Introduction
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David was the quintessential Englishman – modest and incapable of accepting a compliment.
One Saturday in 1974, two girls trotted into the newspaper shop where I worked, giggling, in search of pens and paper. It transpired that David Bowie was recording across the road at Olympic Studios, the man I’d discovered a mile away at the Hammersmith Odeon just a year before. I hurried home to fetch my first camera – a second-hand Zenit acquired from a friend for £5 – and raced back to position myself near the steps of the building. David’s Lincoln Town Car silently glided to the curb, a moment that came so swiftly and quietly I almost missed it. Determined not to let the opportunity slip away, I returned the following day, this time better prepared. David remembered me and shared a few prophetic words: “You should work for NME!”. I could not have foreseen that, a decade later, the words “Where’s Denis?” would be uttered by David Bowie so often that it became a running joke and was voted ‘catchphrase of the year’ in Sydney during the closing party of the Glass Spider Tour.
Having been inspired by Jimmy Page in 1972, the Ziggy Stardust show at the Hammersmith Odeon in London in 1973 was transformative, expanding my horizons beyond anything I’d previously experienced. The scales fell from my teenage eyes as red velvet curtains opened on the theatre of my
imagination. Bowie’s cosmic ballet – a fusion of music and mime with elements of Japanese kabuki – left an indelible mark. A switch flipped within me: “This is the future”, “This is your future”. Mick Ronson in glittering breeches cut a dashing rock ’n’ roll figure in the Spiders from Mars, his golden Les Paul glinting in the spotlight as it screamed through ‘Moonage Daydream’. The hikinuki technique, which translates as ‘quick change’, was executed at the song’s opening as unseen hands tore away David’s costume, revealing a mini silk kimono, styled by Kansai Yamamoto. Its creator crafted several costumes for David during his Aladdin Sane period, thrusting Bowie’s ambisexual androgynous alien into the mainstream.
Aladdin Sane was the first Seventies album to take its place in my vinyl collection, secured in a dance competition at a basement club opposite Richmond station, where I strolled onto the dance floor with a girlfriend, top hat in hand, and moved like Jagger. The album ushered in an era of ever more extravagant cover art and groundbreaking musical landscapes, David crafting such lines as “Pour me out another phone” in ‘Drive-In Saturday’ (1973).
My frolicsome moment unfolded in the very building where The Rolling Stones held their residency a decade earlier, to which The Beatles made a pilgrimage of intrigue in 1963.
1970s
DAVID BOWIE ARRIVING AT OLYMPIC STUDIOS TO RECORD DIAMOND DOGS
THE HUNGER PRESS CONFERENCE PRIOR TO THE LODGER ALBUM COVER SHOOT
1974: 1977: 1978:
NEWCASTLE CITY HALL. THE LAST TOUR UNTIL 1983
Denis first photographed David Bowie in 1974, as he arrived at Olympic Studios in London to record Diamond Dogs. His next encounter with the star was at a press conference in 1977 to promote ‘Just a Gigolo’. O’Regan’s most dramatic series of images from this decade came during the 1978 tour, when he photographed Bowie performing at Newcastle City Hall. The live shots perfectly capture the intensity of Bowie’s performance, his shifting personas, and the charged atmosphere of his concerts during a time of personal and artistic reinvention.
1980s
1983: 1987:
SOUND+VISION PRESS CONFERENCE AND TOUR
GLASS SPIDER WORLD TOUR
1988:
BOWIE LIVE IN LONDON WITH LA LA LA HUMAN STEPS
The 1980s saw Denis go on two world tours with David Bowie for Serious Moonlight in 1983 and Glass Spider in 1987. The first of these tours was a defining moment in Bowie’s career, marking the peak of his commercial success, with the Let’s Dance album solidifying his international superstardom. The second tour, which supported Bowie’s album Never Let Me Down, was a more extravagant spectacle with Bowie embracing a theatrical, glam-infused pop style. His performances blended elements of performance art and choreography with elaborate stage design, reflecting his constant reinvention and desire to push boundaries. Denis had unprecedented access to it all, photographing Bowie both on and off stage, creating an intimate and vibrant portrait of the enigmatic rock star during what would be a dynamic decade.
“The ‘session in the desert’ during the Serious Moonlight tour’s brief jaunt to California at which David headlined the US Festival, in front of the biggest crowd of the tour, estimated at over 300,000.
“ David’s first song of the encore on the 1987 Glass Spider tour was ‘Time’ from his Aladdin Sane album, which he performed atop the spider, dressed in a gold lamé suit with deconstructed angel wings attached to his back. This was a huge surprise for fans.
Official photographer to music legend David Bowie, Denis O’Regan presents a personal edit of over 150 images from his unrivalled collection of photographs. Accompanying Bowie on two world tours and enjoying a decades-long relationship with the star, no one photographed Bowie more than Denis O’Regan. As Bowie himself once remarked, “Denis, Rock ’n’ Roll is in your blood”.