January 11, 2026
NEO Rewind Series: David Bowie in NEO
presented by Thomas Mulready and Vanity Crash, special guest Denny Sanders
Beachland Tavern
Primarily Seated, GA
Doors: 7:00 pm / Show: 8:00 pm
David Bowie in NEO illuminates why 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, trace 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 pushing Hunky Dory constantly, to his US debut at Music Hall photographed by Anastasia Pantsios, to his later visits to Cleveland and collaborations with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. This multi-media event includes from special guests discussing and performing seminal music from one of the most creative and influential artists of the past century. Photos & interviews available upon request.
In addition to live music, the show features highly edited interviews with Bowie’s drummer Woody Woodmansey, and pianist Mike Garson, whose first gig with Bowie was that Cleveland debut show, and who plays on two original Vanity Crash tracks, plus 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 Bowie had done a press conference earlier that day and had been a bit withdrawn, but by stage time he’d shed any inhibitions and stalked the stage like a madman.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.
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