Earl Slick Recalls David Bowie’s Onstage Heart Attack

Longtime David Bowie guitarist Earl Slick recalled the moment his boss suffered a heart attack on stage – but tried to continue the show.

The incident took place in Prague in 2004 during Bowie’s A Reality Tour, which would prove to be his last as a result of health issues.

Speaking to Guitar Player, Slick suggested that the band leader had tried to keep going because he’d been misdiagnosed, and didn’t realize the severity of his condition.

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“It was the best touring band I ever played in with David,” he said. “The combination of people – it was absolutely drama free, and I’ve never seen him that relaxed and happy on a tour, ever.”

He said of the Prague concert: “It was a really weird gig. At first I couldn’t figure out what was going on. It was hotter than hell in the place, and I could see he was having a hard time hitting some notes. I thought he was just baked. We were all baked.

“I think we were doing ‘The Jean Genie,’ and he goes to me, ‘Keep vamping, just jam��� – while he’s having a heart attack. Then he started grabbing his chest and the tour managers came over and dragged him off. A few minutes later, he comes back and joins us. He lasted about a measure or two and then he walked off.”

He added: “They said that he had a blocked nerve, whatever that is; and that diagnosis was wrong.”

Bowie wanted to keep his show on the road, so the band performed as planned in Germany a few days later. “I went over to talk to him, and he was feeling horrible,” Slick remembered. “We did the whole show and then we got a phone call saying, ‘Sit tight for a couple of days. David needs to rest. We’re gonna take a few days off.’

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“So we just hung out in Hamburg. Nobody’s saying anything to us. And then we get phone calls saying, ‘Guys, we’re done. You gotta go home.’ We didn’t get an explanation; we all knew he was probably getting some kind of surgery, but we weren’t getting any details about it.”

Slick recalled that, despite his health issues, Bowie was in fine form much of the time. “When we did ‘Heroes’ at the [German] Festival, I swear to God it’s one of the best vocal performances he ever did of it. Two hours later, probably, he was in the hospital.”

He reflected: “I got a lot of free rein from David. I could literally change up bits and bobs during a show; and he liked it, actually. If you look through the concert videos, you’ll see really weird arrangements of songs and stuff. You get bored if it’s the same song every night, so sometimes you change things up, and he liked that I did that. I had a lot of freedom to just ad lib everywhere.”