David Bowie in NEO
Presented by Thomas Mulready and Vanity Crash - Featuring Special Guest Artists
NEO Rewind Series
Why you should see this show…
David Bowie in NEO
Presented by Thomas Mulready and Vanity Crash, with special guests Billy Bass, Time Cat, and James Longs & RA Washington of Mourning [A]BLKstar.
David Bowie in NEO illuminates why and how David Bowie chose Cleveland to kick off his first-ever US tour, creating an international superstar, presented by Thomas Mulready and Vanity Crash.
Bowieologist Thomas Mulready in collaboration with glam punk heroes Vanity Crash, musical and special guests, traces the rise of David Bowie in Northeast Ohio, from the local Space Oddity-era fan club, to WMMS radio jocks Billy Bass and Denny Sanders championing the relatively unknown artist, to his September 22, 1972 U.S. debut at Cleveland Music Hall and beyond.
This multi-media event includes special musical guests from Cleveland and Akron performing seminal music from one of the most creative and influential artists of the past century, along with their own original music, to illustrate how this iconic artist continues to influence generations of artists.
In addition to live music, the show features exclusive video interviews with WMMS Radio DJs Billy Bass & Denny Sanders, Bowie’s drummer Woody Woodmansey, and pianist Mike Garson, whose first gig with Bowie was that 1972 Cleveland debut show, and Mick Ronson biographers Rupert Creed & Garry Burnett speaking from Hull, England, the home of The Spiders From Mars.
Special guests will appear live on stage, including WMMS DJ and Program Director Billy Bass discussing how he helped break the artist in the U.S., and how his career and life became permanently intertwined with David Bowie.
Vanity Crash
Glam punk heroes from Cleveland with five releases of original material, Vanity Crash was born on stage under hot lights as the house band for Hedwig and the Angry Inch, preparing to record their sixth original release, having shared the stage with the New York Dolls, Poison, the Darkness and Gogol Bordello, including two collabs with David Bowie’s pianist Mike Garson.
Time Cat
Raw and explosive, soulful and gritty, Akron’s Time Cat has three original album releases and has opened for Chrissie Hynde & The Pretenders, Muse, and Juliette Lewis, among others. Their performances leave crowds sweaty and perhaps questioning what’s really going on in the universe.
James Longs & RA Washington of Mourning [A]BLKstar
Multi-generational, gender, genre non-conforming amalgam of Black culture, Mourning [A] BLKstar, is dedicated to sharing stories and songs of America’s unfolding apocalypse. Founded in Cleveland, they have toured globally at festivals from Crossing Border in Berlin to Big Ears and Le Guess Who? in Utrecht. In 2026, they will release their 10th album in 10 years.
Billy Bass
Legendary disc jockey Billy Bass, one of Cleveland’s most popular broadcasters at WIXY and WNCR, was an influential figure, bringing progressive radio to WMMS-FM as it’s Program Director, breaking artists like David Bowie and anointing Cleveland “The Rock & Roll Capital of the World,” before becoming Senior VP at Chrysalis Records and managing superstar Luther Vandross, in turn being acknowledged in autobiographies of Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry and others.
From Woody Woodmansey’s book, Spider From Mars: My Life With Bowie
The tour opened at the Cleveland Music Hall on 22 September. The venue held 3,000 and had sold out in two days thanks to Denny Sanders, musical director, and Billy Bass, programme director at WMMS Radio, who had played Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust tracks repeatedly, introducing the area to our music and creating an enthusiastic fan base. We were already the talk of the town by the time we got to Cleveland.
We began the show with ‘Hang On To Yourself’ and the crowd loved it. Bowie had done a press conference earlier that day and had been a bit withdrawn, but by stage time he’d shed any inhibitions and stalked the stage like a madman.
The experience we’d gained on our UK tour, plus the addition of Mike Garson, really helped us find our feet and the sound of the band and the performance seemed to have moved up to another level. It was exciting and the audience let us know it was the same for them. At the end we received an ovation that lasted about ten minutes. We’d done our first US concert and it had gone down amazingly, the perfect start to the tour.
Bowie loved all this. He was still in control of the Ziggy persona at the start of the first US tour and was able to adopt and discard his onstage character with relative ease. He’d wanted to be famous for years, and had worked incredibly hard to achieve it – and here he was, the biggest star of the hour.
Dining Option
Purchase of a ticket to a show in the Supper Club ensures you will have a seat for the concert. However, if you intend to dine before or during the performance, you also need to make a dining reservation. To make a dining reservation, click here or call our Box Office at (216) 242-1250. Click here to see the menu.
If you are attending a concert in the Supper Club with a party of two or more, please have one person make a reservation for the whole group to ensure you are seated together. If you are attending with a party of nine or more, you must call the Box Office to make your reservation at (216) 242-1250.
To better serve all our customers, we require that you arrive on time for your dining reservation. Arriving more than 15 minutes after your reserved time will result in the cancellation of your reservation. You will be seated for the concert, but you may be put on a waiting list for dining.
Don’t forget, Music Box VIP members get in free to shows $12 and under.
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