Royal Stompbox presents:

BOWIE’S BIRTHDAY: ZIGGY STARDUST & THE SPIDERS FROM MARS

Sunday, Jan. 8th (David Bowie’s Birthday!)

7pm – Vintage Bowie pre-show

8pm – Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars

We can’t believe it, but it’s been one entire year since Major Tom drifted into space forever. David Bowie stage-managed his fascinating life to the very end, leaving us with his parting gift of the momentous and haunting Blackstar album on Jan 8th, 2016, his 69th birthday. To that end, The Royal is celebrating Bowie’s 70th birthday in style, with a screening of the legend’s first “death” – David Bowie’s final electrifying performance as Ziggy Stardust in 1973 at London’s Hammersmith Odeon Theater.

This high-def version of the Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars concert film is supplied directly from the family of director D.A. Pennebaker (Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop) and is quite simply the best this notoriously murky concert film has ever looked. Framed by a smattering of behind-the-scenes footage, including Bowie costuming up, the bulk of the film is the concert itself, notable as the final time that Bowie would perform under the Ziggy Stardust persona, an announcement that caught the audience and most of his band members completely by surprise and led many fans to mistakenly believe Bowie was retiring from the music biz altogether.

Featuring wall-to-wall classics like “Ziggy Stardust,” “All The Young Dudes,” “Rock N’ Roll Suicide,” “Moonage Daydream,” “Changes,” and “Space Oddity” as well as a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “White Light/White Heat,” the camera rarely veers from the hypnotic androgynous space chameleon that Bowie personified circa 1973. Though a shortened version of the film was broadcast on television in 1974, the film did not receive a full theatrical release until 1983.

A selection of amazing BBC-shoot Bowie footage will fill out the pre-show. Come down early and melt into space.