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The Mirror: David Bowie’s love for Lorde saw her chosen for star’s Brits tribute band

Bowie’s musical director and pal Gerry Leonard disclosed Bowie’s love of Lorde – and joked that the great man would have loved the ­performance but heckled them mercilessly throughout.

Gerry, who performed on Bowie’s final The Reality Tour, played a medley Bowie’s greatest hits at the awards event but admitted of the ­performance: “This is it. It was a one-time event. It’s been intense. There is a sense of camaraderie but nobody is saying, ‘Let’s do another’.”

“He talked about doing a lot more stuff with us. We had a really good time with him and felt this was the band that he was really comfortable with, that he kinda sanctioned us in a sense, so we set together trying to put together the jigsaw puzzle.”

“David asked to see Lorde after Tilda Swinton’s birthday party where she played,“ Gerry says. "He said she was the future of music; a huge compliment. David was already a tastemaker and loved to know what the new music was going.

“He liked to stay current. He also had a razor eye for that too.

"It wasn’t that he liked everything, by no means, but he really liked Lorde so that immediately felt like a good match. Again, it was something that David had commented on.”