Aladdin Sane

In the absence of the great man himself we are left with a burgeoning and constantly growing roster of tribute acts. I make appoint of trying to see them all on the basis that at least I know that I will like the music!

Last weekend was the famous “Yarmageddon”, four days of live, original and tribute bands at a Great Yarmouth holiday camp. Four days, fifty bands, no sleep. The Thursday was Glam Night with Aladdin Sane providing the Glam. I had not seen them before so was excited at the prospect of new material.

Aladdin Sane are the stage vehicle for Paul Henderson as David, erstwhile Mackem, but now from Peterborough. They played with a lead guitarist, bass, drums and keyboards, Paul adding on guitar parts where needed.

The good news for them was a captive 2500 audience, a good opening act, and four hours drinking time elapsed. However like most of the weekend acts they were allotted a strict hour set to play to an audience with widely diverse musical tastes, so  not as easy as a theatre of fans who had paid to see them only. Consequently the set list comprised mainly his best known hits with  understandably few surprises.

“Boys keep Swinging”  was a great opener and won the crowd over from the start. Paul was wearing an Earthling Era Union Jack frock coat and physically looked like 80’s Bowie with a “Serious Moonlight” hairdo. “  Starman” was a wise choice, usurping Space oddity in th sing a long stakes, and the rockers lapped up “Jean Genie” , “Moonage Daydream” and “Ziggy”. However it was a barnstorming “Suffragette City” finale which won the day for them. What a great song-  sung and performed with such enthusiasm.

A league table of Bowie tributes is an invidious task. Not least because the bar is being pushed ever higher for tribute shows. Abbas Voyage has changed what is possible as has the tactic of having several leads to cope with different eras as the Cher show so successfully did.

Suffice to say that Aladdin Sane did not disappoint either casual music fans or the Bowie cognoscenti

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