Written by: Yvonne Prinz
I know he didn’t see me in the crowd, though I swore to my friends I caught his eye once, for just a second while he sang “Heroes.”
And that might even be true.
I was the blonde in the too-tight “Serious Moonlight Tour” T-shirt from the merch table, yanked on over an Iggy Pop tank top. He wore the pale yellow suit with the blue shirt and tie and he looked so lovely; his hair was gilded gold and he wore bronzer, I think. He looked like a character from a Paul Bowles novel, a post colonial Englishman on a lonely tour of Morocco. I was giddy with the sheer excitement of being there: Edmonton-Commonwealth stadium, front row, close enough to see the whites of his eyes, and I was leaving that place in two weeks for the trip of my life–a year in Asia with a guy who said to me at a party, “I’m going to Southeast Asia. You should come.” I asked him about the music he liked and then I’d sold my car and everything I owned and I moved out of my apartment. I was crashing with a black tap dancer in a low-rent apartment till I left and I was scared to death of what the future might bring but I was giddy, and David Bowie was my goodbye party.
Those last two weeks before leaving I put every one of David Bowie’s LP’s onto cassette in that empty living room: Hunky Dory, Pin-Ups, Lodger, Scary Monsters, Diamond Dogs, Alladin Sane, Heroes, Young Americans, Low, Ziggy Stardust, Let’s Dance, and even Station to Sation. I packed them up, along with my walkman and I got on a plane to Amsterdam where this man I barely knew was waiting for me. We were headed on to Bangkok and it turned out that David Bowie would be there too, on December 5th, 1983.
But we left Bangkok before the show and boarded a bus for a nine hour journey to Nai Harn Beach where we heard there were cheap accommodations in cabins right on the beach. We settled in with a pack of Swiss Germans and Australians and we smoked weed non-stop but I wandered through the jungle every day to another quieter beach where I swam alone. If I wasn’t in the water, I kept my headphones on, extra batteries in my pocket. “Space Oddity,” “Sorrow,” “Rebel, Rebel,” “Golden Years,” “Heroes,” “Changes,” “Jean Genie,” “Starman,” “Drive-In Saturday,” “Scary Monsters,” “Wild is The Wind,” “Modern Love,” “Without You”… I listened to them over and over, on buses, trains, airplanes, taxis, from Thailand to Malaysia to Hong Kong to the Philippines. I spent a month there on Boracay, recovering from dysentery and a torn up leg, the result a motorcycle accident. I lay on a colorful wooden fishing boat and bobbed on the turquoise sea, headphones still on:
“And I’m floating in the most peculiar way…”
Back home I left the boy, got a job, quit a job, got another job. I rode my bike through the river valley, headphones on, any chance I got, lost in the music:
“It’s a god-awful small affair…”
Eventually I left Canada and moved to California, where I am now. David Bowie was in New York and sometimes I saw him in a photo, standing on a corner, looking the older, more distinguished version of himself, but every bit as dear to me as he was in 1983:
“I moved up to take a place near you…”
Thailand will never be like it was back then. It’s ruined now but I barely even think of it anymore. And the boy? Not at all.
My Bowie collection, however, is still intact and still in regular rotation.
So, Dave, I just wanted to say thanks for everything.
Yvonne Prinz is the author of If You’re Lucky
You can visit her at www.yvonneprinz.com
