Corgan and Reznor are the latest acts set to play the Bowie birthday-show; among the long line-up are big names including actor Gary Oldman as well as musicians such as Gavin Rossdale, Macy Gray, Judith Hill, Perry Farrell and many more. The musicians will each give their own rendition of one or more of the songs off Bowie’s extensive discography and it is expected they will bring unique and genre-spanning covers to the live-show.

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A post shared by David Bowie (@davidbowie) on Oct 27, 2020 at 7:38am PDT

The event will take place near the 5th anniversary of Bowie’s death and will follow the new-release of the album Metrobolist which is set to be released next month. This year, previously unreleased live-show recordings and re-cut songs, such as The Man Who Sold The World, have been given to fans and even last month saw a limited edition of the 1975 album Young Americans. 

Bowie has had great success from posthumous releases including winning multiple Grammys, selling over 5 million records in just the 2 years following his death and being named Rolling Stone’s ‘Greatest Rock Star Ever’. This upcoming live-stream concert will pay tribute to fallen star with collaborations and arrangements of his music spanning all the decades of his career.

Producers of the live-stream event include Kerry Brown, Stacey Sher and Bowie’s long-time producer Tony Visconti, and they are calling it ‘A Bowie Celebration: Just for one day!’. Past band-members and old collaborators are banning together in an alumni fashion to play as one in honour of Bowie.

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This all-star band will include players such as the main band-members from his last touring act and other musicians including Carlos Alomar, Zack Alford, Alan Childs, Kevin Armstrong, Emm Gryner, Omar Hakim, Robin Clark, Clare Hirst, Tim Lefebvre, Erdal Kızılçay, Martha Mooke, Mark Plati, Holly Palmer, Charlie Sexton and Carmine Rojas.

Spanning the end of 2020 and into 2021 a collection of 6 live and unreleased albums from the years 1995 to 1999 will be available in a limited CD and vinyl form. This collection will be called Brilliant Live Adventures and will follow the release of the upcoming album Metrobolist.

Tickets for the Bowie livestream birthday celebration concert are available here and the early-bird pricing is at 20USD (15 GBP). All shows from the ‘Bowie Celebration Tour’ that was set to go off next year have been cancelled due to safety concerns surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic.

Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun. – out November 16th via Napalm

The LP was recorded at Shangri La Studios with producer Rick Rubin, who played an instrumental role in the music scene of the 1980s and 1990s. With his signature stripped-back, compression-heavy approach, Rubin helped launch the careers of big names like The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Run DMC and The Beastie Boys.

For the first time in over twenty years, the new album will feature most of the Pumpkins’ original line-up, including guitarist James Iha, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and longtime guitarist Jeff Schroeder. Notably, though, they won’t be joined by the band’s founding bassist D’Arcy Wretzky, with whom Corgan has maintained a bitter and tense relationship for decades.

In an interview with Loudwire, Corgan said he was “done playing the class-A heel” as the band’s classic lineup reunited.“So I’m pretty settled at 51 years old. My life is about music and being an artist. I’m blessed to play with such tremendous musicians who are great collaborators, friends, family. I’m blessed to still want to write music, and especially with my partners”, he said.

“It’s a great time in my life. Like Jeff [Schroeder, Pumpkins’ guitarist], who’s obviously in this with us, he and I, we’re 12 years into this journey together, that’s a tremendous journey, and just Jeff and I alone, we’ve had the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows. So it’s a great time to be in the band.”

See the tracklist below:

01. Knights of Malta
02. Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)
03. Travels
04. Solara
05. Alienation
06. Marchin’ On
07. With Sympathy
08. Seek And You Shall Destroy

In an interview with WGN Radio, Chamberlin said that “We were talking about playing next year with the band and somebody asked me, you know, ‘What’s it like trying to co-ordinate that? I said it’s like ‘Grumpy Old Men 3′, only there’s four grumpy old men and one’s a woman’. So… that’s how it’s gotten to be.”

The drummer then continued by commenting on his relationship with frontman Billy Corgan, saying “The two hours that we spend playing music together is the greatest thing in the world. It’s the other 22 hours of the day that him and I are… He’s got opinions, I’ve got opinions. We’re both grown men, right?”

Corgan also gave some hope for a full reunion after he spoke to Chicago’s 97.9 The Loop earlier on this year, stating that “Things look good” when asked about playing with original Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha again, adding “we’re talking about it, we’ll see”.

However, speaking about a full band reunion, the frontman didn’t rule it out, “There’s a willingness for us to play, but also the world’s changed a lot since we didn’t play, so the reunion thing is always a bit weird because people come in with their expectations, so my whole thing is if we’re gonna do it, I think we do it to make people happy and not go against the tide of what people would want to hear in that type of stuff, but my interest in it is sort of limited. I’m not gonna do it for like 14 years of my life.”

If the original Smashing Pumpkins were to reunite, this would be the first time they played together since D’arcy Wretzky left the band to apparently pursue an acting career, even though Corgan, later on, said that she was fired. Guitarist James Iha was not involved when the band reunited with a new lineup in 2000, however, he has made a few appearances with the Smashing Pumpkins throughout 2016.