Gig review: Holy Holy at O2 Academy Leeds

It’s 12 years since Tony Visconti and Woody Woodmansey formed Holy Holy, a supergroup dedicated to performing the songs of their friend David Bowie.

Since then they’ve toured the UK, North America and Japan with a revolving cast of musicians who presently include Heaven 17 singer Glenn Gregory, former Generation X and The Alarm lead guitarist James Stevenson and Visconti’s daughter Jessica Lee Morgan, who’s a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter in her own right.

If this autumn’s jaunt around Great Britain and Ireland does prove to be their swan song – as promotion for the tour proclaims – they’re certainly going out on a high, with the eight-piece band in fine form on their visit to Leeds.

Prudently, Gregory does not attempt to impersonate Bowie during tonight’s hour-and-45-minute set, singing the likes of Five Years, Ziggy Stardust and his personal favourite Time lustily in his own style. The only time he comes unstuck is during Ashes To Ashes – where a mistimed first verse strains his baritone voice – but he’s on far safer ground with 8 Line Poem, delivered with just a guitar line from Stevenson, who’d suggested the song in homage to his hero Mick Ronson, with whom Woodmansey had played in the Spiders From Mars.

Two medical emergencies in the audience halt Changes and When You Rock ’n’ Roll With Me, but the band are soon back in the flow. Panic In Detroit and Drive In Saturday pack a real punch, as does The Man Who Sold The World.

Renowned jazz keyboardist Janette Mason comes into her own in the parts once played by Rick Wakeman in Space Oddity. Starman – like many of the numbers tonight – induces a communal singalong with the multi-generational audience.

Introducing Life on Mars?, Gregory poignantly recalls how at a New York concert in 2016 they’d persuaded Tony Visconti to call Bowie on his mobile phone and the audience that night sang Happy Birthday to him. When Bowie died – unexpectedly to all but Visconti – two days later, the band had been devastated, yet decided to go ahead with a show in Toronto in his memory, and Gregory says that every time he performs Life On Mars? he pictures the emotion on the face of a teenage girl who’d attended that show in Ziggy Stardust make-up.

They close the set with a raucous Moonage Daydream, that ends with bassist Visconti and guitarist Paul Cuddeford seated on the drum riser while Woodmansey stands hammering at his drumkit.

The encore allows Visconti, now 82, and Woodmansey, 76, to share a few droll memories of working with Bowie before they play out with Where Are We Now? and Rebel Rebel – accurately described by Gregory as “an absolute f***ing belter”.

Here’s hoping this isn’t – after all – the last we see of Holy Holy on Yorkshire soil.