FEATURE:
Back on Location…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush with Nigel Kennedy at the BPI (BRIT) Awards at Grosvenor House Hotel in London on 9th February, 1987/PHOTO CREDIT: Duncan Raban/Popperfoto via Getty Images
Spotlighting Three Very Special Kate Bush Spots
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I am returning to a book…
that I spotlighted a little while ago. It is Max Cookney’s Kate Bush: On Location. It is a book that compiles and dissects important locations from throughout Kate Bush’s career: “From recording studios to concert venues, television centres to outdoor filming locations, record company offices to vinyl record pressing plants – this fan-written book will take you on a virtual tour across the UK and the rest of the world to experience the real-life locations that have shaped Kate's music and career”. I did mention a few choice locations featured throughout the book. I am going to hone down to my favourite three Kate Bush locations. Having read through the book, these are the ones that caught my eye and have stayed with me. Cookney’s brilliant and descriptive writing takes us inside these spaces and places. One that I am repeating from last time is the Hammersmith Odeon. Located on 45 Queen Caroline Street, this is a venue that Kate Bush first played in 1979 as part of The Tour of Life. So special and iconic, she housed her 2014 Before the Dawn residency there. It is one of the most important locations when we think of Kate Bush’s career:
“The Hammersmith Odeon – or Eventim Apollo, as it’s currently known – should be no stranger to the Kate Bush fandom. More recently, it’s where Kate performed her twenty-two-night Before the Dawn shows in the autumn of 2014, and where, some thirty-five years before that, she performed her final three Lionheart tour dates (including the benefit gig on the 12th of May in aid of Bill Duffield). But Kate had visited the Hammersmith Odeon before that. Twice, in fact (that we know of). The first visit is believed to have been as early as 1973, when it is thought a tearful fourteen-year-old Cathy Bush cried out loud with the rest of the audience upon hearing David Bowie’s shock announcement of his decision to kill off Ziggy Stardust. Of course, Bowie did make a return to the Hammersmith Odeon (about ten years later), as did Kate, but a few years earlier than that, in February, 1979. As part of the planning process, the Lionheart tour manager, Richard Ames, took Kate to the Odeon for a very specific reason. He’d taken her there on the 6th of February – the day after a gig by the hard rock band Review copy for Sam Liddicott 58 Nazareth – so he could let her hear what he described at the time as the “top-notch ML Executives PA system” the band had been using the night before (a system owned and used by The Who and ultimately chosen for Kate’s tour).
It was also where Kate was first introduced to a chap called Gordon “Gungi” Paterson, who would soon become the sound engineer for her tour as well as the noted inventor of Kate’s revolutionary microphone headset (alongside the Scottish sound engineer Cameron Crosby, who was tasked with getting to grips with the new wireless technology and trying his best to avoid picking up radio interference from any local taxicab passing by.) The Eventim Apollo continues to be one of London’s major live entertainment venues. It’s one of the UK’s largest and best-preserved original theatres, first opening on 28 March 1932 as the Gaumont Palace cinema. Designed in the Art Deco style, the cinema originally included 3,487 seats, a thirty-five-foot-deep stage, no less than twenty dressing rooms, and a Compton 4-manual (the number of keyboards) 15-rank (the number of pipe sets) theatre organ. The venue has had many a name change, the first being in 1962, when it was renamed the Hammersmith Odeon, playing host to many legendary acts of the day, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Marley. In 1992, the Grade II listed theatre was closed for refurbishment and reopened as the Labatt’s Apollo following a sponsorship deal with the Labatt Brewing Company. In 2002, by the same token, it became known as the Carling Apollo. In 2003, major alterations enabled the stalls seating to be removed, allowing for both standing and fully seated events. In 2006, the venue’s name changed again to the Hammersmith Apollo, but this was only until Review copy for Sam Liddicott 59 2009, when it became known as the HMV Apollo. In 2013, a mutimillion-pound investment saw a huge visual transformation of the venue when it was returned to its iconic 1932 Art Deco design. It reopened as the Eventim Apollo on 7 September 2013, all in good time for Kate’s surprise return the following year. Did you know the last feature film to be shown at the Hammersmith Odeon was Blue Thunder? Starring Roy “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” Scheider, the film was screened on the 8th of August, 1984. It was directed by John Badham, who had also directed the 1979 gothic horror, Dracula, which happens to have been shot on location at Black Park and at Shepperton Studios – a place with its own connection to the Lionheart tour”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush captured during her Before the Dawn residency at the Evetim Apollo, Hammersmith in 2014/PHOTO CREDIT: Gavin Bush/Rex
I work near to where Covent Garden’s The Dance Centre used to be based. I think this location opened up Kate Bush’s career in hugely important ways. In terms of her learning dance and movement. Disciplines that not only impacted her physically, it also affected her writing and creativity. One of the earliest locations in Bush’s career, it is a shame that it no longer exists in its original form:
“The Dance Centre was founded by Valerie Tomalin in 1964. In a rundown street full of old fruit and vegetable warehouses, the Dance Centre at 12 Floral Street was a space that could be hired by dance tutors and dance companies. It was here that Kate continued to attend Lindsay Kemp’s mime lessons and later, those with the American mime artist, dancer, and choreographer, Adam Darius, and the modern dance instructor Robin Kovac, who would later help Kate with her dance routine for Wuthering Heights. Formerly a parish school, the building at 12 Floral Street – built in 1838 and largely refronted in 1860 – was listed by Historic England as a building with special architectural interest as early as 1973, quite some time before Kate walked through its doors. But in 1977, the Dance Centre was forced to close and make way for the iconic Sanctuary Spa, which remained there until its closure in 2014. An alternative space for users of the Dance Centre was quickly established by a dancer called Debbie Moore, who’d been attending a class at Floral Street run by former Strictly Come Dancing judge and Hot Gossip founder (Dame) Arlene Phillips. Debbie had found an ideal spot Review copy for Sam Liddicott 164 for a dance studio just a short walk away on Langley Street. It was another derelict fruit warehouse, for pineapples. And so it was in June 1979 that Debbie opened the doors to the world-famous Pineapple Dance Studios, which continues to inspire a new generation of dancers in the very same spot forty-six years on. Debbie remains very good friends with Dame Arlene Phillips, who, incidentally, played the role of Ernestine in Flowers when it played at the Regent Theatre (replacing the dancer Annie Balfour). Given Dame Arlene’s connection with the Dance Centre, it should come as no surprise to you that Kate spent some time there with her. The site at Floral Street was redeveloped in 2017 and now houses the European headquarters of Peloton”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1977/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Maybe not ‘important’ as such, I think one of the most notable is the Grosvenor House Hotel. Situated on 86-90 Park Lane in London, it is where Kate Bush picked up several awards. Someone who I think valued awards – some artists dismissed aware ceremonies -, the Grosvenor House Hotel has this significance. I never really thought about it before but, when we consider Kate Bush collected some prestigious awards at this special spot, it should be talked about more. The final location from Max Cookney’s book that I want to highlight:
“Okay. Is it time to dig out another cocktail dress? Kate’s been a guest at the Grosvenor House Hotel on London’s prestigious Park Lane on no less than five occasions. The first, on the 4th of March, 1979, was to pick up the award for Best British Newcomer and Best British Female Artist at the Capital Radio Annual Awards. She was invited back to the same event the following year, on the 3rd of March, once again receiving the award for Best British Female Vocalist. On the 10th of February, 1986, Kate attended the sixth edition of the BPI Awards (the British Phonographic Industry, also known as the Brits), where she performed her soon-to-be-released single, Hounds of Love. Kate received three nominations that night, including Best British Album (Hounds of Love), Best Single (Running Up That Hill), and Best Female Solo Artist, although she left that night with none. Despite losing out in ’86, Kate returned to the Grosvenor the following year for the 1987 Brit Awards and collected the award for Best Female Solo Artist. She was also asked to present the award for the Best British Solo Male Artist, which was won by Peter Gabriel”.
Finally, Kate was invited back to the Grosvenor on the 23rd of May, 2002, to accept an honour at the Ivor Novello Awards for her ‘Outstanding Contribution to British Music.’ In 2020, the Ivors Academy went one further and bestowed the highest honour upon Kate when they made her a Fellow of the Academy. The Grosvenor’s ‘Great Room,’ in which Kate performed Hounds of Love, was originally built as an ice rink, which was used as such until its conversion into a banqueting hall in 1935. It’s been said that the late Queen Elizabeth II was taken to the rink as a child, where she was taught how to skate. It is believed the original refrigeration machinery remains in situ underneath the current floor”.
If you have not purchased Max Cookney’s brilliant and must-read Kate Bush: On Location, then I can highly recommend it. I wanted to return to it because I have been re-reading it and a particular few locations stood out. Realising how pivotal they are. For any Kate Bush lover that does not have it already, make sure that Kate Bush: On Location is…
ADDED to your bookshelf.