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About Kate Bush

  • The Kick Inside
  • Never For Ever
  • The Dreaming
  • Hounds of Love
  • The Sensual World
  • The Red Shoes
  • Director’s Cut
  • 50 Words for Snow
  • Before the Dawn
  • How To Be Invisible

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Welcome to the official Kate Bush website, presented by FISH PEOPLE :

We're delighted to announce a whole bunch of reissued albums in unlimited editions on physical formats. We’ve redesigned the website to show you what's available.

50 Words for Snow

“In a virtual world where no-one knows what’s real, there are people out there who want to feel the music in their hands”

Record store day.

Kate has been asked to be the Ambassador for this year's Record Store Day on 20th April. Fish People will be issuing an exclusive 10" UV printed disc in celebration of the event: Eat the Music (single version), Lily and Big Stripey Lie.

For more details, please visit The Red Shoes page.

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The Escapologist Edition

Fish People are delighted to announce the special presentation of The Dreaming album, featuring the original remastered audio, 2018

The Baskerville Edition

In addition to the reissues there are two special presentations of the Hounds of Love album featuring the original remastered audio, 2018

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The Boxes of Lost at Sea

For more details, please visit the Hounds of Love page.

“I hope you enjoy these reissues. A great deal of care and thought has gone into them.”

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Kate Bush Books First Tour in 35 Years

By Jason Newman

Jason Newman

Reclusive British chanteuse Kate Bush revealed on her website Friday that she’ll perform live for the first time since 1979, booking a 15-date residency at London’s Eventim, Apollo Hammersmith this August and September entitled “Before the Dawn.”

Big Boi Raves About Kate Bush’s ’50 Words for Snow’

“I am delighted to announce that we will be performing some live shows this coming August and September,” wrote the singer. “I hope you will be able to join us and I look forward to seeing you there. We’ll keep you updated with further news on the web site. Meanwhile, all details of concert dates and tickets are in the note below. Very best wishes, Kate”

Upon posting the tour dates, Bush’s website crashed and her name instantly became a trending topic on Twitter, according to the Telegraph .

Bush has released 10 albums since since she began recording in the late Seventies — most recently 2011’s 50 Words for Snow  — but essentially retired from touring after a brief, six-week run in 1979 to support her debut album The Kick Inside . That tour, as Billboard notes, concluded at the Apollo.

There have been numerous reasons given to explain the singer’s absence from the road, including physical exhaustion, a fear of flying and the death of 21-year-old lighting director Bill Duffield at the beginning of the tour. Duffield fell 20 feet to his death while inspecting a darkened venue for Bush, an event that almost caused the singer to cancel the tour.

“It was terrible for her,” Brian Bath, who played guitar with Bush, told the  Guardian . “Kate knew everyone by name, right down to the cleaner, she was so like that, she’d speak to everyone. It’s something you wouldn’t forget, but we just carried through it.”

In 2011, Bush told Mojo (via the Telegraph ), ”I still don’t give up hope completely that I’ll be able to do some live work, but it’s certainly not in the picture at the moment because I just don’t quite know how that would work with how my life is now. Maybe I will do some shows some day. I’d like to think so before I get too ancient. I enjoy singing, but with the albums it’s the whole process I find so interesting. If I was going to do some shows it would be the same thing. Let’s just see, shall we?” 

Tickets go on sale 9:30 a.m. local time on Friday, March 28th.

Kate Bush Before the Dawn Residency Dates

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Kate Bush

Kate Bush: Before the Dawn signals a new era for pop's enduring enigma

T he return of Kate Bush to the stage on Tuesday night after an absence of 35 years is arguably the outstanding musical event of 2014, if not the decade. By comparison, David Bowie's surprise return last year after a 10-year silence looks almost humdrum.

The 100,000 tickets for Bush's 22 shows at the Hammersmith Apollo sold out within minutes in March . Now, the initial sense of shock and awe has been replaced with feverish speculation about what awaits.

The handful of appetite-whetting titbits hint, unsurprisingly, at a highly theatrical spectacle. The doctor's daughter from Welling, Kent, who exploded on to the music scene in 1978 with her debut single Wuthering Heights, was already committed to dance and mime. Throughout her early career, animating the extraordinary subject matter of her songs was a priority. Her sole tour, the 1979 Tour of Life, was a groundbreaking mix of mime, dance, poetry and theatre. Her videos were mini-movies, each one featuring Bush in character.

The little we know about Before the Dawn suggests she has lost none of her gift for drama. The RSC's director Adrian Noble is on board, as is choreographer Anthony van Laast, who worked on the Tour of Life. Bush will perform The Ninth Wave, the conceptual suite from her 1985 classic album Hounds of Love, as part of the show, and spent three days in a flotation tank for the filmed sequences. The musicians include Peter Gabriel's guitarist David Rhodes and West End performer Sandra Marvin. There have been excited mutterings about puppeteers. One source said Bush had been obsessing over every detail, down to the design of the ticket stubs. "Driving us mad," they sighed, not unkindly. It's classic Bush: tightly controlled, utterly idiosyncratic. In an age of full disclosure she has somehow managed to retain the trump cards of mystery and surprise.

Beyond its contents, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Before the Dawn is the possibilities it points towards. One comparison is with Leonard Cohen, whose return to the live arena in 2008 after an absence of 15 years heralded a triumphant third act which has delivered two superb studio albums (the latest due next month) , two live records, a DVD and a new Greatest Hits collection. His live comeback has revived and recontextualised a career that was revered but somewhat dormant, and in need of a little post-millennial polish. Unlike Cohen, Bush has not been forced on stage by unfortunate circumstances – his business manager had embezzled all his money – but the impact could be similarly kinetic.

The signs are positive. Bush has controlled her career with such fierce independence it is inconceivable to imagine her doing anything against her will. She is not performing live for the money, nor because the industry demands it of her. She is doing it because she wants to (she has been talking about a visual adaptation of The Ninth Wave since 1985) and because the timing is right.

She retreated in the mid-90s to raise her son Bertie with her partner, the guitarist Danny McIntosh, at her homes in Berkshire (she has since moved to Oxfordshire) and Devon. But as the heavy lifting of motherhood has lessened – her son recently turned 16 – Bush has become more engaged with her career than at any point since the early 1990s.

She released two albums in 2011 and rebooted Running Up That Hill for the Olympics opening ceremony in 2012. In this context, the live shows can be seen as the logical next phase of a process of re-engagement with the mainstream that has been taking place over the past few years. Her 2011 album, Director's Cut , a relatively spare reworking of songs from The Red Shoes and The Sensual World albums, felt very much like a live album, just without an audience. Anyone looking for clues for the setlist could do worse than give it a couple of spins before Tuesday night.

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The shows are an event in themselves, but also a significant fork in the road. If she is overwhelmed by the exposure we may not see or hear from her for some time. If she enjoys the experience, the ramifications are significant. Before the Dawn will alter the narrative surrounding Bush. Coming – relatively – hot on the heels of Director's Cut and 50 Words for Snow , her physical re-emergence as a living, breathing, singing entity is a huge leap after decades of retreat.

Not only has Bush not performed in concert since 1979, she has not appeared on television since 1994, and has attended public engagements only four times since the birth of Bertie in 1998, most recently last year to accept her CBE. Before the Dawn will, at last, create a new visual frame of reference for a woman who has often felt constrained by the difficulties of living up to the striking series of creative personae she developed as a young woman.

The shows should also put to bed the perception of her being, in her words, a "weirdo recluse". So complete has been Bush's retreat from the spotlight that at times her absence has threatened to overshadow her presence. It's easy to forget that she made her impact as a wildly experimental artist working firmly, and very visibly, within the mainstream music industry.

The early part of her career had all the trappings of the conventional pop star: hit singles, videos, record store signings, TV performances, mimed cameos at European pop festivals. In 1985, she came back after a three-year absence by performing Running Up That Hill on the Wogan show. Even in the 90s she appeared on the Des O'Connor Show and Top of the Pops. Only when Bush vanished in the mid-90s did her creative eccentricities – always a big and positive part of her appeal – really hijack her personal narrative. When she returned after a 12-year silence in 2005 with Aerial it was to fight off rumours that she was mad, or agoraphobic, or a drug addict.

Look more closely, however, and the arc of Bush's career isn't quite as abnormal as is often painted. Since 2005 she has released three albums – not so shabby by today's standards – and Before the Dawn seals the perception of Bush moving towards the territory she inhabited during the first decade of her career: a supremely gifted artist who does not hide in the margins, but is capable of delivering her unique vision into the nation's living rooms.

The experience of appearing in front of 100,000 fans might make Bush reassess the future levels of her personal engagement. If she enjoys it, it's not inconceivable to imagine her performing on Later … with Jools Holland, or again making videos in which she stars, or appearing on television to talk with a sympathetic arts journalist. Before the year is out she will surely release a DVD of Before the Dawn, as well as a new Best Of collection. Both will reanimate her work for existing fans and deliver it anew to younger generations.

At 56, Bush is in her prime. 50 Words for Snow contained passages as remarkable as anything she has ever done, and Before the Dawn contains the promise of unleashing a period of creativity that could rival the extraordinary peaks of her first. Perhaps in time, rather than a defining hiatus, the silence that fell upon Bush between the mid-1990s and mid-noughties will come to be seen as a healthy pause, a reinvigorating gap, between two imperial phases.

Potted profile

Born 30 July 1958, Sidcup, Kent

Career Taught herself to play the piano aged 11, then the organ and violin and, by her mid-teens, had composed more than 200 songs. At 14, Bush was spotted by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, who helped her get a record deal.

Best of times Wuthering Heights topped the UK and Australian charts when Bush was just 19. She repeated this success with her 1980 album Never For Ever and 1985's Hounds of Love.

Low point Bush dropped out of the public eye for many years following the death of her guitarist Alan Murphy and dancer Gary Hurst and the death of her mother to cancer in 1992.

What she says "I find that with people that I haven't seen for a couple of years they won't treat me as a human being. And people in the street will ask for autographs and also won't treat you as human … sometimes I get really scared. Sometimes when I'm going to the supermarket to get the coffee and cat litter, I get freaked out and see all these people staring … You start freaking out like a trapped animal." (NME, 1979)

What they say "My favourite instrument in the whole world is the human female voice, and Kate Bush is one of the reasons why. It is, by far, a Stradivarius, which is why she rarely deals with the press or isn't in a rush to record. She's one of the few who can be above all that." (Marianne Faithfull, 2011)

Graeme Thomson is the author of Under the Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush (Omnibus Press)

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The story of Kate Bush's The Tour Of Life

What happened when Kate Bush finally decided to go on the road in 1979

Kate Bush

Kate Bush has long cornered the market in reclusive, media-averse mystique, but it wasn’t always that way. On April 3, 1979, early evening news show Nationwide dedicated a show to the 20-year-old singer.

The event on which the 25-minute special was hung was the opening night of Bush’s first – and to date – only tour. “Most live artists make their mistakes either in private or in front of a very small audience,” intoned the moustachioed reporter. “Tonight, Kate Bush starts at the top, in front of several thousand. She can’t afford to fail.”

But then Bush was big news. Her star had been arcing across the firmament ever since she first appeared on Top Of The Pops just over a year earlier. That memorable performance, playing her first single, Wuthering Heights , had introduced her as an utterly new and fresh talent. There had been an instant clamour for her to play live, though it would be 14 months before she did.

Looking at Nationwide from the vantage point of 2014, it’s amazing how much unguarded access she granted the filmmakers over a six-month build-up. Footage of early production meetings where people are crammed onto chairs and sofas in a tiny dressing room is followed by a clip of a leotard-and-leggings-clad Bush being worked hard by choreographer Anthony Van Laast during three initial weeks of “gruelling exertion” just to prepare her for several weeks of even more intense choreography.

Remarkably, the camera was allowed into Wood Wharf Studio in Greenwich, south London, where the singer was drilling her eight-piece band through Kite and Wow. Here, it’s possible to get a real sense of the pub gigs she’d started out playing just a couple of years before (“I think the main reason they listen to me is because I’m paying their wages,” she says of the rest of the band, her girlish, sing-song voice cut with chewy south London vocals).

Towards the end of the film, after a brief post-gig chat with an exhausted but exhilarated Bush at the Liverpool Empire, the camera cuts back to an earlier interview. Sitting with her back to a studio mixing desk, she puts a ‘posh’ interview voice on as she answers a string of questions.

At one point, the off-screen interviewer asks, given that she’s achieved so much so swiftly, what has she got left to achieve?

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“Everything – I haven’t really begun yet,” she says, offering a glimpse of the maturity and self-awareness that have always driven her. “I’ve begun on one level, but that’s all gone now, so you begin again.”

She would “begin again” many times over during the ensuing years, but never would she do it onstage. She didn’t retire entirely from live performances – there would be the odd one-off here and there throughout the 80s – but never again would Kate Bush put herself through such an exhilarating, ground-breaking, draining experience as her 1979 tour.

Until now...

When Kate Bush announced earlier this year that she would be performing 15 dates at London’s Hammersmith Apollo throughout August and September (a figure since bumped up to 22 shows) under the banner Before The Dawn, the reaction was shock and awe. Shock that she was finally following up that original tour, a promise she’d made many times but all but her most optimistic fans had long given up hope on her ever keeping. And awe at the prospect of what a woman who broke so much ground could deliver with 35 years of artistic and technological advancements at her disposal.

But there was also a question of just how she could follow up the original spectacle, retrospectively dubbed The Tour Of Life. 35 years on, that extravaganza has grown to almost mythical status – a strange state of affairs given that it was witnessed by more than 100,000 people at the time.

Footage of an hour or so of the show is freely available to view on YouTube, highlighting a performance that bridged the worlds of music, dance, theatre and art. But there’s even more footage that has never been made public – including that of the magician Simon Drake, who played seven different characters during the show.

But in many other respects, the tour was utterly grounded in reality. The singer spent six months beforehand working herself to the bone as she attempted to forge a brand new model of what a live show could be, then another two months doing the same as she took it around Britain and Europe. And it was hit by tragedy when lighting engineer Bill Duffield was killed in an accident after a warm-up show, his death almost bringing the whole juggernaut to a halt before it had even started.

But all that was in the future when the idea for the tour was conceived. Ironically, Bush herself was the first to admit that there was no need for her to do it. “There’s no pressure,” she said in 1979. “But I do feel that I owe people a chance to see me in the flesh. It’s the only opportunity they have without media obstruction.”

“Kate was never at ease in the public eye,” says Brian Southall, who was Artist Development at Bush’s label, EMI, and had worked with the singer since she was signed. “Whether that was performing on Top Of The Pops or doing interviews. She was very reserved, very wary, I think by nature shy. So this spotlight on her was new.”

The singer was fully aware that anything she did would have to raise the bar on everything that came before. But even then, she was trying to manage expectations – not least her own. “If you look at it, it’s my reputation,” she said 1979. “And yes, I hope that it’ll be something special.”

EMI were unsure what the show would involve, so the costs were reportedly split between the label and Bush herself. In return, they got an artist who threw everything into her biggest endeavour so far.

“She was very determined about how her music was presented and performed – that was pretty obvious from her first album,” says Southall. “So no one saw any reason to step in and stop it. The rock’n’roll story was that you put singles out, you put albums out, you went on Top Of The Pops , you toured. But she wasn’t prepared to do the conventional thing.”

In fact no one realised just how unconventional it would be – with its choreography, dancers, props, multiple costume changes, poetry and in-house magician, there was no precedent with which it could be compared.

Rehearsals began in late 1978. Bush had already trained with experimental dancer/mime artist Lindsay Kemp, one-time mentor of David Bowie. But this tour would entail a new level of aptitude entirely, and the stamina to simultaneously dance and sing for more than two hours every night.

Dance teacher Anthony Van Laast was brought in from the London School Of Contemporary Dance to choreograph the shows and help hone Bush’s abilities. Van Laast brought with him two protégés, dancers Stewart Avon Arnold and Gary Hurst. Van Laast put the singer through the equivalent of boot camp at The Place studio in Euston, working with her for two hours each morning. Bush’s own input was crucial to the developing routines.

“Kate knew what she wanted, she had very specific ideas,” says Stewart Avon Arnold today. “What she wanted was in her head, and she wanted people around her who could help her put it into movement. She had so many hats on at that point – artistic, creative, musical.”

If the mornings were for the dance aspect of the slowly coalescing show, then the afternoons were for the music. As soon as she was done with Van Laast, Bush would make the eight mile journey to Wood Wharf Studio in Greenwich, south London, where she would meet up with a band that included Del Palmer, guitarists Brian Bath and Alan Murphy and her multi-instrumentalist brother, Paddy Bush. Also present was her other brother, John Carder Bush, who would perform poetry (and whose wife would provide vegetarian food for the tour). It was hard work for everyone involved and as the show neared, Bush would work 14 hours a day, six days a week.

“You have to make things more obvious so people can hear them,” she said of the live interpretation of her songs. “Maybe make them faster.”

While Bush was utterly in command, sometimes necessity was the mother of invention. With the singer literally throwing her whole body into her performance, holding a traditional mic would be difficult. So a mic that could be worn around the head was devised.

“I wanted to be able to move around, dance and use my hands,” she said. “The sound engineer came up with the idea of adapting a coat hanger. He opened it out and put it into the shape, so that was the prototype.”

In early spring 1979, the various creative wings finally came together at Shepperton Studios. There was the odd stumbling block. Del Palmer, Bush’s bassist and boyfriend, was less than impressed with some aspects of the choreography when he first saw it.

“In those days, dance wasn’t as popular as it is now, and I don’t think Del was clear on what we were doing,” says Stewart Avon Arnold. “There was a bit where we picked Kate up. I remember him going, ‘What they hell are they doing to Kate! They’re holding her between the legs!’”

In late March, a week before the tour was due to start, the whole production moved to the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, north London, for dress rehearsals. Like everything over the past six months, the whole endeavour was undertaken in secrecy.

“It’s like a present that shouldn’t be unwrapped until everyone is there,” reasoned the singer. “It’s like hearing about a film. Everybody tells you it’s amazing – and you could end up disappointed. You shouldn’t get people’s expectations up like that.”

By the time the tour was due to start on April 3 in Liverpool, everyone drilled to within an inch of their existence. If Bush was nervous, she wasn’t letting on.

“There was no suggestion that Kate was scared about going on the road,” says Brian Southall. “I certainly never got a sense that she was nervous about the financial aspect of it. If money was her concern, she’d have been out making albums every year rather than every 10 years. It’s not something that crossed her mind. The creativity was all-important.”

Still, to iron out any potential last-minute problems, a low-key warm up show had been arranged at the Poole Arts Centre in Dorset. It was there that tragedy struck.

Lighting director Bill Duffield was an integral part of the show. A 21-year-old boy wonder who had worked with Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley, he shared the same forward-thinking mindset as Bush herself.

The circumstances of what happened in Poole remain unclear. Some reports said that Duffield fell from the lighting rig while helping to clear the stage away following the show, others said that he fell 20 feet through a hole in the stage. Either way, Duffield sustained serious injuries that would result in his death a week later.

“People were concerned for his well-being,” says Brian Southall, who met up with the Bush entourage in Liverpool the following night. “They were wondering how he was and if and when he would recover. Sadly he didn’t. I think the real shock came when his death was announced.”

24 hours later, with the Nationwide TV cameras posted outside the Liverpool Empire, Kate Bush’s first tour got properly underway under a cloud – albeit one the public weren’t aware of.

If the build up had been intense, then the show itself was a magnificent release. Theatrically divided into three acts, the 24-song set featured tracks from her first two albums, The Kick Inside and Lionheart , plus two as-yet-unheard tracks, Egypt and Violin .

But that was where any similarity with a standard rock show began and ended. On an ever-shifting stage of which only a central ramp was the sole constant physical factor, Bush was a human conductor’s baton leading the entire show. As the scenery shifted through the opening Moving , Room For The Life and Them Heavy People , so did the costumes – and the atmosphere.

“I saw our show as not just people on stage playing the music, but as a complete experience,” she later explained. “A lot of people would say ‘Pooah!’ but for me that’s what it was. Like a play.”

Indeed it was – or perhaps several plays in one. On Egypt , she emerged dressed as a seductive Cleopatra . On S trange Phenomena , she was a magician in top hat and tails, dancing with a pair of spacemen. Former single Hammer Horror replicated the video, with a black-clad Bush dancing with a sinister, black-masked figure behind her, while Oh England My Lionheart cast her as a World War II pilot.

Like every actor, she was surrounded by a cast of strong supporting characters. As well as dancers Stewart Avon Arnold and Gary Hurst, several songs featured magician Simon Drake, who performed his signature ‘floating cane’ trick during L’Amour Looks Something Like You . And then there was her brother, John Carder Bush, who recited his own poetry before The Kick Inside , Symphony In Blue (fused with elements of experimental composer Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie 1 ) and the inevitable encore, Wuthering Heights .

But at the heart of it all was Bush, whirling and waving, reaching for the sky one moment, swooping to the floor the next. Occasionally she looked like she was concentrating on what was coming next. More often, she looked lost in the moment.

“When I perform, that’s just something that happens in me,” she later said. “It just takes over, you know. It’s like suddenly feeling that you’ve leapt into another structure, almost like another person, and you just do it.”

Brian Southall was in the audience at the Liverpool Empire. Despite the fact he worked for EMI, he had no idea what to expect. “You just sat in the audience and went, ‘Wow’. It was extraordinary. Bands didn’t take a dancer onstage, they didn’t take a magician onstage, even Queen at their most lavish or Floyd at their most extravangant. They might have used tricks and props in videos, but not other people onstage.

“That was the most interesting thing about it – her handing it over to other people, who became the focus of attention. That’s something that never bothered Kate – that ‘I will be onstage all the time and you will only see me.’ It was like a concept album, except it was a concept show.”

Two and a quarter hours later, this ‘concept show’ was done and the real world intruded once again. If there was any sense of celebration afterwards, then the main attraction was keeping it to herself. “I remember sitting in the bar after the show at Liverpool and Kate wasn’t there. She was with Del,” says Southall. “She wasn’t an extrovert offstage. There were two people. There was that person you saw onstage, in that extraordinary performance, and then offstage there was this fairly shy, reserved person.”

Her reluctance to indulge in the usual rock’n’roll behaviour was both characteristic and understandable. It was a draining performance, night after night as the tour continued around Britain and then into Europe. It was hard work for everyone involved.

“We went out, but not exceptionally,” says Stewart Avon Arnold. “We weren’t out raving until seven o’clock in the morning on heroin. There’s no way we could have done the show the next day.”

They occasionally found time to let their hair down. The Scottish Sunday Mail reported that certain members of the touring party indulged in a water-and-pillow fight at a hotel in Glasgow, causing a reported £1,000 damage. EMI allegedly agreed to foot the bill, though they stressed that the singer wasn’t present during this PG-rated display of on-the-road carnage.

After 10 shows in mainland Europe, the tour returned to London for three climactic dates at the Hammersmith Odeon between May 12 and 14. The second of these shows was arranged as tribute to the late Bill Duffield. Bush and her band were joined onstage by Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley, both of whom had worked with Duffield. Gabriel and Harley tackled various Bush songs ( Them Heavy People , a renamed The Woman With the Child In Her Eyes ) and played their own songs (Gabriel’s Here Comes The Flood and I Don’t Remember , Harley’s Best Years Of Our Lives and Come Up And See Me ), before everyone came onstage for a cover of The Beatles’ Let It Be .

“Kate asked us all to come and sing with Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley,” says Stewart Avon Arnold. “We were onstage, singing chorus with these two icons. And I’m not a singer. It was an emotional night.”

48 hours later, the tour was over. And so was Kate Bush’s career as a live artist – at least for another 35 years.

Kate Bush hasn’t truly explained why she never took to the road again after that very first tour. Various theories have been posited – a fear of flying, the psychic damage inflicted by the death of Bill Duffield, the sheer effort of will and vast reservoir of energy that it took to get what was in her head onto the stage. The latter seems most likely, though it could just as easily be a combination of all three. Or it could be none of them.

“I need five months to prepare a show and build up my strength for it, and in those five months I can’t be writing new songs and I can’t be promoting the album,” she once said, the closest approximation to a reason she has ever offered. “The problem is time… and money.”

Not that there wasn’t a call for it, especially overseas. America was one of the few countries where she didn’t sell records, and the idea was floated that she play a show at New York’s prestigious Radio City Music Hall so that her US label, Capitol, could bring all the important media and retail contacts to the show to see what the fuss was about. “She’s not a great flier,” says Southall. “And she wouldn’t do it.”

Even more tantalising was an offer to support Fleetwood Mac in the US in late ’79. A high-profile slot opening for one of the most successful bands in the world would was an open goal for most artists. But Bush wasn’t most artists.

“Like most support acts, she was going to get half an hour, no dancers and no magicians, so just going up there with four musicians and banging out a couple of hits,” says Brian Southall. “And she wasn’t prepared to do that.”

Not that she has ever ruled it out. In fact, in all of the increasingly infrequent interviews she has given since then, she’s been asked when she would next tour. The answer has always been a charmingly vague tease that, sure, it could happen if the circumstances were right. She once floated the idea that she would write a concept album specifically to base a stage show around (it never materialised), while at one point she was rumoured to be working with Muppet creator Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop on a new idea, even announcing in 1990 that she would be playing live the following year (that never materialised either).

But now, out of the blue, she’s finally delivered on that promise (though, tellingly, it’s for a residency rather than a tour). “She’s only playing one venue,” says Southall. “That means she can nest without the hassle of taking it all on the road for weeks on end.”

What exactly her belated live return holds in store for her fans isn’t clear. “I don’t know whether she’ll refer back to the original show in any way,” says Southall. “Will there be dancers, will there be magicians, will there be dancing elephants? I think she feels comfortable with more people onstage with her. I think the idea of her sitting down at a piano and playing an hour and a half of Kate Bush songs would terrify the life out of her. The idea of having people around who she is comfortable with and finds some support from, whether that’s Dave Gilmour turning up or whoever.”

The only thing that’s certain is that it won’t be a by-the-numbers live show.

“She’s an innovator,” says Stewart Avon Arnold. “She did things that had never been done before. She was the first one in this country to merge creative rock music with creative dance. She didn’t have a genre. She had a mentality.”

This article originally appeared in issue 46 of Prog Magazine, May 2014

Dave Everley

Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock , Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw , not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo , the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill . He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.

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kate bush tour london

What to expect from Kate Bush's new gigs

Here's everything we know (and can predict) about the singer's first live shows since 1979.

This morning, Kate Bush  announced that she would be playing a series of shows at the Eventim Apollo in London. Dubbed Before The Dawn, the gigs will be her first live shows in 34 years , since 1979's The Tour Of Life, which saw Bush play Europe and Britain for six weeks. To really grasp how earth-shattering the news is, let's consider this: Beyonce was minus   two years old when Kate Bush stopped touring.  

Bush was reportedly so exhausted after The Tour of Life that she never wanted to repeat the experience; her fear of flying and the tragic death of her lighting director Bill Duffield, who was killed in an accident during her concert at Poole Arts Centre, may have all contributed to that decision. John Kelly, who co-produced her first three records, called it  an "absolutely tragedy... like a star dying early".

Looks like Bush is set to change all that: she'll play 15 shows from 26 August, and tickets go on sale at 9.30 am on March 28. In honour of Bush coming back to the stage, here's what we expect (and hope) for her long-awaited return:

When performing "Hammer Horror" onstage, Bush decided to recreate the totally batty and incredibly physical dance she performed in its  music video , complete with balaclava-clad backing dancer. In Bush's own words, she wanted the performance to be "totally dedicated to dance, so I could let rip more". Bush is now 55, so we're not sure how limber she still is – but let's face it, she could have eaten kebabs every day for the last 30 years and she'd still be a better dancer than us. 

Troye Sivan – Rush

WHATEVER SHE DOES, IT'LL BE GROUNDBREAKING

Given that Bush hasn't toured since 1979, she could basically sneeze onstage for two hours at the Apollo and it would still be considered a historic first. But we've got high hopes. The Tour of Life – her first and only tour – basically destroyed all notions of what a stage concert could do, incorporating everything from dance, poetry, music and theatre. Oh, and a magician. Melody Maker proclaimed it "the most magnificent spectacle ever encountered in the world of rock". 

TECHNICAL INNOVATION

You might not immediately associate Kate Bush's music with pioneering tech, but the singer created the headset microphone that's widely in use today (with a little assist from her tour engineer). She wanted to be able to dance without holding a mic, and wound up devising the precursor to the headset mic while formulating an alternative with a wire clothes-hanger. Who knows what she'll come up with next? 

SONGS THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN HEARD LIVE

Bush went on to release nine albums after The Tour of Life came to an end. She's never performed an album tour since, and she hasn't even performed live in 12 years – not since her appearance with David Gilmour at the Royal Festival Hall to sing "Comfortably Numb" in 2002. That means she's got nine albums worth of material to pick and choose from, and most of them will never have been performed live. Ever. 

MORE COSTUMES THAN A GAGA GIG

The Tour of Life featured no less than 17 costume changes over the 24 song set. Almost every song featured Bush in a new character: from a gangster in a trench coat on "Them Heavy People" to a top-hatted magician on "Strange Phenomena", along with elaborate costumes for her backing dancers. Sure, Bush might be past the pop star wardrobe days, but part of us still hopes she'll break out the bikini from " Babooshka ". 

COLLABORATORS

Bush drilled her band and her dancers within an inch of their lives, but that didn't mean she wanted to hog the stage. Peter Gabriel has performed with her, and once joined Bush onstage to sing a cover of the Beatles' "Let It Be" at a benefit concert; David Gilmour has been a longtime champion of hers. An outsider choice? Fryars  has collaborated with Simon Drake, the illusionist who helped to devise and performed in The Tour of Life. Maybe Drake could engineer an intro for the electro-balladeer? 

SHE'LL PLAY THE HITS

Well, she'll definitely play "Running Up That Hill", at least. There were strong rumours in 2012 that Bush was planning to perform her classic song for the Olympic closing ceremony – a "2012 remix" even went up in the weeks before the ceremony. Bush never appeared at the Olympics and we had to make do with Jessie J pretending to be Freddie Mercury instead.

Bush has always played coy with the rumours, but her last confirmation of a gig proper was back in the 90s, when she told a fan convention that she wanted to play in 1991. Sadly, that never came to pass, but there were strong rumours that she had actually contacted Jim Henson's company (as in, Jim Henson of The Muppet Show ) to work with her on a new stage show. Please god, let there be muppets.

OKAY, PUPPETS

Her last album, 2011's  50 Words for Snow , was accompanied by three animation shorts including "Eider Falls at Lake Tahoe", a black-and-white shadow puppet animation. All the shorts – especially "Lake Tahoe" – amply demonstrate that Bush remains as theatrical  as ever, and her creativity in bringing songs to life is still in full boom. Some comeback tours may err on the conservative, crowd-pleasing side, but somehow, we don't expect that from Kate Bush. We'll be getting a ticket – will you?

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Cloudbusting: The Music Of Kate Bush Tour Dates

Cloudbusting: The Music Of Kate Bush

‘If you missed seeing Kate herself, Cloudbusting are the next best thing!’ Simon Mayo, BBC Radio 2

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kate bush tour london

Kate Bush announces new London residency... 35 years after her retirement from touring

By Alison Boshoff for the Daily Mail and Sarah Bull

Published: 07:13 EDT, 21 March 2014 | Updated: 08:29 EDT, 28 March 2014

View comments

The announcement was, as is customary with Kate Bush, a complete surprise.

Early yesterday, the 55-year-old, who has lived as a recluse for the past two decades, posted a notice on her website saying she will play 15 shows at the Eventim Apollo Hammersmith in London starting this summer.

Demand for the tickets, which go on sale next week priced between £49 and £135, will be fierce and they are expected to sell out within minutes.

New plans: Kate Bush's first gigs for 35 years sold out in just 15 minutes

New plans: Kate Bush's first gigs for 35 years sold out in just 15 minutes

‘I hope you will be able to join us and I look forward to seeing you there,’ Bush wrote.

Her site crashed under the weight of interest.

Some fans cried tears of joy at the unexpected announcement.

Others said they expect the concerts to be ‘the most important of the decade.’ But will they live up to the hype and the hysteria of her fans?

Worn out: Kate said that the reason she hasn't toured is simply because she finds it too tiring

Worn out: Kate said that the reason she hasn't toured is simply because she finds it too tiring

The singer, who became famous for her strangely ethereal voice on the song Wuthering Heights, hasn’t played a tour since 1979.

Indeed that famously ill-fated exercise was the only tour of her entire career.

She told an interviewer it had been a disaster.

‘By the end I felt a terrific need to retreat as a person, because I felt that my sexuality – which in a way I hadn’t really had a chance to explore myself – was being given to the world in a way which I found impersonal.’

To her horror, she was presented as a sexually desirable plaything in a leotard, when all she wanted was to be taken seriously as an artist.

She developed a fear of appearing on stage and an overwhelming fear of stalkers and kidnappers which has conspired to keep her an almost complete recluse for more than two decades.

Indeed in a rare TV interview in 2011, she confessed she is still haunted by stage fright.

A friend of the singer said yesterday: ‘She was asked about whether she might tour again in every single interview she did for the last album in 2011 and maybe that made her consider it.

'The answer was always that she hadn’t closed her mind to it.

'And now she has just decided she wants to.

'It’s not about the money, because she could have done bigger venues, and in any case she is wealthy.’

1979: The leotard years - Kate Bush during her last tour

1979: The leotard years - Kate Bush during her last tour

It may also have something to do with the fact her son Bertie is 16 and she feels she can now spend time away from the family home.

It is possible, say friends, that she would like Bertie to see her perform.

Although she turned down an invitation to play at the Olympics closing ceremony in 2012, she has been preparing herself to return to the spotlight by degrees.

When her 2011 album 50 Words For Snow was released, she agreed to interviews to promote the album but only so long as they were conducted over the phone or, bizarrely, via Skype – but with the video link switched off.

Former fame: Kate in a stunning silver outfit performing on stage back in the 1980s

Former fame: Kate in a stunning silver outfit performing on stage back in the 1980s

When she was nominated for a Brit award in February 2011, she stayed at home, but she astonished everyone in 2012 when she turned up to receive a South Bank Arts award. She could be seen trembling under the stage lights.

During her hermit-like absence, many myths had circulated.

She had mental health problems, she was a compulsive over-eater, she was a complete recluse.

But at the South Bank awards audiences saw a charming, if nervous, woman of breath-taking talent.

Worth an estimated £30million, Bush has a hideaway eyrie in Devon and another place in the home counties where she lives with her partner Danny McIntosh, a guitarist she met in 1992.

Bush has always required solitude and quiet to write her curious, elegiac songs.

Her retreat from showbusiness began in the early 1990s and when her son was born in 1998, he became her first priority.

‘She has spent the past 30 years backing away,’ says biographer Graeme Thomson. ‘Her career has been an incremental process of withdrawal.’

Which makes the announcement that the raven-haired singer is ready to leave her Devon retreat all the more intriguing.

Fans who have followed her through the wilderness years will be breathlessly waiting to see if she can still cast the same spell she did all those years ago when she first wore her red dress on the moors of Wuthering Heights.

BEAUTY ANXIOUS ABOUT HER BODY IMAGE

2013: Proud - Receiving her CBE

2013: Proud - Receiving her CBE

2014: Flawless - In promo shots for her new show

2014: Flawless - In promo shots for her new show

The leotard-clad waif-like figure of Kate Bush adorned the bedrooms of thousands of teenage boys back in the Seventies and Eighties.

But during the years that she shut herself away, her changing size became a sensitive issue. 

Director Jimmy Murakami, who was asked to shoot the video for her single King Of The Mountain in 2005, later told biographer Graeme Thomson: ‘I thought she looked fabulous, but she kept bringing up her weight.’

Pictured receiving her CBE from the Queen at Windsor Castle last year she certainly looked more matronly than she did in her heyday, but her skin was as luminous and her hair as much as a waterfall as it ever was. 

Her anxiety about her looks is such that in promotional material released for her upcoming tour, showing Bush floating in water while wearing a life jacket, her jawline and skin appear to have been airbrushed.

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Cloudbusting - The Music of Kate Bush tour dates 2024

Cloudbusting - The Music of Kate Bush is currently touring across 2 countries and has 40 upcoming concerts.

Their next tour date is at Wycombe Swan Theatre in High Wycombe, after that they'll be at Weymouth Pavilion in Weymouth.

Currently touring across

Cloudbusting - The Music of Kate Bush live.

Upcoming concerts (40) See nearest concert

Wycombe Swan Theatre

Weymouth Pavilion

Babbacombe Theatre

The Haymarket

Cromer Pier

Princess Pavilion

Crewe Lyceum Theatre

King George's Hall

Kendal Brewery Arts Centre

The Roses Theatre

Queens Theatre

Rescue Rooms

The Button Factory

Spirit Store

Empire Music Hall

Hawk's Well Theatre

Komedia Bath

The Devils Arse at Peak Cavern

Torchlight Festival of Camping

Holmfirth Picturedrome

Wyvern Theatre

The Stables

Churchill Theatre

The Brindley Theatre

Playhouse, Whitley Bay

Shanklin Theatre

St Peter's Church

The Flowerpot

Manchester Academy 3

Brudenel Social Club

Swan Theatre

The Brook, Southampton

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IMAGES

  1. Kate Bush reveals why she had a 35 year break from the stage

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  2. Kate Bush Tour: Reclusive Star Confirms 15 Date 'Before The Dawn

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  3. Watch a rare Kate Bush concert from 1979 and other BBC performances

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  4. KATE BUSH / TOUR OF LIFE IN LONDON PALLADIUM 【2CD】

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  5. Kate Bush announces new London tour... 35 years after her retirement

    kate bush tour london

  6. Kate Bush announces new London tour... 35 years after her retirement

    kate bush tour london

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  1. Before the Dawn (Kate Bush concert residency)

    Before the Dawn was a concert residency by the English singer-songwriter Kate Bush in 2014 at the Hammersmith Apollo in London. The residency consisted of 22 dates, attended by almost 80,000 people. It was Bush's first series of live shows since The Tour of Life in 1979, which finished with three performances at the same venue.

  2. Kate Bush Concerts & Live Tour Dates: 2024-2025 Tickets

    $42.99 View All Concerts and tour dates Past AUG 26 2018 Kirkwall, United Kingdom The Sound Archive

  3. Kate Bush Tickets, 2024 Concert Tour Dates

    Find Kate Bush tour schedule, concert details, reviews and photos. Buy Kate Bush tickets from the official Ticketmaster.com site. Find Kate Bush tour schedule, concert details, reviews and photos. ... making certain that her string of 2014 "Before the Dawn" dates at London's Hammersmith Apollo was the tour announcement heard round the world ...

  4. Homepage

    Homepage - Kate Bush. We're delighted to announce a whole bunch of reissued albums in unlimited editions on physical formats. We've redesigned the website to show you what's available. Kate has been asked to be the Ambassador for this year's Record Store Day on 20th April. Fish People will be issuing an exclusive 10" UV printed disc in ...

  5. Kate Bush Books London Tour, Her First in 35 Years

    Reclusive British chanteuse Kate Bush revealed on her website Friday that she'll perform live for the first time since 1979, booking a 15-date residency at London's Eventim, Apollo...

  6. Kate Bush: Before the Dawn signals a new era for pop's enduring enigma

    Her sole tour, the 1979 Tour of Life, was a groundbreaking mix of mime, dance, poetry and theatre. Her videos were mini-movies, each one featuring Bush in character. The little we know about...

  7. Kate Bush Concert & Tour History

    Kate Bush Tours & Concerts ← Previous 1 2 Next → Latest Videos View All Videos Kate Bush Sep 24, 2014 London, England, United Kingdom Added by Poppydog Kate Bush Sep 23, 2014 London, England, United Kingdom Added by Misterjones71 Latest Photos View All Photos Kate Bush Sep 24, 2014 London, England, United Kingdom

  8. The story of Kate Bush's The Tour Of Life

    When Kate Bush announced earlier this year that she would be performing 15 dates at London's Hammersmith Apollo throughout August and September (a figure since bumped up to 22 shows) under the banner Before The Dawn, the reaction was shock and awe.

  9. Kate Bush's The Tour of Life at Forty-Five: Marking the Anniversary

    Maybe better known as The Lionheart Tour or The Kate Bush Tour, I think there should be a cleaned up video of one of the sets. I think fans have tried to make HD videos of various sets, though there has been no official release. ... before coming back to London on 12th May. Aside from reduced sets on 24th, 26th, 28th and 29th April because Bush ...

  10. Kate Bush announces first tour for 35 years

    By Alice Vincent 21 March 2014 • 12:45am Kate Bush will tour in August for the first time since 1979, the singer announced this morning. Bush, 55, announced the Before the Dawn tour on...

  11. Kate Bush to play 15 London dates

    An announcement on her official website said she will play 15 shows at London's Hammersmith Apollo in August and September. The title for the show is Before the Dawn and the first date will be 26...

  12. What to expect from Kate Bush's new gigs

    21March 2014. Text Zing Tsjeng. This morning, Kate Bush announced that she would be playing a series of shows at the Eventim Apollo in London. Dubbed Before The Dawn, the gigs will be her first live shows in 34 years, since 1979's The Tour Of Life, which saw Bush play Europe and Britain for six weeks. To really grasp how earth-shattering the ...

  13. FEATURE: A Groundbreaking Stage Revolution: Kate Bush's Tour of Life

    BETWEEN 2nd April and 14th May, 1979… IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the Tour of Life in Hammersmith in May 1979/ PHOTO CREDIT: Max Browne Kate Bush embarked on the mighty Tour of Life. I am revisiting it again (I wrote a feature last year), as this is an aspect of Bush's career that is not discussed much.

  14. Kate Bush Tour Dates & Concert History

    1 2014 London, UK Eventim Apollo Sep 30 2014 London, UK Eventim Apollo Sep 27 2014 London, UK Eventim Apollo View all past concerts alex-t-hornby Photos (1) Posters (3) List of all Kate Bush tour dates and concert history (1979 - 2014). Find out when Kate Bush last played live near you.

  15. Cloudbusting: The Music Of Kate Bush tour dates & tickets 2024

    Tour Dates March 2024. Mar 22 Fri. High Wycombe, Swan Theatre. Cloudbusting: The Music Of Kate Bush . View Tickets April 2024. Apr 11 Thu. ... The Music Of Kate Bush. More info September 2024. Sep 04 Wed. Swindon, Wyvern Theatre. Cloudbusting: The Music Of Kate Bush . View Tickets Sep 05 Thu.

  16. The Tour of Life

    The Tour of Life (originally known as the "Lionheart Tour", and also officially referred to as the Kate Bush Tour) [a] was the first and only concert tour by English singer-songwriter and musician Kate Bush. Starting in April 1979, the tour lasted just over one month.

  17. Kate Bush Concert Setlists

    Get Kate Bush setlists - view them, ... Kate Bush at Eventim Apollo, London, England. Artist: Kate Bush, Tour: Before the Dawn, Venue: Eventim Apollo, London, England. Lily; ... This Day in 1979 Kate Bush Begins First + Only Tour with 22 Songs. Apr 2, 2020. Tour Update Close Video.

  18. The moment Kate Bush returned to the stage after 35 years

    Kate Bush took to the stage at the Hammersmith Odeon on May 14th, 1979, to round off The Tour of Life. She knew then that it would be her last concert for a considerable period, but what nobody expected it was to be a 35-year long live hiatus. Despite never touring after 1979, Bush didn't disappear too far away from the public eye.

  19. Kate Bush Tickets, 2024 Concert Tour Dates

    In 2014 Bush thrilled fans with the announcement of her "Before the Dawn" series of shows in London, her first live performances in 35 years. Buy Kate Bush tickets from the official Ticketmaster.ca site. Find Kate Bush tour schedule, concert details, reviews and photos.

  20. Kate Bush Tour 2024/2025

    london O2 Arena on August 27 2014 Kate Bush Tickets - Compare and Save Now! Buy Official Face Value Kate Bush Tickets - Find Upcoming Concerts, Events & Tour Dates at Stereoboard.com - The Ticket Price Comparison Site!

  21. Kate Bush announces London tour... 35 years after her retirement

    Kate Bush announces new London residency... 35 years after her retirement from touring. By Alison Boshoff for the Daily Mail and Sarah Bull. Published: 07:13 EST, 21 March 2014 | Updated: 08:29 ...

  22. Cloudbusting

    10 Wimborne, UK Tivoli Theatre Feb 11 Stroud, UK The Sub Rooms Feb 17 Shrewsbury, UK The Buttermarket Feb 18 Nottingham, UK Rescue Rooms Mar 3 Plymouth, UK The Quad Theatre Mar 4 Truro, UK Old Bakery Studios Mar 10 Holmfirth, UK Holmfirth Picturedrome Mar 11 Morecambe, UK