Five years ago today it was 10th January 2016. It was a Monday and I woke up groggily at 6.50am to get ready for work. The first sign that this was to be no ordinary Monday was upon checking Twitter. I spotted that my friend Faye (also, the former singer in my old band) had tweeted a link to the David Bowie song ‘Kooks’. After subsequently checking BBC News and switching on the radio, it became quickly apparent that Bowie had passed away – just two days after his 69th birthday and also, the date of the secretive release of his Blackstar album.
Now, far more erudite and esteemed music writers than myself have enthusiastically eulogised about Bowie, his work and his enduring influence. I am not about to do the same. Indeed, as we commemorate the fifth anniversary of his death, there are countless documentaries and radio specials airing and social media is already buzzing with all things Bowie. However, put simply, Bowie was and still is a cultural icon. A musical and stylistic chameleon who seemingly had numerous careers and personas rolled into just the one life. He was a shapeshifter with his sound initially embracing ‘60s beat-pop and glam rock, then leaning towards minimal post-punk, art rock, soulful Americana and disco, whilst in the later stages of his career, exploring the more obscure genres he loved such as drum and bass, industrial metal and experimental jazz.
However, rather than writing about Bowie’s music, I’d rather recall that highly unusual and symbolic day in January 2016. At the time, I happened to be living at 176 Stockwell Road, a stone’s throw away from Brixton Academy and the Brixton Bowls skatepark. More notably, it was around the corner from 40 Stansfield Road where Bowie had been born on 8th January 1947. I had already seen several TV crews turning into the road from my kitchen window that morning and when I walked past on my way to work at 8.15am there was already a pile of flowers outside the house, as well as several reporters and grieving fans.
Bowie had lived at the house for the first six years of his life and attended Stockwell Primary School (coincidentally, also my nearest polling station on voting day). Although the family moved to Bickley in Bromley when Bowie was six years old, he had apparently always had a soft spot for Brixton and even made a covert return visit to 40 Stansfield Road during the final years of his life. I would have had quite the shock if I had bumped into him on an afternoon jog.
I was working for a music PR agency based near St. James’s Park – one whose biggest client was arguably the only living musical artist whose profile and reputation could rival Bowie’s. I had only been listening to David’s Nile Rodgers-produced Let’s Dance album at my desk the Friday before his death and I was now catching drift of a huge street party being hastily arranged in Brixton for that very evening.
A night out on a Monday evening is never ideal but this felt like something we simply had to be a part of. A few WhatsApps later and I had arranged to meet my friends Mark, Vicki (the current singer in my group) and Scott that evening for the Bowie Party.
By 7pm Brixton was absolutely teeming. It’s always a lively part of South London but Bowie’s fans were out in force in their thousands. The 2013 mural of Bowie during his Aladdin Insane period on the wall of the Morley’s department store by the Australian artist James Cochran had become a great shrine with pile upon pile of flowers, candles and letters. The Ritzy cinema had changed its listings board to read ‘David Bowie; Our Brixton Boy RIP’ and Windrush Square in front of it was packed with fans of all ages, shapes and sizes. We grabbed drinks from the off-licence next to McDonald’s on Brixton Road and joined the assembled throng with ‘Suffragette City’ blaring from a makeshift soundsystem placed in the middle of the square.
The atmosphere in Windrush Square that evening could only be described as carnival-like. There was a sense of disbelief that Bowie was dead so soon after the release of Blackstar and with no media reports circulating about his illness. However, despite Bowie not being that old when he died, this was a pure celebration of his life. His music continued to pump out of the outdoor speakers and the crowd steadily grew with some estimates putting the number of attendees to 10,000. Press photographers scurried around, frantically capturing images for the next day’s papers.
The surreal scenes in Brixton on the evening of 10th January 2016.
With the crowd continuing to swell, we decamped to the Prince of Wales pub on Coldharbour Lane where the DJ was spinning, you-guessed-it, Bowie songs all evening. The party atmosphere continued long into the night with strangers mingling and sharing their favourite Bowie memories; as one reveller put it; “it’s what he would have wanted.”
After deciding to call it a night, we headed home via Bowie’s former house at 40 Stansfield Road, SW9. Despite it being past 1am, the place was still a hive of activity, although the mood was more sombre than in Windrush Square. Several dedicated fans had lit candles, taped handwritten notes to the house’s wall and were holding an all-night vigil in honour of their idol. We stopped for a few minutes to talk to them and I was struck by how calm and dignified they seemed. They simply felt it was their duty to be here on this sad, yet historic day.
40 Stansfield Road, Brixton in the early hours of 11th January 2016.
I said goodbye to my friends and finally got back to my flat around 1.30am. I put on my favourite Bowie album Low and finished the evening lying on my back between the two speakers with my eyes closed listening to the glacial, icy synths of ‘Warszawa’ and ‘Art Decade’, processing the events of the day.
Here’s to us all being a bit more like Bowie in 2021.
Poignant!
Thank you for reading.