QJB formed The Genius of David Bowie in the spring after Bowie’s death in 2016. A musician since junior school he had on occasion played Bowie’s songs indeed his first ‘solo’ performance included Drive-In Saturday. By and large though he felt that no-one could do them quite like David. When he wasn’t there anymore that seemed to take a block off even though Bowie hadn’t performed live to any great extent for over ten years.
Q grew up in a time when he could experience some of Bowie’s key albums as they were released. Originally introduced to Aladdin Sane by his older brother he followed Bowie’s albums enthusiastically from then until the disappointment of Tonight and Never Let Me Down before picking up again with some of the 90’s work and to a lesser extent the albums of the early 2000s before Bowie all but retired from live and studio work returning to fandom with the storming Next Day and the swansong of Blackstar.
He always felt that the albums were the core of Bowie’s work even when the singles went global in the 80s and approached all the albums as complete bodies of work. Indeed when GoDBowie really got going its unique selling point was the performance of entire albums in the first half of a show followed by a set of hits and key tracks.
As we come around to the 50th and 60th anniversaries of David’s album we are hitting new anniversaries and some missed through necessity. We will acknowledge Station To Station and reschedule missed dates for Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs over 2026. 2027 demands the first 2 ‘Berlin’ albums. After that… who knows?