The Untold: David Bowie and Me
Who is Laurence Bolwell?
Age: Not disclosed: ‘I’d rather not say’.
Appearance: Very slim. (He only eats two meals a day – a bowl of oats in the morning, and a vegetarian meal in the evening).
Personality: He describes himself as ‘not very sociable’: he’s shy, thoughtful, private (intensely so) – ‘When the people in the corner shop start to talk to you it’s time to move on.’
Work experience: In his drifting days he’d been a cleaner, a digger of holes and a busker amongst other things.
Current Occupation: Bowie tribute act: The Bowie Experience.
That’s not the kind of job your school career adviser might suggest, or the sort of job you do because your father did it, and his father before him and so on. There's no professional development: you don't cut your teeth as a tribute act for The Wurzels and then after some pretty epic renditions of ‘Combine Harvester’, graduate to The Who. So how does someone, especially a self-confessed introvert, become one of the top Bowie tribute acts?
In 1997 Laurence was living in rented accommodation on Bovington Tank base – it was cheap – but not quite as cheap as living in a bender, (a type of makeshift shelter made from branches). He was making music, but the bands he was in weren’t making money. Then they added a few covers to their repertoire and that’s when people started to say – ‘Hey, you look like Bowie, sound a bit like him too.’
We’re used to the idea of the tribute act today – many bands and artists have one, even The Wurzles (The Twurzles), but back then it was rare, radical. The first nine years, Laurence says, were spent driving up and down motorways, staying in the cheapest accommodation available, ‘eating all the wrong food.’ And the pay? A split on the door money – £40 - £50 pounds, if that. In fact, this touring lifestyle was taking such a toll on Laurence that he was hospitalised.
But, since then, Laurence's tribute act, The Bowie Experience, has become hugely popular with a calendar full of bookings into 2016.
The day David died
Laurence’s partner and costume maker, Amy, broke down but not Laurence – not at first anyway. It was a few hours later when the tears and the questioning came. But that wasn’t the only thing he was going to be confronted with...
Almost overnight, Laurence found himself swamped with attention: emails and work offers came in thick and fast. It wasn’t only the performance requests he had to deal with though, as he now found himself at the other end of grieving Bowie fans' search for answers.
How do you cope when the person who in effect is your living, dies? That's the sort of labyrinthine conundrum Laurence is struggling with – ‘I suppose they thought I could offer them some sort of comfort because I am a fake David Bowie…but the only thing I could offer them was a fake solace.’
Laurence’s first gig after Bowie’s death
Just five days after Bowie’s death, Laurence’s The Bowie Experience is performing at the Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen alongside Blondie tribute act, Atomic Blondie. Laurence is exhausted, both mentally and physically; he – like all Bowie fans – is grieving, but is determined not to let his performance be affected: he says that wouldn’t be fair on the audience.
He doesn't disappoint. The crowd love him. They close their eyes and sing along.
Advice from a hero…
Laurence did meet David Bowie once when he found himself backstage after watching him perform his Serious Moonlight tour in Milton Keynes in 1983. As to what was said between the two, Laurence is characteristically reserved, but what he does say can only confirm Bowie as the prophetic Starman from another planet that we know him to be.
‘I’m tempted to say what he said set me on the right path, but I think more accurately it stopped me going down the wrong path I was on at the time.’
