Photo credit: Raymond Flotat
This year unfortunately there have been a few legendary celebrities pass away. From Muhammad Ali, Prince, and David Bowie. On January 10, David Robert Jones, most notably known as David Bowie, passed away at the age of sixty-nine in Manhattan, New York after succumbing to Liver cancer. For over five decades Bowie was a figure in music respected by many in the industry and fans for his innovation in the music business. It is estimated that he sold over 140 million records worldwide making him one of the best selling music artists of all time.
Recently, during a performance at TED headquarters, singer Amanda Palmer played tribute to the legendary singer by performing just one of his many classics “Space Oddity.” She was joined on stage by Jeff Bischoff, TED fellow Usman Riaz and yes former Vice President Al Gore.
Behind Amanda, the conductor Jherek Bischoff is adding to the performance by putting all his effort into conducting the instrument players. The performance is backed by a screen that shows a shot of plane Earth zoomed out so we can see space in the background. This all goes along with the space theme of the song. The crowd joins in on the performance by clapping along with the guitar.
Later in the performance, the camera zooms in on the screen behind Amanda Palmer and just as the crowd begins to lose themselves in the dark space and the beautifully played violins. The words “I’m not a prophet or a stone-age man, just a mortal with the potential of a superman I’m living on.”
At the end of the video all of the contributors gather together on stage as the crowd claps for them all as they all take a bow in unison as a sign of final respect to the legend that is David Bowie.
This isn’t the first time Palmer covered another song before, recently along with Brendon Maclean they covered the Bat For Lashes song “Laura”
Palmer recently released the video for “Wynken, Blynken & Nod” a stop motion visual sure to entertain anyone who watches.
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