Here are some photos of Lorde leaving a BRIT Awards afterparty last night with her friend Diplo (who I would totally hate f—k, go ahead and yell at me). Lorde didn’t walk the BRITs red carpet, possibly because she wasn’t there as a nominee. She was a special guest, invited to the BRITs to perform a tribute to David Bowie. And guess what? It went over a lot better than Lady Gaga’s tribute at the Grammys. Here’s the full tribute, including a speech by Annie Lennox and Gary Oldman (the first video), then Lorde’s performance of “Life on Mars?”
Very respectful, very well done. I liked the start of it too, with the medley of Bowie actually singing his own songs. Lorde is getting praise from music critics, Bowie fans and media outlets across the board for her simple and emotional performance, and the BRIT Award producers are being praised for handling the Bowie tribute correctly (and giving Bowie the posthumous Icon Award). The comparison doesn’t even need to be made, although many are making it: Lady Gaga’s Grammy tribute was all about Gaga and it wasn’t really about honoring Bowie at all.
So, obviously, Bowie’s son Duncan Jones chimed in too, just as he tweeted about Gaga’s performance.
Finally found the links to tonight's Brits. Just… beautiful. Thank you.
— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) February 25, 2016
Yay! I’m sure that means so much to Lorde. And now Gaga’s Little Monsters – who spent days sending spiteful and nasty tweets to Duncan – look even more foolish.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
no Grace Jones? noooooooo.
but i guess they learned from the Grammy backlash to involve more people in the tribute.
The best part was seeing his tour band perform one last time together. I’m sure it was heartbreaking for them, but so meaningful.
I think that is what made it special that the touring band was there. Both Iman and David’s Instagram accounts also linked the performance on the Brits. It’s quite obvious they thought that was a more fitting tribute than what the Grammys did.
Yes, I loved seeing his touring band there — I was lucky enough to see a lot of small Bowie shows in the past 10 years or so, and having the same musicians play made this even more meaningful. Good job by Lorde, too.
Now THAT’S a tribute!
I had so much of that awful feeling of embarrassment-by-proxy with Gaga’s performance. Or maybe it’s called secondhand embarrassment? Anyway I’m glad someone did it right for Bowie.
Gaga needs to go away now. Be done, Gaga. Be done and be gone!
Gaga was horrible. It was like watching a rocky horror picture show gone wrong. And why Gaga anyways? Why not performers who knew him personally?
That is until the oscars the upcoming weekend when she will make it all about gaga again. She really needs to go away
I totally see the Diplo thing hahahahaha
Me too, at least in these pics.
He looks sooooo douchey, but hot.
What???!!! Not me &vomit$$$
I never said I was proud of it!
I see it too 😳
The entire tribute gave me chills and brought another wave of sadness that he’s gone. I especially loved that it was his band performing, before Lorde and then with her. I’ve already seen so many horrible comments from Gaga’s fans, who truly are Monsters.
Agree with everything you said. This brought tears to my eyes, but it was truly a lovely and proper tribute. Well done, Lorde!
Me, too, CFY. I have tears welling as I type.
Same here. Gary Oldman speech… he was really moved.
It just seemed so sincere, you can tell Annie Lennox and Gary Oldman were true friends of his; I particularly loved his story about the autograph. Everything about the tributes showed grace, respect and the strength of the connections to Bowie by the people involved, unlike the Grammy’s tribute! Absolutely think it was great and Lorde was the perfect choice, understated but incredible performance.
When they hugged each other that was such a special moment and to witness it made me all weepy… Such a beautiful tribute to David Bowie!
Lorde did a lovely job, but I’m surprised that they didn’t have Annie Lennox sing in the tribute — it’s not like she has weak pipes.
Wonderful tribute. I’m so glad there was one that was about Bowie and not Gaga/Intel.
Diplo? Yeah.
What an amazing girl she is. I bet he was smiling hard last night.
he voice works great with this song.
and while i love her natural hair, i love it also in these photos. she looks so much older and polished with her hair like that (did she get a cut?) and that off-shoulder dress.
go Lorde! (I feel weird having a girlcrush on a teenager, but it’s still happening)
Yeah I was thinking the same! Not sure I’ve ever seen her hair like this but it looks really beautiful. My hair would probably be that shiny too if I left it curly instead of straightening it all the time.
I really like Lorde so I’m happy if she did Bowie justice with her tribute. I’ll watch it later when I’m not at work..
I have MAJOR hair envy right now – I dyed mine red for the last few months – and didn’t think of an escape plan when I started. I found out red is really hard to cover up – but for the last week or two I’ve been wanting to go back to brown, but darker than my natural color. I think I’m going to have to go in for a color correction or something to do it right. But man – I’d love to have her hair in either state. The kind of volume curly haired girls get even when straightened is amazing.
I keep forgetting Lorde was really young when she started (she still is) but she’s at the age where her face is getting a bit more grownup. She looks STUNNING here.
ERINN, totally agree with you! I know it’s a matter of personal opinions, but honestly I’m baffled at those who find this girl “ugly”, not to say disgusted. She’s so unusual, striking and interesting to look at.
Lovely and heartfelt. Indeed-so much better than the grammys
Well done. (Gaga isn’t mature enough to congratulate her so I know she’s somewhere out there biting her pillow 🙂 )
Bowie’s official facebook page even covered the Brits tribute in glowing terms. There is no way Annie and Gary nor his touring band and some of them recording band on some of his albums would have participated without the family’s blessing. So it really is the official Bowie family sanctioned performance done in the way that honored and paid tribute to the man they loved. I thought it was beautiful as a whole the way it was done. The way the band kept segueing into another song was done beautifully and effortlessly, not choppy like Gaga’s medley. Oh, the tears listening to those songs and looking at images of Bowie.
I went back and watched Gaga’s and it’s actually worse every time I try to rewatch it. Did she think she was Little Richard with all those twirls? And Heroes is one of his iconic songs that moves people and gives you chills and that ending of Heroes was just no. Parts of Gaga’s performance really did resemble an Vegas Elvis tribute act with so much going on on stage and trying to mimic his vocals in places..
And I loved Oldman’s recounting Bowie’s humor even when battling cancer, when he quipped to Oldman in an email that at least he finally has his cheekbones back. So Bowie.
Psssh, they call that a tribute? I didn’t even see them shilling one product! /sarcasm
Now *that* was a fitting tribute. Got me all choked up, even.
Lovely job. I will miss him forever.
I’m not a fan of Lorde. She sings as if she has a bad cold.
Well done Lorde and company! What a genuine and nicely arranged performance. Very warm, sincere, compassionate and considerate.
@boston green eyes:yeah, her voice is very unique, I guess I would say a bit nasal?? I do find it very interesting.
I agree. She lacks talent.
Not a big fan.
It really sounded like somebody singing the song at a Karaoke party.
Gaga wasn’t great but to say this was “incredible”? Nah. This woman has no vocal range and this could have been sung much better by somebody else.
Touching and classy. That was really lovely. Finally a fitting tribute to an amazing artist and icon. Gaga’s performance at the Grammy’s was just another exercise in narcissism for her. She might as well have been dressed up as an Elvis impersonator. She certainly didn’t channel David Bowie in any way. It was literally grotesque to watch.
I didn’t see Gagas performance so i can’t speak on that. I thought the band was amazing last night. i gather they used to play with Bowie. On the bit where they did Life on Mars I will be honest when i saw Lorde perform i felt she didn’t have the range for the song, i felt she struggled with some of the notes. Bowie had such range and power in his voice its hard for anyone to match that. However i thought Lorde captured the songs spirit and was very heartfelt and she does have a unique tone in her voice. Not to mention she looked so cool.The whole tribute was really really nice and definitely brought a tear to my eye. You forget how many amazing songs Bowie wrote, his back catalogue is just unbelievable.
I agree that Lorde while doing it justice on an emotional level just didn’t how the amazing range that Bowie did (No one can capture what Bowie did), but I loved the complete tribute as a whole and how it was done and in reverence to the spirit of Bowie. I think Bowie would actually have loved that Lorde brought a different lower-key vibe to the song, because he wasn’t someone who lived in the past.
Gaga’s performance I l inked below for you. It starts off great but deteriorates as it gets deeper into the performance. And what is it with all those dancers all over the stage? And the twirls, I thought it was Little Richard for a minute. It had promise, if she would have cut the number of songs from ten to a much lower amount and really vocally gotten into them and toned down some of the cheesier Vegas show aspects and not tried to sound like him in some of the songs that didn’t suit her vocally. And a Gaga commercial for Intel didn’t help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fGBZhsa4VU
Thanks for the link! 🙂
I didn’t mean she shouldn’t give the song a different vibe I was just speaking of the range and power the ability to reach notes and also to hold the notes.
Lorde is wonderful though especially great songwriting talent in my opinion.
The best cover i heard of Life on Mars was by this independent singer Aurora, it was on the BBC radio 1 awhile back and she most definitely reached the high notes while simunatiously giving the song a totally new spin. You should check it out 🙂
Lorde’s voice is so right for her material but it was terrible for this tribute. The register was too low. I didn’t enjoy the performance at all. The best part was Bowie’s righteous band! Now that was good! I enjoyed ga ga’s better. But to even compare them is redundant. They were so different.
The Gaga thing was painful and embarrassing. It was like Bowie the Bad B Musical.
Glee doing Bowie maybe?
My girl Lorde killed it! It was such a lovely and heartfelt tribute, waaaaay better than Gaga’s amateur community theater performance. Every aspect gave me chills: the medley played by his band as the montage of Bowie played, Lorde walking out to ‘Heroes,’ and of course her elegant performance. I’m sure a tribute at a British music awards was extra meaningful to his family and friends. Lorde and Bowie met when she first released her debut, at some fancy dinner, and I believe he commented that her music sounded like “the future” to him—I’m sure he was happy to see such a promising artist from a new generation honor him in such a gorgeous way.
Infinitely more fitting for a man who gave so much to music and life. Trust the Brits to be tasteful, elegant and appropriate! As you said respectful – it was about David. Lorde’s performance was moving, humble and at the same time huge. Long live his memory and influence on music and popular culture. There is no comparison to Gaga’s crass Gaga-esque performance….
Agree. The Brits know how to keep it classy and not overdone.
I have never heard the words classy and brit awards in the same sentance before, They are usually an all out messy booze fest with slurring presenters.
I am no fan of Gaga, but this one is just as self-absorbed and pretentious, if not more so, and she’s also an ungrateful brat, something that Gaga, for all her faults, is not. Gaga’s “tribute” was ridiculous, but I think Duncan Jones was predisposed to hate Gaga and her performance. He would have hated it no matter what she’d done.
On a superficial note- have to say girl is looking good! Something about her seems fresh and dewy.
That story from Oldman about Bowie informing him of his illness is so heartbreaking yet so powerful and reflects well on who he was. Still can’t believe we now live in a world without David Bowie in it.
It was awesome and just perfect.
The whole Brit Awards show was miles ahead of the Grammy’s this year, in pretty much every way.
I haven’t taken a good look at Lorde for about three years. She looks completely different. Massive make over.
The tribute was awesome, but I liked Gaga’ as well. On a superficial note, Lorde looks so much better having ditched her usual frumpy gothic looking clothing and with shorter more polished hair.
Lourde looks so much like a young Amy Irving here.
http://dailyman40.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/amy-irving-young.jpg
Diplo = Douchier Chris Martin
is the performance clip disabled now? I only got to see it once and its been dead since yesterday