A Moment in the Shadows

In the Spring of 1991, I had the privilege of going to see Morrissey at the Hollywood Palladium, thus fulfilling a years-long dream. Sadly, our seats were terrible; so far to the side of the stage on the semicircle of seats ringing it, we were almost behind it. We had an excellent view of the drummer's footwork and the backstage stairs, but otherwise had to settle for a lot of Morrissey's derrière. Don't get me wrong, he's got a nice one, but those tix were expensive for a guy working part-time, minimum wage at a pet store, so spending an evening staring at a celibate vegetarian's arse was a little anti-climactic.

So in spite of how excited I was to see Morrissey perform for the first time, the seats just about ruined the entire experience, especially since I'd skipped a day of work to camp out in front of Tower Records to get them. It was hard to believe they even sold seating at such an oblique angle, although we were down front in the rows of elevated seating enough to see a lot of stage details clearly, albeit from a weird angle. The best of the worst seats in the house. Which is how my friend and I spotted the lone figure skulking about in the shadows at the bottom of the steps, like they were waiting some cue to go up and head out on stage.

Curiously, he was well-dressed and not holding any guitars or sound equipment, so he didn't seem to be a roadie or any part of the sound team. Just a lone guy in deep silhouette, pensively waiting, shifting from foot to foot, as though anxious to burst from the starting blocks. I nudged my friend and indicated the lanky, well-dressed man, but she seemed annoyed that I had distracted her from looking at Morrissey's butt as he launched into the crowd favorite "Last of the Famous International Playboys."

Much as I tried to focus in on one of my favorite tunes of all time, I kept seeing the lone figure out of the corner of my eye, so I immediately noticed him spring into motion as Morrissey sang the words:

"And now in my cell

(Well, I followed you)

And here's a list of who I slew

Reggie Kray - do you know my name?"

As he burst up the steps like a kid on Christmas morning, the dapper silhouette took a proffered mic from a roadie and strode from the shadows into the limelight with a signature sashay and jaunty kick that revealed to my friend and I who he was several precious seconds before all the people with good seats could even tell what was happening. Those seconds belonged to us alone until, in an impossibly rich baritone that will live forever atop the Tower of Song, The Thin White Duke joined Morrissey in the chorus:

"Oh, don't say you don't

Please say you do,

I am the last of the famous international playboys

The last of the famous international playboys."

And the intimate crowd of just 4,000 people went insane. Seriously, we completely lost our minds for the next several minutes as Steven Patrick Morrissey and David Bowie duetted through "Playboys" and segued into a medley of "Heroes" and "Prisoner of Love".

And then the moment was over, just as quickly as it had begun. Bowie glided off stage and back down the stairs with that peculiar physical elegance he had, flipping us a jaunty wave and an open smile as he came by our wedged-in ghetto chairs. Such was the power of Ziggy that for one moment they became the absolute best seats in the house. And then, without fanfare or entourage, he slipped out the back door alone, and was gone.

Four billion years in the making, and I still timed it just right to not only exist in the tiniest sliver of civilization that contained David Bowie, but shared an unguarded moment in the shadows with him. Today that feels better and worse than I would have imagined.

"And I'm gone

Like I'm dancing on angels

And I'm gone

through a crack in the past

Like a dead man walking"