FEATURE:
Kate Bush: The Tour of Life
IN THIS PHOTO: Albert McIntosh (Kate Bush’s son) and Bob Harms playing son and father for a scene during Kate Bush’s extraordinary and acclaimed 2014 residency, Before the Dawn, at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, London/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/REX
A Live Innovator Whose Influence Can Be Seen Today
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IT is a little confusing…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush and band during the finale of a Hammersmith date from 1979’s The Tour of Life/PHOTO CREDIT: Max Browne
using the name of Kate Bush’s only tour as part of the title for this feature. However, I have been spending a bit of time writing about Kate Bush’s live influence. On 3rd April, it was forty-seven years since The Tour of Life started. Thirty-five years later, on 26th August, 2014, Before the Dawn began. For the production of each live spectacle, Kate Bush innovating constantly. I wrote about this a bit when covering The Tour of Life. I will nod back to it, as there are some live tours today that have been celebrated for their scale and feel. Even if David Byrne has been touring more than Kate Bush and actually was recording music before she put out her first album, I feel that his current tour – which has been getting some incredible reviews can be applied to Kate Bush’s The Tour of Life and Before the Dawn. Even if legends like David Byrne and massive Pop artists of today have their own concepts and might not directly cite Kate Bush as influential, I don’t think that we discuss enough how her impact has definitely remained today. The live album for Before the Dawn turns ten in November, so I will explore the residency again nearer the time. I did not get to see Before the Dawn. However, there are a couple of questions to raise. How many artists, unless they are major and mainstream, can afford to mount something like Before the Dawn? Also, in terms of preparation, it was an intense process. Lots of preparation. Again, perhaps only the most massive artists. Even so, I have argued before, and will again, how Kate Bush’s live brilliance and invention influenced artists after 1979 when The Tour of Life was mounted. Again after 2014 and Before the Dawn. The sheer scale, joy and ambition of the residency did compel many artists to become more ambitious. I know there were artists mixing media and various artforms into a music concert. That said, it was not really a hugely common thing in 2014.
Before the Dawn was more of a spectacle and theatrical production than a gig. Almost filmic in its scope. You do not need to produce something big and highly ambitious to leave audiences’ jaws dropped. Smaller, intimate and powerful shows can leave an impression as deep and long-lasting. I do wonder, when we think of the great live performers, whether Kate Bush’s name comes into the conversation. The fact she has only been on one tour and one residency since her career began. A lack of consistency. This blending of disciplines and sectors of the arts is maybe not as common as it should be. Modern artists like ROSALÍA do it. Are Pop artists a little too rigid in that regard? You can say that there are phenomenal artists who put more choreography and larger set pieces into their tours. What strikes me about Kate Bush is how The Tour of Life, and especially Before the Dawn, pushed boundaries and definitely took live performers to new heights and areas. Twelve years after that residency and there are some artists today who embody Kate Bush. Reading about Before the Dawn in Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. David Munns, an old friend of Bush’s, was chosen to scout venues in addition to offering advice. Another Dabid, Garfath, who directed the video for Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), directed the filmed sequences for The Ninth Wave for Before the Dawn. Bush in a water tank and singing And Dream of Sheep. The component parts and how many aspects go into Before the Dawn. Bush assembled an experienced and hugely reliable group of session musicians. Including David Rhodes, John Giblin and Mino Cinelu. When you watch a massive tour of a show that does have filmed pieces and there are different disciplines and layers to it, how often do we think about behind the scenes and its coming together? The Chorus who adopted various personae throughout the performance, four of whom came from the stage and musical theatre. Her son, Berie, Sandra Marvin, Jacqui DuBois and Jo Servi joined Bob Harms. Maybe sharing something with David Byrne and artists executing these staggering and awe-inspiring live performances. The people they share the stage with are just as important.
For Before the Dawn, Kate Bush teamed with Adrian Noble (former creative director of the Royal Shakespeare Company) co-directed. His role was to ensure Bush’s visions came to the stage and included some of his finesse and experience. David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas and other hugely important books, the two were almost kindred spirits and had this spark and bond. For the written pieces for The Ninth Wave and creating this narrative, Bush turned to Mitchell for his help. Before the Dawn took eighteen months of planning, revising, rehearsing and performing. Actors and singers auditioned. Rather than this being Kate Bush concert, Before the Dawn was credited to the KT Fellowship. That is just skimming the surface of the preparation and detail that went into a residency that wowed thousands of fans. It was not only about Kate Bush on the stage after so many years. If she had done something basic or like her contemporaries then the reaction would not have been as ecstatic. It was the whole package. The costumes, lighting and visuals. Bringing together two album suites that are very different but each unfolded beautifully and with incredible effect. The Ninth Wave from Hounds of Love and Aerial’s A Sky of Honey. The incredible players and this blend of filmed sections and what was happening on the stage. This is what The Guardian wrote in their review of David Byrne’s extraordinary show that they say will restore your faith in humanity. Byrne, as they observe “once again reimagines the possibilities of the live gig”. It did instantly put me in mind of Kate Bush: “Throughout a hideously apropos Life During Wartime, footage from ICE raids bleeds into the arena, while the insularity of the pandemic is a recurring theme, notably when the screens re-create his home for My Apartment Is My Friend. Byrne’s response is noise, laughter and community. It’s beautiful to see the audience pulled from their seats – slowly at first, then all at once – by the guitar stabs of This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody), their voices turning something lithe and delicate into a collective shout along. “Love and kindness are a form of resistance,” Byrne says at one point. You’d hope so”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Pick
It might be me connecting loose threads or tenuous links. Before the Dawn is in my mind and I will write about it more before the end of the year. I can see how 1979’s The Tour of Life and the revolution caused. Completely shaking up live music and what it could be. Even if the sort of thing Kate Bush did then was more prolific and evident by 2014, I do feel she once more reimagined live music and going beyond the limits. The venue, the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, helped a lot. In terms of its high ceiling. Opened in 1932 as a cinema named the Gaumont Palace, it is perfect for live performances that really utilise the full space. That is what Bedore the Dawn did. There was the blend of the dramatic and intimate. Kate Bush not just standing on stage. Out in the audience at one stage and being carried down the aisle. Technically, the Fish People carried her down the ramp and into the theatre. Performers on stages wearing masks/heads and there being this almost surreal edge. Bush being raised from the stage during The Ninth Wave. It was such an immerse and cinematic experience. Think about some of the biggest concerts that followed Before the Dawn, and I do really think that the impact of that residency inspired so many others.
Looking at modern artists reinventing live performance, it does raise the question around a new Kate Bush live chapter. If there was a final residency or concert, you could imagine it being even bigger than The Tour of Life and Before the Dawn. Kate Bush has no plans to perform live anytime soon, and there is the question about what she would include and what a show would consist of. She is this phenomenal live artist who pushed forward and helped transform live music. I don’t think that is acknowledged much. This is what Pitchfork observed in their review of Before the Dawn: “And her humanity is what we should all love her for, anyway—for helping to turn a spirit of restless invention and emotion into a music industry touchstone, for translating high art, high thinking, and her huge heart into catchy, hooky modern pop music. The two-song encore that sends us on our way shows us that knack in excelsis: "Among Angels", from 2011's 50 Words for Snow, played by Bush, perfectly, alone on the piano, then "Cloudbusting", her 1985 hit about Wilhelm Reich's rain-making machine, with her band. Tonight wasn't an exercise in the time-honoured art of battering an audience to death and making them like it, after all. It was about a raft of new ideas from someone who we didn't expect to see onstage again”. That stream of ideas and genius. Remaining fresh and surprising. Her warmth and humanity. You can feel that encoded and embedded in the bone and blood of some of the most arresting and remarkable modern live shows. As someone who has helped broaden and evolve the definition and boundaries of live performance, the divine Kate Bush definitely should…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush embraces her fans as she takes to the stage for the first of her Before the Dawn concerts/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/REX
GET that recognition.