Tonight, we saw Seu Jorge play his Bowie tribute at the Ace
Hotel in Downtown LA. I want to take a moment to write about the experience
before it fades from memory, before the implanted one takes hold as he promised
it would.
Born in Rio, Seu Jorge is the guy who does all the Bowie
covers in Wes Anderson's "The Life Aquatic," is what I told Brendan when a friend offered
us the tickets. He’s much more than that, of course. A talented guitarist,
songwriter, actor and singer, Anderson offered him the role after seeing him in
“City of God.” In Aquaitc, Jorge plays a sailor who serenades the occupants of
the Belafonte with early David Bowie covers performed in Portuguese. The movie
sparked a cult following that is still very much alive; the theatre was dotted
with hipster heads in red beanies as worn by the ships crew in the movie. Some
were there for Jorge, some for “The Life Aquatic,” and some – like me, the
traumatized – were there for Bowie.
David Jones died on January 10th, 2016 in what
some would say was the first crappy event in the downward spiral that has been
this awful, awful year. Seu Jorge and his guitar alone on the stage, his
strong, rich voice and Bossanova interpretations of familiar melodies paid a
loving tribute to the man himself. They never met, but Bowie said of Jorge
after hearing film’s soundtrack, “Had Seu Jorge not recorded my songs in
Portuguese, I would never have heard this new level of beauty which he has
imbued them with.”
I guess that’s why he chose him.
Jorge opened with “Ziggy Stardust”. He was alone on stage
surrounded only by a few nautical props and a second guitar that he never
played. After the song, and in broken English, he told the story of the day Wes
Anderson called his house and asked him if he knew any Bowie songs. “Let’s
Dance,” he said it reminded him of “black music.” But Anderson wanted early
Bowie so Jorge learned it. After a few more songs, his haunting version of
“Changes” and “Oh! You Pretty Things,” he put his guitar down and took a long
sip of water. He told a story about how his father had passed away the day
after Bowie did and how he was unable to untangle the two events in his mind.
After a moment of silence, he took up his guitar again. In his thick Portuguese
accent he said he had special guest he’d like to bring out. I looked over and
noticed the ushers padlocking the exit doors. Jorge informed the audience that
anyone who wanted to go was free to leave now, but those who stayed would have
to commit to an hour without leaving the theatre. No bathroom, no bar, and we
would have to remain in our seats no matter what.
It was an odd twist to the evening but clearly part of the
performance. And while around fifteen percent of the audience filed out annoyed,
Brendan and I stayed put, curious. There was some movement, some shuffling, so we
took the opportunity to move down a few rows for a better view. The theatre, if
I may note, is a Spanish Gothic masterpiece, which opened to the public in 1927
as The United Artists Theater, first of its name. The ceiling looks like a
cathedral as imagined by H.R. Giger complete with inverted alien birthing pool.
I stared at it, as the crowd grew silent. On stage, Jorge fiddled nervously
with his mic stand and when all eyes were on him, he mumbled something in
Portuguese that sounded like a prayer and abruptly left the stage. The lights
went out.
That’s when it started. All the air was sucked out of the
theatre and replaced with new, different air -- that’s the only way I can
explain it. And gravity seemed to loosen its hold on us ever so slightly
causing us to rise in our seats. The alien birthing pool illuminated, casting
us in a deep purple light that seemed alive. A woman screamed, which set off a
chain reaction of anxiety like popping flashbulbs through the crowd. Then it
stopped. A lone spotlight came up on the stage. The nautical props were gone.
All that remained was the mic stand, the stool and the guitar. Then, as real as
the nose on my face, he appeared.
The first thing I noticed was the long black coat, shiny and
floor length -- long, like an opera cape. His head was down, hair short in the
back, long in the front, a kind of ashy brown. He looked gaunt, but not much
more then usual, and his skin was translucent like clear plastic containing a
fog, containing a universe. He walked to the center of the stage, tuned to face
us, head still down, and pressed his lips to the mic.
“Hello,” said David Bowie.
Spontaneous weeping followed a collective gasp from the audience.
There was no doubt it was him. This wasn’t a trick (if it was it defied reality).
Not once did it cross our minds that what we were seeing was a robot, a hologram,
or an impersonator. No. This was Ziggy. This was the Starman. This was Aladdin
Sane. This was Thomas Jerome Newton. He took off his coat to reveal a fitted suit in the same
shiny black as the jacket. A girl in the front row fell to the floor and
covered her head with her hands. “That’s quite a welcome. Jorge said I could
pick it up from here.” People were hugging and crying, yelling and praying. Bowie
lit a cigarette. “Mind if I smoke?” He flipped his hair and flashed a smile
that cut like a scalpel to the heart. He seemed genuinely amused by our reaction to him. I looked at my boyfriend. His eyes were swimming with tears but he was
smiling. I grabbed his leg, which was floating two inches above the seat. Then
Bowie picked up his guitar and started playing “Starman”.
Halfway through the song, acceptance set in. I mean, time was
shattered in pieces on the floor, so by the time he got to the guitar solo it felt like we had had a few
decades to process what was happening. It made perfect sense that David Bowie
had decided to come back from the dead on a Sunday night and play for us in a
locked theatre in Downtown LA. Oh, and the alien birthing pool was actually a
porthole to another galaxy. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before. I
wondered what else I hadn’t noticed as he went into “Lady Stardust”. His suit
was white now and his hair bright orange. It rained rainbow glitter that melted
like snow when it hit your skin and there was a choir and a piano off stage
somewhere, or so it seemed.
As he tore through his repertoire, he (and by that I mean the
entity that was formerly encased in the man known as David Bowie) began to show
us things. At one point I found myself sandwiched in an audience in London. It
was 1972. Bowie was on stage with Mick Ronson, on his knees, fellating a guitar
in head to toe Yamamoto. I was in a smoky dressing room hanging up
sweat-drenched costumes while he wiped a golden orb from his forehead. It may
have been the actual sun. I was in a ball gown, waltzing with the Goblin King’s
stand in. Someone yelled, “Cut, clear the stand-ins” and I brushed past him as
he took his place with Jennifer Connelly. I was floating in the vacuum of space
in a suit tethered to nothing as he floated before me, God-like and alone,
tugging lazily on space-time, brow furrowed in somber reflection. “In the villa
of Ormen stands a solitary candle, at the center of it all, your eyes, your
eyes, your eyes, your eyes, your eyes…”
Several lifetimes later we were all back in the theatre. Gravity
returned, heavier this time. Bowie stood on stage in the white light,
translucent once more in his black suit. Maybe he looked dead, but by that
point we were all dead. It had been years. Decades, right? No... The 2016 of it
all returned and we were struck with the feeling that what had always been was
coming to a close. He was going to leave us -- again. The hourglass was almost
out of sand. “I know things haven’t been easy,” he said, “but I want you all to
know... Life is the best thing there is, even when it’s hard. Even when it’s
cruel and upside-down and the inmates are running the asylum. Try to have a nice time. When I’m gone,
all of this will fall into a dream. I’m like a bluebird, you know.”
He picked up the guitar one final time and performed “Rock
‘N’ Roll Suicide”. This was not the entity anymore -- this was the dead man. Tired
in voice and decaying before us like John Baylock, he held on to assure us one
final time, “Oh no love! You’re not alone. No matter what or who you’ve been,
no matter when or where you’ve seen, all the knives seem to lacerate your
brain, I’ve had my share I’ll help you with the pain. You’re not alone.”
Give me your hands cause you’re wonderful.
Give me your hands cause you’re wonderful.
Oh gimmie your hands.
Then he was gone. He blew away like smoke in the wind. The lights went out
and the air changed from charged to static. When we woke up it was as if the
whole thing hadn’t happened. The doors weren’t locked, they never had been. Seu
Jorge was on stage finishing his set. I ran to the bathroom and took notes on
paper towels. If all of this was to fall into a dream I had to try and
remember. When I got back to my seat, Brendan had no memory of what we had been
through. I think maybe they did something to the crowd while I was scribbling
this in a stall; it’s hard to say.
Outside the November air was crisp and cool. People didn’t go
to their cars right away. We all kind of stood around in the marquee light. There
wasn’t much talking. An older woman remarked that it really felt like Bowie was
with us in there. Did she remember? I told Brendan I had an idea for a short
story and I wanted to get home to write it before I forgot. So we walked hand
in hand to the car. Racing the clock before the moment passed, before it all faded
into a dream.
