'I played at Live Aid and toured the world with Bowie'

It was the morning of 13 July 1985. The streets were abnormally quiet as guitarist Kevin Armstrong made his way to Battersea power station’s helipad.

His final destination? Live Aid.

Just a few weeks before, Kevin, an already established guitarist on the British music scene, had been in a south London recording studio with David Bowie, putting down the soundtrack to the film Absolute Beginners.

An achievement in itself, but these sessions would turn out to be the most important in Kevin's career.

“David said to me ‘look, I’ve been asked to do a charity concert by Bob Geldof, would you like to play with me?’

“I had an inkling that it was a big gig, but the full impact of the day dawned gradually.

“I can’t remember much about the journey to be honest,” said Kevin, who now lives in St Leonards, East Sussex. “But I remember David being very nervous, he hated flying.

“We buzzed over the stadium. That’s when it started to sink in.”

Kevin was armed with a cheap point-and-shoot camera.

“I’ve got an image of David and Freddy Mercury both sparking up cigarettes, and others of Paula Yates, Bob Geldof, and Brian May with a guitar around his neck.

“The drummer, Neil, and I went to the top of the steps that climbed to the stage and looked out between the PA stacks to soak up some of the atmosphere and see what it was going to be like.

“That’s the thing about playing a stadium, you have a huge sea of people. It’s quite a special thing.”

Kevin recalled how he and the band were “acutely aware” they were going on straight after Queen.

“They had ripped the place apart, but when the crowd saw David they went crazy. I feel quite embarrassed because I just started bouncing like Tigger.

“Completely unexpectedly, David introduced us all by name. It was a defining moment for me in my career as a musician.

“When anybody says ‘what have you done in your life?’, I say ‘well, I played at Live Aid with David Bowie’. There’s very few people who can top that really. It was like living a dream.”

After that show, Kevin's life changed forever.

He joined Bowie's Tin Machine band, hung out with him in the Bahamas, Switzerland and New York, played a world tour with Sinead O'Connor, recorded an album with Iggy Pop, and is still on tour with Iggy today.

But the party came crashing down eight years ago.

"When I heard on the radio about David dying, it was a real surprise. Later on in the day, I started to feel worse and worse and worse about it.

"I did feel that I knew him quite well from the period that we worked together, so the impact of his death, it was a real shock to me.

"Since then, I’ve come out the other side and realised that the way he’d approached the end of his life and his mortality was so impressive compared to almost anybody I can think of in the public eye."

Bowie released Black Star on 8 January 2016 - his 69th birthday. He died two days later.

Listen to Kevin Armstrong's interview with BBC Sussex as part of our Secret Sussex series below.

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