Big Mama: D-DAY!

David Bowie's new album arrived in the shops today! I am a huge fan, and I've been following closely the hype on Bowie's first album in ten years. The single "Where Are We Now" was released in connection with his birthday on the 8th of January (also my daughter Sophie's birthday!), and it was so nice to hear his voice again that I had to cry just a little bit. I've been looking forward to March 11 and naturally I was off to buy the CD today.

I was so excited that I couldn't wait to get home to listen to it - so I fed it into the car CD-player. It's everything I expected and more! I love his voice! I think it's even better now that he's older.

I was never a David Bowie fan as a young girl, strangely enough. The first time I really became aware of him was when Grete and I were in England in April 1972, and we stayed with friends of my parents in Kent. After three years of experimenting with music, 1972 is largely regarded as his breakthrough year - when he became Ziggy Stardust, and his name was on everyone's lips. Mrs Marshall, our hostess, said: "He's so strange, with all his outfits and his make-up. His Mum Mrs Jones used to be our cleaner, and I remember him as quite normal."

Big Mama in favourite T-shirt

So - funnily enough - I never owned a David Bowie LP, whereas my sister was a huge fan at a much earlier stage. I went to see him doing a stadium concert in Oslo in 1990, when I was pregnant, and this is something you really should never do. Don't go to those enormous stadium concerts when you're pregnant! Very bad idea! Standing up for hours on end.... well, my feet looked afterwards like they belonged to an elephant.

But then - on the 12th October 2003 I saw him in concert again. I had the best ticket ever. It was indescribable. I still remember his moves, his clothes, his haircut, his jokes. And the music! The songs! "Ziggy played guitar!" Oh yes, he did.

From then on I was sold.

However I was not present at the concert where someone threw a lollipop at him, which hit him in the eye. This was at the Norwegian Wood Festival in Oslo in 2004, a legendary festival where strange things are known to happen. I was there a few years earlier, watching Van Morrison, when a dove flew on stage and sat on the piano for the rest of the gig. When the concert was over it just fell down and died.

The Norwegian Wood Festival was renamed the Norwegian Mud Festival in 2011 - it was so awful it was almost fun! Talk about slip slidin' away! You had to plant your feet deeply in the mud and make sure they stuck there, otherwise you'd take over the entertainment as a mud wrestler before you knew it!