says, his intensity ramping up as he continues. “Let’s be very, very pointed at what I want. Closure. Many of these fans are not teenyboppers, they’re not the 20-year-olds, they’re older. So we’re looking to justify their existence by participating in a forum that will allow us to speak of those things that we really need to hear.” A convention like this, Alomar says, “is really important because [fans] need to get closer to the fire. That’s not just an issue of closure, it’s also an issue of ‘Where am I in my life? When I am with these other people that are of like mind, I feel fine.’” (The David Bowie World Fan Convention will move every year to cities important to Bowie: London in 2024, possibly Berlin in the future.)
Pegg has the unique perspective of being immersed in two rabid fan cultures. “In my capacity as a Dalek, I’ve often been invited to Doctor Who conventions, and an interesting thing that I discovered was that, to all intents and purposes, David Bowie fans and Doctor Who fans are identical.” Pegg is also likely the only person who could legitimately lay claim to a Dalek dressed as Ziggy Stardust, though the actor/author says he’s not a “dresser-upper.”
Devotees of both of these iconic British institutions have the same enthusiasm and deep knowledge that can border on obsession with their esteemed. “It’s kind of lovely to see, in those two kind of different fandoms that I get to experience,” says Pegg. “It’s wonderful to see how much common ground there is.”
“With Bowie fans, I think everyone feels like they are guarding the brand of Bowie, religiously, almost,” observes Pichilingi. “So we’re very aware of how much people cherish David Bowie and the name of David Bowie, and with that comes high demands. But really, it’s rock and roll at the end of the day. We’re here to have fun and to give people a great time. ”
“Making memories” may have become a cliched reality-show buzz phrase, but for David Bowie World Fan Convention goers, it’s a palpable thing. “The fact that [a musician or Bowie insider] can share these moments with fans and be close enough to touch them, and fans can ask you something that’s been on their mind forever,” Alomar raves, “or maybe, even better, you’re gonna ask the question that 15 of the fans don’t have the courage to ask!” ❖
Katherine Turman has written for Entertainment Weekly, Spin, Variety, and other publications, and is the author of Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal. She lives in Brooklyn.
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