By Paul Sandle
LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Londoners honoured
the memory of British rock legend David Bowie on Monday by
gathering to party in the area where he was born, lighting
candles and singing his greatest hits.
A mural of Bowie in Brixton became a natural rallying point
for fans, some of them in tears, to lay flowers while others
sang "Rebel Rebel" and "Starman".
Bowie, who died of cancer aged 69, was a pioneering
chameleon of performance imagery, straddling the worlds of
hedonistic rock, fashion, art and drama for five decades,
pushing the boundaries of music and his own sanity to produce
some of the most innovative songs of his generation.
Victoria Gafoor, a 22-year old teaching assistant who has
Bowie's iconic lightning strike tattooed on her wrist, said she
had been hysterical when she heard that Bowie was dead.
She first encountered him in the movie The Labyrinth when
she was five: "Since then, I've just been obsessed."
"He never stopped pushing the boundaries: he was absolutely
fearless," she said. "He just did what he wanted to do, and
that's what inspired so many people to just be themselves. Gay,
straight, weird - whatever is your thing, he fully embraced it."
Tributes poured in from titans of popular music, including
the Rolling Stones, Madonna and Kanye West, and even British
Prime Minister David Cameron and the Vatican.
Across London, noticeboards mourned Bowie's death with some
of his best quotes. In the metro, one board read: "I don't know
where I'm going from here but I promise it won't be boring",
while the BT Tower flashed "David Bowie Rest In Peace".
Outside a cinema in Brixton where "David Bowie, Our Brixton
Boy RIP" had replaced the name of the movie that was showing,
fans sang his 1972 hit "Starman": "There's a starman waiting in
the sky. He'd like to come and meet us. But he thinks he'd blow
our minds."
Will Maloney, a 40-year old technical support manager, was
toasting Bowie with a plastic glass of red wine.
"I am a huge David Bowie fan, not just for his music but for
his pioneering spirit," he said. "I was just on my way home and
I thought it was a lovely way of saying 'Thank you, David'."
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kevin Liffey)