Tag: david bowie

I was so defeated by the demise of the Libertines in 2004 that I was a sombre self-medicated mess. We had been due to play the Isle of Wight festival that year, under [David Bowie], and of course, owing to what seemed to be the final implosion of the band, we had been forced to pull out. I went along for the ride, and to see what I could’ve won, with my dear friend Tim Burgess of the Charlatans, and as they played a storming set, I sat at the side of the stage and wept. A big fat tear rolled down my cheek, and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see a very innocuous-looking fellow in a brown baseball cap, and within moments I realised I was looking into the eyes of David Bowie himself. “You alright?” he asked. “Yeah,” I replied. “Cheers.” And we watched the Charlatans for a bit, and then he disappeared. But I was sure the look he’d given me was a knowing one – my Uncle Dave. I didn’t need for him to come and see my squat, or to be my friend, any more than he would’ve wanted to. But then he didn’t need to either – our relationship was as strong as it ever had been, in my mind.

Carl Barât, Sonos Song Stories: David Bowie

Around 1998… my friend Peter and I were ushering for a special gala at the Lyceum theatre, attended by Her Majesty the Queen… We kept hearing incredible whispers that David Bowie would be performing… Our imaginations ran wild as to how best to snag this opportunity to snare our idol, to tell him we were just like he was, that he was one of us, and we were, well, one of him. So, we compiled a note for him, on which was scrawled an offer we thought he would be unable to resist: an invitation for him to join us for a cup of tea at our squat. Yeeeah. He’d see we too were rebel space cowboys, and he would marvel at our collections of stolen books and random movie posters.

Carl Barât, Sonos Song Stories: David Bowie (spoiler: unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, David Bowie did not receive the note.)

Strangely, as I was going over this memory making notes for tonight, I shared the story with Peter from the Libertines, who said “That’s weird, you know [David Bowie] wanted to do something with us?” “Say what?” He goes, “Yeah yeah yeah, I told him to fuck off.” I said, “You fucking what?” He goes, “Yeah, he called my phone and said, ‘Hi is that Potty Pete? It’s David’, I said, ‘Fuck off David!’ and hung up, and then later on Kate Moss told me it was David Bowie who called.” So, it seems it wasn’t meant to be.

Carl Barât, Sonos Song Stories: David Bowie