Who: Def Leppard, Noel Gallagher, Simon Le Bon and John Taylor, Living Colour, Evan Rachel Wood, Rob Thomas, Gary Oldman, Walk the Moon, Jake Wesley Rogers, Ricky Gervais, Gail Ann Dorsey, Bernard Fowler, Judith Hill, Earl Slick, Charlie Sexton, Joe Sumner, more
What: Annual birthday party for David Bowie
Where: RollingLiveStudios.com
When: Saturday, January 8, $25, 9:00 (available through January 16)
Why: January 8, 2022, would have been David Bowie’s seventy-fifth birthday. Rolling Live Studios will again host an online celebration featuring performances and special appearances from a wide range of artists to honor the Thin White Duke, who passed away on January 10, 2016, at the age of sixty-nine. Among the participants are Def Leppard, Noel Gallagher, Simon Le Bon and John Taylor from Duran Duran, Living Colour, Evan Rachel Wood, Brian Henson, Rob Thomas, Gary Oldman, Ricky Gervais, Gail Ann Dorsey, and Bernard Fowler — who tore up the joint at last year’s party — covering tunes from throughout Bowie’s extraordinary career. There will also be a tribute to the thirty-fifth anniversary of Labyrinth, Jim Henson’s sci-fi puppet flick in which Bowie played Jareth, the king of the goblins; Bowie wrote five songs for the film: “Underground,” “Magic Dance,” “Chilly Down,” “As the World Falls Down,” and “Within You.”
The house band will include Earl Slick, Charlie Sexton, Alan Childs, Steve Elson, Mark Guiliana, Omar Hakim, Stan Harrison, Tim Lefebvre, Gerry Leonard, and Carmine Rojas. “It’s an honor to be able to continue to share David Bowie’s music with the world,” event organizer and longtime Bowie pianist Mike Garson said in a statement. “I’m excited for everyone to be able to experience this very special show we’ve got in store in celebration of what would have been David’s seventy-fifth birthday, with the bandmates he recorded and performed with, plus a great group of guest artists who he was such an influence to.” The show is dedicated to photographer Mick Rock, “the Man Who Shot the ’70s,” who died this past November in Staten Island at the age of seventy-two. Tickets are $25, with various bundles including merch and a virtual Q&A ranging from $30 to $5,000; $$2 from each purchase will benefit Save the Children, which Bowie raised money for at this fiftieth-birthday concert at Madison Square Garden on January 9, 1997.