JEFF MARTIN – THE SONGS OF DAVID BOWIE – CORNER HOTEL – 21 September 2024
Review: Craig Eriksson. Photos: Jason Rosewarne.
Jeff Martin (The Captain) aka known as the singer-songwriter, guitar virtuoso and multi-instrumentalist in the iconic Canadian band The Tea Party played an intimate, solo acoustic Bowie show at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne on Saturday night. The show was a wonderful combination of music and storytelling.
I got to the show early and made my way up to the front barrier to catch the support Bully Hay. Bully is a singer-songwriter from Tasmania, who played a solid 30-minute set with Jeff Martin joining him for the last two songs. I thoroughly enjoyed his acoustic set and in particular his cover of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill was absolutely brilliant. Bully has a debut album Black Dogs and Songbirds coming out next month, Jeff Martin has produced.
During the break I had a chat with the two lovely women on each side of me. On my left was Wendy who was 68 years of age and was there with her husband and niece. Wendy said she had worked and travelled overseas most of her life and had seen Bowie live in concert several times and saw him not long before he passed away in January 2016, just 69 years of age. On my right was Emily who was 22 years of age and was there with her parents who were directly behind us. They were from Ballarat and had made the trip down to Melbourne to attend this Bowie tribute. Emily was wearing a ‘The Tea Party’ tee and said it used to be her Mum’s tee. Looking around the bandroom highlighted the diversity and broad range of punters in attendance. It came as no surprise as Bowie’s music is timeless and remains just as strong today as it did back when it was released.
Jeff entered the stage and sat on a bar stool with his acoustic guitar and bass stomp box and told stories about David Bowie and the influence he had on his own personal life. There was great admiration and respect from Jeff as he talked about Bowie’s versatile career and how Bowie successfully kept reinventing himself more than any other artist. Jeff had asked his wife Melissa to delve into the archives and dig out some cool stories and interviews relating to Bowie to incorporate into this special Bowie tribute show.
Jeff told of how he was listening to a David Bowie interview in which the great man said he felt puny as a human and needed to be something more. He wanted to be more interesting … superhuman! Bowie also said in the interview that an artist should never work for other people, that it’s dangerous to take the safe path to simply fulfil the expectations of others. That’s generally when artists perform their worst work. Stay true to yourself and always remember why you initially started working as a musician. Step outside of your safe comfort zone, always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in, go a little bit out of your depth and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, then you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting. Bowie certainly was one of a kind and stayed true to his philosophy on life, inventing fictional, superhuman characters like Ziggy Stardust and sang songs about the Starman and life in outer space. An alien. A rebel. A misfit.
Jeff opened the show with SPACE ODDITY. Bowie released this song back in 1969 and the song was the opening track on Bowie’s 2nd self-titled studio album. The song is a tale about a fictional astronaut called Major Tom. It’s an iconic song that had the Corner Hotel crowd singing along from the get-go. The next song was PANIC IN DETROIT, a deep cut from the 1973 Aladdin Sane album. Jeff said he grew up in the Canadian town of Windsor, Ontario. This was close to the USA border and when he was around 12 years of age, he and his mates would cross the bridge to the murder capital of the world, Detroit. As a sort of ritual, they would sing Panic In Detroit as they crossed the bridge preparing them for the wild adventures ahead.
REBEL REBEL from the 1974 Diamond Dogs album was next with quirky song lyrics such as: “You’ve got your mother in a whirl ‘cause she’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl.” The crowd was in a jovial mood singing along with gusto and chanting do do do-do, do do-do do.
Jeff Martin has a distinctive, strong baritone voice with a deep richness which some say is pitch perfect. Jeff can be quite expansive with his vocal range, injecting his own personal stamp into these Bowie songs, making them raw, emotive and magical.
Jeff talked about Bowie’s quirky, creative song lyrics which then led into the song LIFE ON MARS from the 1971 Honky Dory album. Jeff sang this song so beautifully that it had the packed out bandroom so incredibly quiet and mesmerised. A very moving and powerful song with lyrics like: “It’s on America’s tortured brow, that Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow.
Jeff then related the story about how he met his wife Melissa and talked about the first time they were intimate, Melissa had made up a mixed-tape of songs which she played. A song came on that Jeff was unfamiliar with by David Bowie called WILD IS THE WIND from his 1976 Station to Station album. This song still remains very special to Jeff and Melissa and ended up being their wedding song. The raw emotion in which Jeff sang and delivered this song brought tears to the eyes of various people in the audience.
Martin talked a bit about Bowie’s song characters which led into ZIGGY STARDUST from the 1972 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars album. It was a crowd favourite of the evening, with the audience singing at the top of their lungs the final lyrics of the song: Ziggy played guitar!
In between songs, Jeff talked about a time where Bowie was staying in a London hotel back in 1981 and was trying to get some sleep when all he could hear was a hotel guest upstairs attempting to play Rebel Rebel on guitar but was absolutely butchering his song. Bowie tried to ignore it but eventually had enough and got out of bed, went upstairs and knocked on the door where the music was coming from. John McEnroe answered the door. Jeff said John should have just stuck to what he’s good at (tennis). Everyone in the audience burst into laughter.
He then talked about watching MTV as a kid and seeing a video clip by David Bowie that scared the shit out of him. That song was ASHES TO ASHES from the 1980 Scary Monsters album. In this song, we experienced Jeff’s expansive vocal range delivering a wonderful rendition of the song.
Jeff continued talking about how Bowie was well known to always push the boundaries with controversial song lyrics and creating artistic video clips. He told the audience to imagine him as a 12-year old boy. Jeff said he had not been subjected to porn at that early stage of his life. The first time he saw soft porn was late one night on MTV when they played David Bowie’s uncut controversial video clip of CHINA GIRL from the 1983 Let’s Dance album. Jeff’s deep baritone voice did this song justice and had crowd participation singing “Oh Baby, just you shut your mouth.”
STARMAN followed from the 1972 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars album. The lyrics describe Ziggy Stardust bringing a message of hope to Earth’s youth through radio, salvation by an alien. Jeff infused an element of The Tea Party sound into this song.
Jeff then asked the enthusiastic crowd if they were ready for some funk, leading into GOLDEN YEARS from the 1976 Station to Station album, concluding the main set.
Martin returned for an encore and performed LET’S DANCE from the 1983 Let’s Dance album. This song was more uptempo than all the other songs Jeff sang tonight. Clearly this was Emily’s favourite song of the night as she danced about, looking back at her parents with a huge grin on her face and embracing the song. It’s a shame Jeff didn’t perform ‘See Emily Play’, the Pink Floyd cover from Bowie’s Pin Ups album!
David Bowie’s music will never be forgotten and his legacy will remain strong and inspire generations to come as highlighted tonight with the multi-generational crowd, thoroughly enjoying Jeff Martin’s Bowie tribute show.
R.I.P. David Bowie (Born 8 January 1947 in London and died 10 January 2016 in New York)
SETLIST:
Space Oddity
Panic In Detroit
Rebel Rebel
Life On Mars
Wild Is The Wind
Ziggy Stardust
Ashes to Ashes
China Girl
Starman
Golden Years
Encore:
Let’s Dance