Live: Harrogate Theatre, Harrogate

David Bowie performed a solo show at Harrogate Theatre on 12 April 1970.

He played two sets, each lasting half an hour, at 4.30pm and 7.30pm. He was on a bill with the Keef Hartley Band.

The show was arranged by Bowie’s manager Kenneth Pitt. It also gave Bowie the opportunity to discuss acting in and making music for a stage adaptation of Sir Walter Scott’s The Fair Maid of Perth, which was being planned for the Harrogate Festival by its artistic director Brian Howard. The collaboration never took place.

David had to be content with going to Harrogate and I wrote to him about this on March 26: ‘I have confirmed a booking on Sunday, 12th April, at the Harrogate Theatre, Harrogate, Yorks. There are two concerts, at 4.30 and 7.30, with just you and the Keef Hartley Band. The fee is only £45 and we would not normally accept this fee at such a distance from London, but the engagement offers an ideal opportunity for you to get together with Brian Howard and thoroughly discuss The Fair Maid of Perth project. He telephoned today to say that he will be at the theatre all day and would like to talk to you after the shows as well.’ As he had told Penny Valentine, he was pleased at the prospect of doing The Fair Maid show, so it was worth his while going up to Harrogate for these two half-an-hour spots.

In the audience for one of the Harrogate shows was Trevor Bolder, a future Spider From Mars. Bowie’s guitarist Mick Ronson had suggested to Bolder that he go to see the performance.