FEATURE:
Darkness Before the Dawn…
21st March, 2014: Kate Bush Drops a Wonderful Bombshell
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THERE will be a lot to discuss….
as we head closer to the tenth anniversary of Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn. The first of twenty-two nights from Hammersmith’s Eventim Apollo took place on 26th August, 2014. One of the most spectacular and moving live events in generations, I was sadly not one of the fortunate ones who was in attendance. That retrospective anguish of missing out on something never to be repeated still cuts deep! Regardless, the live album is available. We can get a semblance of what it must have been like witnessing something so spectacular and epic! No other artist but Kate Bush could mount such a live spectacle. Her only tour happened in 1979. This 2014 residency came thirty-five years later. Understandably, when 2014 began, nobody expected Kate Bush to announce Before the Dawn! To be fair, I am not sure what the exact moment was when Kate Bush decided to do it. She was convinced her son, Bertie. A wise and passionate child, he knew that his mother had the confidence and ability to get on the stage again and produce something magnificent! Considering expectation, nerves and pressure, it is fair that Bush would have been reluctant to do something as committed and large as a residency. A one-off gig is big enough. Twenty-two dates of such a gruelling and demanding show is something else! When the residency began, Kate Bush was fifty-six. Even though artists like Madonna right now are embarking on huge worldwide tours, not many of Kate Bush’s similar-aged peers were. In terms of solo artist at least. Even fewer who had been away from the stage for years. I can imagine there would have been doubts in her mind when it came to pulling off such a feat. There is still so much ageism in music. Especially when it comes to women and their ability. Kate Bush, who found 1979’s The Tour of Life so draining and tough (though she had great fun on the tour), would have cast her mind back and remembered why she never repeated it.
Regardless, there was this moment when doubts around cost, scale, physical and emotional demands, nerves…and wondering whether an audience would embrace and welcome her after all these years was allayed and she committed. I shall come to the actual first night itself. In a tenth anniversary feature closer to August, I hope to speak to people who were actually at the residency – hopefully including a few famous faces and artists! I am getting too far ahead. Imagine being a Kate Bush fan on 20th March, 2014! That day was a Thursday. Looking forward to the end of the week, there was not much to distinguish it in terms of its special-ness. In terms of Kate Bush anniversaries, there would have been nothing people were planning for. As Twitter and social media was still fairly young and there was not this buzz and sense something was going to happen, people were taken aback. 20th March, 2014 was the final day of ‘nothing’. Bush’s 50 Words for Snow came out in 2011. Since then, there has been the odd bit here and there. Nothing in terms of a follow-up album or any inkling of live work. On 21st March, 2014, that all changed. This was the day when Kate Bush announced through her website that Before the Dawn was born. I remember that date. I was naïve enough to think I could go to work, return, and that there would be tickets left for any of the dates! It is no wonder that there was such media and fan frenzy that day. Waking up on a Friday and relieved the working week was over, many were given a bonus and extra reason to celebrate when the news dropped! It was a monumental moment out of the blue. Nobody realistically would ever imagined that the next thing we would get from Kate Bush was news of a residency. Maybe an album or new single. But this extensive and huge live commitment?!
Thanks to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia for this information about the residency: Originally, fifteen live dates were announced. A pre-sale ticket allocation took place on 26th March for fans who had signed up to her website in previous months (and years). After this pre-sale, a further seven dates were added due to the high demand. Tickets went on sale to the general public on 28th March. Most of them were sold out within fifteen minutes. Think back now, it almost didn’t seem real. But it was! Kate Bush News looked back at that magical time:
“About Before the Dawn…..
Kate performed a series of 22 live dates in August/September/October 2014 at London’s Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith. These were her first live shows in 35 years! The venue was the same (now renamed) Hammersmith Odeon where the Tour of Life ended in 1979. All dates sold out on the morning of March 28th in a matter of minutes. The performances were called “Before the Dawn” and in her announcement on March 21st 2014 Kate said on the official site:
“I am delighted to announce that we will be performing some live shows this coming August and September.
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”
The 22 dates were: AUGUST: 26th, 27th, 29th, 30th. SEPTEMBER: 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 13th, 16th, 17th, 19th, 20th, 23rd, 24th, 26th, 27th, 29th, 30th OCTOBER: 1st
During the show’s run, the concerts received hugely positive reviews (see below). All of Kate’s 11 albums re-entered the UK charts in late August, with Kate becoming the only female artist in history to have 8 albums in the UK Top 40 in the same week, rivalling similar records by The Beatles and Elvis Presley. The concerts were filmed over two nights in September, for a possible DVD/Blu-ray release, but Kate has never said anything publicly about such a release. Kate wrote detailed production notes in the accompanying tour programme, describing the enormous efforts of the large team of talent that brought the shows together”.
Of course, on 21st March, 2014, nobody really knew what the live show would consist of. Scrambling for tickets, Kate Bush fans were more concerned about claiming their place. Getting to one of those nights! What was unveiled was the realisation of ambitions from Kate Bush and dreams of many fans. Not only was she bringing songs to the stage she had never performed live before. Two distinct and beloved suites were going to be combined. The second disc of Bush’s 2005 double-album, Aerial, is called A Sky of Honey. Charting the course of a summer’s day, it is this gorgeous, almost symphonic (in a domestic way) look at nature and the unfolding day emerge. Normality and the mundane alongside the extraordinary. Also, for the first and only time, Bush mounted Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave. Released in 1985, Hounds of Love made an instant impact. Bush was going to bring The Ninth Wave to the cinema or T.V. She has planned a filmic version but, as was often the case, other things got in the way. We have seen no televisual or filmed version of this. The only full realisation and construction of the suite was seen by those lucky enough to see Before the Dawn. It makes it gutting that DVD of the residency will never be released!
It is going to be great officially marking the tenth anniversary of Before the Dawn in August. That first night (26th August, 2014) was one that many thought would never happen. I felt that it was crucial marking the announcement of the tour. That shock that we got when news was posted! Ten years ago on 21st March, we were all in for a massive and wonderful revelation. Since 2014, Bush released the live album of Before the Dawn (in 2016). She has remastered and re-released her studio albums. She has had chart success with Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), with a big helping hand from Stranger Things. She has posted updates to her website, been interviewed for Woman’s Hour (in 2023). She has also published a book of lyrics, How to Be Invisible (2018). We have no idea what the next project from Kate Bush will be. Whether an eleventh studio album will ever come. What we do know is, that back in 2014, a host of fans from around the world converged to the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith to watch an icon return to the stage. That announcement on 21st March, 2014 was like a bomb going off! Almost blind-sided by it, there was this enormous fever and happiness. I guess the days previous offered up a hint that something might happen. For those who managed to get tickets and were looking ahead to Before the Dawn in August 2014, they had little idea what a spectacular and life-changing concert they would see! It is hard to believe that that was nearly…
TEN years ago.