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Lady Gaga wows with Bowie tribute at Grammys

Lady Gaga has paid a psychedelic tribute on the Grammys stage to late British rock visionary David Bowie with a multimedia song-and-dance performance that sought to capture the boundary-pushing essence of a kindred pop music spirit.

Bowie, a forerunner of Gaga’s brand of provocative, gender-bending performance imagery, died of cancer at age 69 on January 10, just two days after the release of what became his critically acclaimed final studio album, Blackstar.

Gallery: all the stars on the red carpet at the 2016 Grammys

Gaga, 29, a six-time Grammy winner who, like Bowie, is known for frequent self-reinvention, arrived on the red carpet dressed in an outfit that channelled Bowie’s signature androgynous look, sporting a bright, blue embellished jacket-dress and bright orange hair.

On stage she charted Bowie’s half-century career with a medley touching on 10 of his hits – ‘Space Oddity’, ‘Changes’, ‘Ziggy Stardust’, ‘Suffragette City’, ‘Rebel Rebel’, ‘Fashion’, ‘Fame’, ‘Under Pressure’, ‘Let’s Dance’ and ‘Heroes’.

The song-dance number was punctuated by a torrent of flashing multicoloured lights and images projected on a large screen behind her, including a close-up of her face adorned in Aladdin Sane makeup – a nod to one of Bowie’s personas – with a spider crawling over her nose.

Gaga received a standing ovation from the audience inside the Staples Centre in downtown Los Angeles following her performance, which was also heavily praised on social media.

“LADY GAGA! Now I’m really going home!! Amazing! Bowie is smiling combing his hair back right now I know,” Janelle Monae Cindi tweeted.

“Oh #Bowie. You touched so many of us. We will miss you. @ladygaga that was beautiful #GRAMMYs,” Laverne Cox wrote.

Singer Bette Midler tweeted: “Lady Gaga slays it.

“And there’s the great #nilerogers…David Bowie lives. God, I miss him.”

Earlier in the show, another late pop talent, Eagles co-founder, guitarist and songwriter Glenn Frey, was saluted by surviving members of his band who joined Jackson Browne for a performance of one of the Eagles’ biggest hits, ‘Take It Easy’.

Frey, who co-founded the Eagles with Don Henley in 1971 in Los Angeles, died at age 67 in January of complications from a number of ailments, including pneumonia.

Browne, who co-wrote the song, stood in for Frey on lead vocals, with the Eagles’ familiar backing harmonies and laid-back instrumental accompaniment from Henley, along with Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit and Bernie Leadon.

In other musical homages to the fallen of pop music, Stevie Wonder joined the a cappella group Pentatonix for a tribute to Maurice White, late founder of the R&B funk band Earth, Wind & Fire, with a performance of the title track off the band’s hit album, ‘That’s the Way of the World’.

Bonnie Raitt teamed up with Chris Stapleton and Gary Clark Jr on ‘The Thrill Is Gone’ to salute the late blues icon BB King.

And The Hollywood Vampires, the music supergroup comprising actor Jonny Depp, Alice Cooper and Joe Perry, brought the house down with their tribute to late rock legend Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister.

They honoured Lemmy, who died in late December from cancer at the age of 70, with a high-energy performance of the song ‘Ace of Spades’.

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