Bowie's manager claims Ziggy Stardust comeback tour was planned

Tony Defries, the former manager of rock legend David Bowie, recently said that the late icon planned to bring his alter ego Ziggy Stardust for a comeback tour. Stardust was a stage persona of Bowie that was used on tours during the early '70s.

After releasing several tracks under the psuedonym, Bowie retired his role as Ziggy Stardust on 3rd July 1973. The rock legend said "Ziggy was my Martian messiah who twanged a guitar. He was a simplistic character. I saw him as very simple."

In an interview with NME, Bowie was asked about the reason for killing off Ziggy and responend by saying "I don’t want to do any more gigs and the American dates have been cancelled. From now on I’ll be concentrating on various activities that have very little to do with rock and pop."

David Bowie performing Starman

Bowies former manager, Tony Defries, now claims that the main reason for Ziggy's retirement was the success of the persona.

"Basically, I think success wasn’t the ideal situation for David," Defries told MOJO. "When Aladdin Sane was selling enormous quantities and crowds were shutting down railway stations, just to get a glance of him, I think that’s when it all began to sink in, that he was no longer an ordinary person. The Ziggy effect was taking hold and he couldn’t cope with it, really," he said.

Most surprisingly, Defries said that they planned on doing a comeback tour but "failed to get promoters in America to book [a Ziggy Stardust comeback tour] into large arenas as a headliner."

"So, that was a real reason for retiring Ziggy, to be honest with you. [It had] nothing to do with music or style or anything else," he continued.

 

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This is not the only source to claim that a Ziggy Stardust comeback was planned. Phil Campbell, a video game designer, previously stated that Bowie wanted to relaunch Ziggy Stardust into space.

In an interview with The Mirror, Campbell said: "We talked about buying up a bunch of old satellites that were circling the Earth, and he was going to relaunch Ziggy from space."

Whether or not Bowie intended to return as Ziggy Stardust, his performances will never be forgotten. His final concert as his alter ego was filmed by D.A. Pennebaker and released in 1979‘s documentary Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

Watch David Bowie performing 'Ziggy Stardust' in 1973 below: