This weekend forty years ago, tens of thousands of fans flocked to a former clay pit in the Buckinghamshire countryside to see David Bowie perform over three nights. The BBC interviewed concertgoers who saw the performances up close and from behind the stage about their memories.
They arrived in their thousands from all over the nation, and additional train services and coaches were provided to meet the demand.
On a tour in which Bowie performed his first live shows in England in five years, over 150,000 people descended upon the National Bowl in Milton Keynes that steamy weekend in July 1983.
Count me among them. I traveled by coach from Cornwall at the age of 15 with a school friend. I was unaware at the time, but we were about to see the artist rise to a new rank of international superstar.
The Beat, a support act, was attended by die-hard Bowie fans as well as fans of ska, reggae, new romantics, punks, and even, from memory, a contingent of Hell's Angels. Everyone seemed to enjoy Bowie's new persona, and it appeared that half the country was present.
Due to the overwhelming demand for tickets following the success of the Let's Dance album and its hit singles, including the title track, the three additional dates, from July 1 to 3, had been added to the end of the European leg of his Serious Moonlight tour.
According to official photographer Denis O'Regan, the nine-month tour "snowballed" and ended up having 99 dates in over 60 cities around the world, including a number of sizable open-air concerts.
The photographer claimed that seeing Bowie perform at the renowned Hammersmith Odeon concert a decade earlier, the night before Bowie retired his Ziggy Stardust persona, had given him the inspiration to collaborate with the artist.
He claimed, "That job really changed my entire life.
"I made the decision that I wanted to tour with David Bowie, the Rolling Stones because they were the biggest band and Queen because they were fantastic, and I ended up touring with them all.
"I went to David with a business plan to write a book about the tour, and he liked it a lot. ".
Early expectations that the artist would keep him at a distance and be protective of his reputation turned out to be incorrect, he said.
He was a very friendly man who wanted to interact with me easily and wanted me to document every moment. ".
According to him, his photographs capture the artist's transformation "from the inside out. It was an amazing time to be with him. ".
The photographer claimed that as the tour went on, he had to think of new ways to photograph the celebrity "to hold David's interest.".
If it was a live performance shot, he said, "it had to be very special.".
"At Milton Keynes, the audience doesn't vanish over the horizon; instead, they rise up in front of you, giving the performance an epic appearance. ".
The resulting pictures, he said, "and of course gave this impression of David being an enormous star playing to huge crowds so that really had quite an effect," were published in the American magazines Newsweek and Time.
The tour took on a new level of significance and turned into a huge event when the rest of the world, especially America where David wasn't as well known, saw what was happening and suddenly wanted him. ".
The day after finishing his A level exams, 18-year-old Chris Wilson drove with friends from Norfolk to the first of the three dates.
We had posters of Bowie stuck in the back car windows because we were so excited, he said. "The day is still singed on my memory.".
"Oh my god, he looked flawless and was in top form. The staging was magical, and he shone and was golden. .
Because we had waited so long to see him, I only recall that it was utterly euphoric.
"His genius was that even in such a large crowd, you felt as though he was singing to you and was staring at you. ".
Dr. Joan Keating, a student at Manchester University at the time, recalled attending the concert with friends as a birthday treat.
She said, "I made an elbow-length white lace dress out of yellow broderie anglaise and wore it with.".
"I recall that Bowie was very far from the area that we were in, but that I felt like a grown-up, glamorous student of textiles at the age of 20, and that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
I'm still able to "feel" the music. " .
For 16-year-old Nick De Marco, traveling to the concert with London-based schoolmates felt like a "big expedition.".
Since we were all young children, we didn't really think about moving to the front, but it was still very exciting because there were so many tens of thousands of people ahead of us, he said.
"But it is amazing when you see the pictures of the size of that gig, and you just think, god, I was in there somewhere," she continued. ".
He recalled the lengthy train ride back to London, arriving at Euston in the early hours, just like many of us did.
The now-attorney Mr. De Marco recalled, "There was no way we could get home, so we all just slept on the concourse. It was full of hundreds of people doing the same thing.
"It felt like an earthquake or something had occurred. ".
Sam Rosser, 15, who traveled from Staffordshire for the performance, claimed that she occasionally felt "slightly hysterical.".
"Never, ever, ever will I forget that day. That experience made me feel incredibly fortunate. I really do miss him. ".
When he was 17 years old and a resident of Woking, Surrey, Dave Willis recalls calling in sick to work so that he and a friend could attend the concert.
Being from the province, he explained, "we used to see bands at civic halls and recreation centers, so the thought of going to this great big bowl to see Bowie and The Beat was just great.".
We simply arrived, descended the front, and had to remain there. As a result, we spent the entire day in the sun without anything to drink. It was extremely hot.
"Everything was just brilliant; every act was spot on, and he came on and just completely blew everyone away," she recalled. ".
Now that he has a gallery in Hammersmith, west London, where he exhibits, sells limited edition prints, and publishes photography books, O'Regan remembers his time with Bowie with great affection.
When I got the photos developed, as was the case with rolls of camera film, "on the tour we would have a slide show in my room, and I really used to enjoy that," he recalled.
"I used to adore going out by myself with David, and we did so frequently.
It was much more than I could have imagined. I was aware of my good fortune at the time. ".
Ricochet: David Bowie 1983, a five-book, signed-and-numbered print, and limited-edition vinyl deluxe box set by Denis O'Regan, will soon be sold separately in unboxed collections.
O'Regan, who has photographed Bowie more than anyone else, is currently working on a new book that will showcase his 20-year collection of images of the artist.
