Watch Jeff Beck and David Bowie cover The Beatles
There was a brief convergence of superstars at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on July 3rd, 1973. David Bowie was bringing his Ziggy Stardust tour to an end, and the results would be one of his most notorious shows of all time. Lost in the delirium was a major guest star: former Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck.
Before the onstage death of Ziggy Stardust and the alleged orgy that went down in the audience, Bowie and his band were blasting away at a rollicking version of ‘The Jean Genie’ when Beck stepped onstage. Plugging in and letting loose, Beck was right there with the Spiders of Mars when ‘The Jean Genie’ transitioned into The Beatles’ first single ‘Love Me Do’ and then back into ‘The Jean Genie’.
“That last night was probably one of the best shows we’d ever done,” drummer Mick ‘Woody’ Woodmansey wrote in his autobiography Spider From Mars: My Life with David Bowie. “It got even wilder when Bowie stepped up to the microphone and announced, ‘As this is our last concert of the tour, we thought we’d do something special for you, so we invited one of our friends, and I know you’ll give a big, warm welcome to Jeff Beck.’”
“Jeff walked on to thunderous applause, and Mick started the riff to ‘The Jean Genie’. It was a particularly special moment as Jeff Beck was one of Mick’s guitar heroes,” Woodmansey added. “We did an extended version of the song where they each took it in turn to solo back and forth. It was ‘The Jean Genie’ like we’d never played it before. Jeff stayed on for ‘Round And Round’ and then left the stage to great applause.”
Even though the entire concert was being filmed, evidence of Beck’s appearance went unnoted until the song appeared on Brett Morgan’s Moonage Daydream soundtrack. “Jeff Beck said that he didn’t like his guitar solos and wanted to re-record them, but after a while, it came out that he was unaware that the show was being filmed, hated what he was wearing, and also wanted to be paid for his participation,” producer Ken Scott would later claim about Beck appearance. “Then there were some questions as to who actually owned the film in the first place.”
Watch an excerpt from the medley of ‘The Jean Genie’ and ‘Love Me Do’ down below.
