“What to wear, What to say, What to do on a sunny day, Who to phone, Who to fight, Who to dance with on a Saturday night” *
Thirty years to the day after Bowie’s first appearance on Top Of The Pops with Space Oddity, David chose to celebrate the occasion with a short set and a few folk at Wembley Stadium for NetAid.
NetAid was an anti-poverty initiative to raise awareness for the challenges in developing countries, and to allow people to volunteer online, donating their skills to help people in the developing world. NetAid's goal was to make global philanthropy to support developing countries more efficient.
Following a press launch that included Bowie, Bono and Wyclef Jean, NetAid was globally launched with concerts on October 9, 1999 at Wembley Stadium in London, Giants Stadium in New Jersey and the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
Performers at Wembley Stadium included: Eurythmics, The Corrs, Catatonia, Bush, Bryan Adams, George Michael, David Bowie, Stereophonics and Robbie Williams. Proceedings were kicked off by Iman and footballer David Ginola.
The duo of Bowie and Mike Garson opened the six-song set with Life On Mars? They were then joined alphabetically by Sterling Campbell, Gail Ann Dorsey, Page Hamilton and Mark Plati, to perform a set which included two songs from the new release, 'hours...', for which David thanked the audience for the success of.
01 - Life On Mars?
02 - Survive
03 - China Girl
04 - The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell
05 - Drive-In Saturday
06 - Rebel Rebel
Emm Gryner and Holly Palmer joined the band from China Girl onwards.
For the occasion, Bowie wore a customised-by-sharpie shirt with braces (suspenders to some of you) and grey trousers.
Watch the full thing here.
* Correct, the original lyric says “Sunday night”. But the NetAid show was on a Saturday. It all makes sense now.
#BowieHours #BowieNetAid