Kate Bush Live!

[FurtiveFreddy]

Who'd have thought it?

[FurtiveFreddy]

Merch131 said:

If you were registered on her website, you get to order tickets tomorrow at 9:30am.. wish me luck !

Are you sure?

[FurtiveFreddy]

Merch131 said:

Yes I'm sure, got email from her website on day of announcement. Just got 4 tickets for first Friday.. not sure yet, but may have one or two spare.

I'm just a little bit envious!

That was one website I wish I'd subscribed to now...

Very unusually for me, when I woke up this morning I recalled a dream I had last night which included being at a gig where Kate Bush was performing. I'll be clicking/dialling away on Friday at 9:30 like a lot of people in the hope that dream will come true!

[FurtiveFreddy]

That was a bit of a mad panic! Seems they all sold out in 27 minutes.

But I've got a couple, so I'm very happy.

[FurtiveFreddy]

That's a real bummer, but it was a mad scramble, unsurprisingly. I bagged a couple of tickets around 09:40 and then tried for a second date, by which time all that was left was the £400+ hospitality packages and then they all went by 09:47.

Your best hope is that she adds a few more dates or does a tour. Let's face it, just a couple of weeks ago I wouldn't have put any money on Kate Bush performing live ever again!

I've been listening to her music since yesterday and I'd find it impossible to choose a 2-3 hour set list from that body of work. She'll just have to get an extension and play everything

And then there are the guests she could have on...

I'm a bit emotional and excited

[FurtiveFreddy]

I wasn't there tonight. I've still got over a month to wait. It's like waiting for Christmas as a child when you know you're getting the best present you could ever have.

However, here's the uncorroborated setlist from tonight as published somewhere on t'internet:

Lily
Hounds of Love
Running Up That Hill
King Of The Mountain
Cloudbusting
Sat In Your Lap
Oh England My Lionheart
A Coral Room
The Red Shoes
And Dream of Sheep
Under Ice
Jig of Life
Hello Earth
The Morning Fog
The Sensual World
Love and Anger
This Woman’s Work
Lake Tahoe
Misty
Wildman
Babooshka
Army Dreamers
The Man with the Child in His Eyes

All I can say is 'Wow' (even though that wasn't in it).

[FurtiveFreddy]

No cameras/phones allowed and I fully support that.

Don't worry, she will sound marvellous

[FurtiveFreddy]

Jimboka said:

Act 1/Concert
Lily
Hounds of Love
Joanni
Top of the City
Never Be Mine
Running Up That Hill
King of the Mountain

Ninth Wave
And Dream of Sheep
Under Ice
Wake Up (Waking the Witch Intro)
Waking the Witch
House, Room Dialogue
Watching You Without Me
Little Light
Jig of Life
Hello Earth
The Morning Fog

Sky of Honey
Prelude
Prologue
An Architect’s Dream
The Painter’s Link
Sunset
Aerial Tal
Somewhere in Between
Tawny Moon
Nocturn
Aerial

Encore
Among Angels
Cloudbusting


I hope this is the actual set list (Sky of Honey half of Aerial is my favourite!) Going in 2 weeks..

This seems to be the correct setlist from the first night (unlike the one I'd found!)

[FurtiveFreddy]

It only goes to show that you can't please all the people all the time.

I read a comment from someone who went to the first night and was apparently unhappy all night and moaning because of the lack of 'Wuthering Heights'. The chances of her performing that number were always going to be slim and not just because of the register it's in.

The fact is that a large proportion of the audience would have been unhappy if it was Kate sitting at a piano all evening and as has been said, if you understand anything about her, you would know it is about the performance not just the song. The clues were all there - if you go back and look at every single live performance, including TV appearances, there is an element of theatricality in all of them.

It's a shame some people won't enjoy these nights, but it is inevitable.

[FurtiveFreddy]

Halmyre said:

Not all live performances - she did a straight-forward rendition of 'Running Up That Hill' at a Secret Policeman's Ball.

Well, she wasn't miming running up a hill and there wasn't any dry ice, but there were still lighting changes...

I feared my comment might start some sort of contest to find the least theatrical KB performance

Let me put it this way; The least theatrical performance anyone could give would be standing still in front of a mic, dressed conservatively with nothing happening on stage. A rare sight, for any performer. The old MTV format 'unplugged' was the closest you'd get to this for a lot of musicians.

At the opposite end of the spectrum we have the likes of Bjork, David Bowie and Peter Gabriel who all incorporate some sort of theatre and performance into their act. You could say it's an intrinsic part of their music and their soul. This is where I see Kate Bush. Sometimes the performance doesn't involve elaborate costumes, lighting or confetti cannons but there's still something more to it than just playing an instrument and singing.

Actually, I think Kate Bush has probably taken some of what she's doing here from Peter Gabriel. If you get the chance to see his 'Back to Front' show, you'll see it starts off stripped down with minimal lighting (white only) and electronics but builds to a much more theatrical performance as the show goes on. When I first saw it, I was a little underwhelmed but then I watched the recording of it a few times and then saw just how carefully put together and well rehearsed the whole thing is. Sure, he doesn't dress up as a flower any more but there's a theatricality in almost every performance if you look for it.

The thing is, you could have gone to see Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' and come out afterwards complaining that half the time you couldn't see the band because some idiot built a bloody wall in front of the stage. To say there's too much theatre in a Kate Bush show is just as irrational. Especially when it's the first one for 35 years!

[FurtiveFreddy]

To those here who have been, what time did it end?

[FurtiveFreddy]

This Friday for me. The expectation is building nicely!

[FurtiveFreddy]

I woke up this morning after spending a wonderful night with a woman I've admired from afar for over 35 years. I may never be in the same room with her ever again. I've probably had more opportunities to be in her company than most, having lived near her family home for many years and frequented the same pubs where she first performed live. After all that time and missed opportunities, it's all boiled down to this one night. So was it worth the wait?

Like many highly anticipated events (particularly, for me, ones involving women), this one almost didn't happen. We took our seats at 7.40pm. The house and stage lights were off and the theatre was roughly the same temperature as a fully laden 747 before the engines are started, but I didn't think much of it until the announcement that there had been "a power failure, which our engineers are working on...".

Time went by. I decided to ration my beer allowance just in case things got really bad. 9pm approached and I started feeling bad for the guys behind us who had flown in from America to see the gig. I suspect many travelled a lot further than we did and a rain check or refund wasn't going to be a satisfactory conclusion.
Suddenly, things got a lot better. The house lights came up, a single light bar above the stage flickered purple and crew invaded the stage. An announcement confirmed that the show would start soon but the finish time would now be after midnight, so refunds would be issued for those who couldn't stay. A real shame for those who had to leave, but I couldn't see how they could have cut the show short. Kate wouldn't want that and neither would we.

So, around 9.15pm, the intro to 'Lily' plays out, the lights go up and there she is. I'm welling up now just thinking about it, but at the time I was strangely unemotional. I saw Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins) when she played at the Festival Hall in 2012 and I was sobbing quietly at various times during the night, but oddly I was completely dry-eyed during this show, even though Kate means just as much to me as Elizabeth does.
Anyway, enough of my pathetic bawling. The show was everything it should have been, even with the delayed start. There was something in there for everyone (apart from those hoping for a 'Wuthering Heights' encore). You had the band, the OTT theatrics and even the 'lone-singer-at-piano-in-spotlight' performance. For me, the first half worked better than the second, but it was all marvellous. At a bigger venue it would have been possible to ramp up the lighting and effects even further, but I appreciate she wanted this show to be 'intimate' so I think a good balance was struck.

After hearing 'Director's Cut' in 2011, I was prepared for the vocals to sound a bit different to the originals. After all, it's been almost 30 years since 'Hounds of Love' was recorded. But, from what I heard last night her range and clarity is as good, if not better, than ever. The truly beautiful rendition of 'Among Angels' stood out as an example of just how great an artist she is.

So, was it worth the wait? Yes, of course. I was happy just to be there. But after a while, I started to wonder why she kept us all waiting so long (no, I'm not referring to the power cut at the beginning)? She was obviously very comfortable with herself and her performance. Not a hint of nerves that I could see or hear. She was having a great time and so were we! All I can say is thanks, Bertie, for being so persuasive.

But we shouldn't look back at what could have been. We can only hope there'll be more chances for us mere mortals to be in the same room as her again. There is a rumoured DVD of the shows, but then there was a rumoured Liz Fraser album which never materialised.
And don't get me started on how long Harry Hill's Sausage Time DVD has taken...