Bowie Glastonbury 2000

DrCornelius

LPManic said:

Imagine being Bowie's guitar player and you have a cool name like Earl Slick and you stand at the side and just drop in on all the solos. Must be mind-blowing. The other guitarists do all the heavy lifting with all the arrangements and sounds and Earl rocks in with straight up rock lead tones. Love it.

He is the guy who first made me want to buy a guitar.

My while family are huge Bowie fans (he’s a hometown boy). My parents took me to see him at Wembley on the serious moonlight (Let’s Dance) tour and my dad managed to wangle VIP tickets and VIP parking . As we were walking in I see this dude walking across the bit of roped off concourse we were in and he was without doubt the coolest looking bloke I’d ever seen - people were pointing and waving but I had no idea who he was being 13.

2 hours later he was about 100 feet away with everyone screaming at him as he took the spotlight for the solos.  I think I bought a
cheap Les Paul copy the following weekend !

Gassage

LPManic said:

Imagine being Bowie's guitar player and you have a cool name like Earl Slick and you stand at the side and just drop in on all the solos. Must be mind-blowing. The other guitarists do all the heavy lifting with all the arrangements and sounds and Earl rocks in with straight up rock lead tones. Love it.

Slick is always very humble re the other guitarists and I know they meet, talk and share and are great friends. They all praise each other- Slick said recently it was DB choosing the right one to do the job- sometimes it needed Belew, sometimes Reeves, sometimes Alomar, sometimes him and they all do something that the others can't. Rickey Gardiner on Low is another fine example.

When it comes to contribution to written work, Slick/Alomar as a partnership are even ahead of Ronson for me. DD/YA/S2S are my 3 fave albums.

The only strange one is Stacey Hayden, an immense Canadian player who toured the 76 shows only and was incredible- he became a stockbroker, made millions and doesn't even play anymore.

normula1

I thought Slick's tone was monstrous whatever he was playing through. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole set.

Trude

I was there too.  It was one of the most spine-tingly euphoric sets I've seen on that stage over the years, and that includes Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, BB King, Page/Plant and a whole host of other guitar-nerd approved acts.

To be honest, I was dreading a set full of obscure stuff, but he pulled a blinder by giving the crowd so many hits.  I had no idea this was to do with the Earl Slick late substitution, but you could tell Bowie was loving it and vibeing off the joy in the crowd, so that was a pretty great outcome all-round.  

We chose to celebrate that last year of viable fence-jumping by doing it twice!  The plan was (as always) to jump without tents etc, then get a hand-stamp on the way out and come back in with all the luggage.  This time they wanted to see a ticket stub before you could get a passout, so we just said "nah, that's alright - guess we'll just go home now".  So we walked out, got all our gear and then came back to jump the fence again.  It's a lot harder with tents, sleeping bags etc, not to mention the alcoholic payload...

I'll also remember 2000 as being my first time of being aware of, and then immediately annoyed by Coldplay.  I think they were on the other stage or somewhere, and I had to vacate the area to find something less dreary.

Musicman20

Trude said:

I was there too.  It was one of the most spine-tingly euphoric sets I've seen on that stage over the years, and that includes Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, BB King, Page/Plant and a whole host of other guitar-nerd approved acts.

To be honest, I was dreading a set full of obscure stuff, but he pulled a blinder by giving the crowd so many hits.  I had no idea this was to do with the Earl Slick late substitution, but you could tell Bowie was loving it and vibeing off the joy in the crowd, so that was a pretty great outcome all-round.  

We chose to celebrate that last year of viable fence-jumping by doing it twice!  The plan was (as always) to jump without tents etc, then get a hand-stamp on the way out and come back in with all the luggage.  This time they wanted to see a ticket stub before you could get a passout, so we just said "nah, that's alright - guess we'll just go home now".  So we walked out, got all our gear and then came back to jump the fence again.  It's a lot harder with tents, sleeping bags etc, not to mention the alcoholic payload...

I'll also remember 2000 as being my first time of being aware of, and then immediately annoyed by Coldplay.  I think they were on the other stage or somewhere, and I had to vacate the area to find something less dreary.

Hahaha that's a mint story. God I wish I had seen him. Bowie and Nirvana and the two main artists/bands I wish I had seen...

mattdavis

Musicman20 said:

Hahaha that's a mint story. God I wish I had seen him. Bowie and Nirvana and the two main artists/bands I wish I had seen...

Same. I know they’re not as cool, but seeing the original GnR would be my other one..

mattdavis

Gassage said:

LPManic said:

Imagine being Bowie's guitar player and you have a cool name like Earl Slick and you stand at the side and just drop in on all the solos. Must be mind-blowing. The other guitarists do all the heavy lifting with all the arrangements and sounds and Earl rocks in with straight up rock lead tones. Love it.

Slick is always very humble re the other guitarists and I know they meet, talk and share and are great friends. They all praise each other- Slick said recently it was DB choosing the right one to do the job- sometimes it needed Belew, sometimes Reeves, sometimes Alomar, sometimes him and they all do something that the others can't. Rickey Gardiner on Low is another fine example.

When it comes to contribution to written work, Slick/Alomar as a partnership are even ahead of Ronson for me. DD/YA/S2S are my 3 fave albums.

The only strange one is Stacey Hayden, an immense Canadian player who toured the 76 shows only and was incredible- he became a stockbroker, made millions and doesn't even play anymore.

@Gassage ; Really interesting trivia you’ve shared re: Slick’s last minute call up etc. Where do you get these nuggets from?   Fascinating.
Slick comes across as the coolest dude - him and Bowie were a brilliant pairing. 
And I agree with you re the drummer - properly powerful. 

dano

I was there, Bowie was just superb. 

I've read estimates over the years of something like 250,000 watched Bowie that night. Glasto that year was heaving, busiest i've ever seen you couldn't move for people everywhere.

Gassage

mattdavis said:

Gassage said:

LPManic said:

Imagine being Bowie's guitar player and you have a cool name like Earl Slick and you stand at the side and just drop in on all the solos. Must be mind-blowing. The other guitarists do all the heavy lifting with all the arrangements and sounds and Earl rocks in with straight up rock lead tones. Love it.

Slick is always very humble re the other guitarists and I know they meet, talk and share and are great friends. They all praise each other- Slick said recently it was DB choosing the right one to do the job- sometimes it needed Belew, sometimes Reeves, sometimes Alomar, sometimes him and they all do something that the others can't. Rickey Gardiner on Low is another fine example.

When it comes to contribution to written work, Slick/Alomar as a partnership are even ahead of Ronson for me. DD/YA/S2S are my 3 fave albums.

The only strange one is Stacey Hayden, an immense Canadian player who toured the 76 shows only and was incredible- he became a stockbroker, made millions and doesn't even play anymore.

@Gassage ; Really interesting trivia you’ve shared re: Slick’s last minute call up etc. Where do you get these nuggets from?   Fascinating.
Slick comes across as the coolest dude - him and Bowie were a brilliant pairing. 
And I agree with you re the drummer - properly powerful. 

Matt, I am good pals with Reeves and have discussed it many times. (clang- sorry!)

mattdavis

Gassage said:

mattdavis said:

Gassage said:

LPManic said:

Imagine being Bowie's guitar player and you have a cool name like Earl Slick and you stand at the side and just drop in on all the solos. Must be mind-blowing. The other guitarists do all the heavy lifting with all the arrangements and sounds and Earl rocks in with straight up rock lead tones. Love it.

Slick is always very humble re the other guitarists and I know they meet, talk and share and are great friends. They all praise each other- Slick said recently it was DB choosing the right one to do the job- sometimes it needed Belew, sometimes Reeves, sometimes Alomar, sometimes him and they all do something that the others can't. Rickey Gardiner on Low is another fine example.

When it comes to contribution to written work, Slick/Alomar as a partnership are even ahead of Ronson for me. DD/YA/S2S are my 3 fave albums.

The only strange one is Stacey Hayden, an immense Canadian player who toured the 76 shows only and was incredible- he became a stockbroker, made millions and doesn't even play anymore.

@Gassage ; Really interesting trivia you’ve shared re: Slick’s last minute call up etc. Where do you get these nuggets from?   Fascinating.
Slick comes across as the coolest dude - him and Bowie were a brilliant pairing. 
And I agree with you re the drummer - properly powerful. 

Matt, I am good pals with Reeves and have discussed it many times. (clang- sorry!)

@Gassage ;
 Very cool..