Live Review: Bowie In Berlin

A year on from the eponymous subject's death, and the day before his birthday — a date he shared with Elvis, trivia buffs — tribute shows are likely to be common currency. This one was a cut above most, because it had Mick Harvey curating and he was able to direct a band with the likes of Clare Moore, JP Shilo, Penny Ikinger and even Theremin-ist Miles Brown plus a range of guest vocalists for various moods.

And rather than going for a 40-year grab-bag of hits, this focused on one of Bowie's landmark periods, when — overdosed on America and cocaine — he fled to the West German city and made the eventually triumphant albums Low, Heroes and Lodger. There were also a couple of handy sidetracks in Iggy Pop's resurrection records, The Idiot and Lust For Life. Moody electronics collided with viciously treated guitars and there was that drum sound the likes of which had never been heard before until Phil Collins found it too and ruined it for everybody.

In a gig of two halves, the first had occasional pacing problems as the need to include the necessary sometimes-ambient/sometimes-jagged instrumental interludes of the album made things a little disjointed; between Kim Salmon going all correctly Iggy on Nightclubbing, Died Pretty's Ron Peno giving his unique shimmy and howl to Always Crashing In The Same Car and the determined-to-be-eccentric Max Sharam delivering Be My Wife, before Dave Graney engaged the crowd as only he can to deliver Yassassin — the era's odd veer to middle-eastern flavours furthered with Kylie Auldist finishing the set with The Secret Life Of Arabia.

The bar and bathrooms were hell-queues at half-time, so Mr Harvey directed us back to our seats via another instrumental interlude. Things then got harder and louder, and were the better for it. Graney "...going deep and obscure" for a terrific Joe The Lion, before the (kinda) hits; Auldist having a huge rip at DJ and the Harvey-described secret weapon of Michael Nolan unfurling the centrepiece song of the centrepiece album. Heroes when done right — as here — is a towering thing, the boy maybe just shading the old stager Graney as night's MVP. Salmon and Sharam join him for a rollicking Boys Keep Swinging. Then there's an encore slash at Iggy's Funtime, almost as an afterthought. Artist honoured, band beyond competent, crowd mostly happy. Job done.