Review: Kate Bush - Before the Dawn

Sunday, August 31st, 2014

Me outside the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith, before Before the Dawn.
Notice that the words "Kate Bush" do not appear on the sign: it was all
about the show, as far as Kate was concerned. For the audience, it was
certainly about the star!

The last time Kate Bush performed an entire concert live on stage was May 14th, 1979, although something the media tends to overlook is that it certainly was not the last time Kate performed live.
She has made sporadic appearances live on stage in the intervening 35 years, most recently in 2002 with her long-time champion Dave Gilmour (of Pink Floyd) when she sang Comfortably Numb at the Royal Festival Hall. Kate Bush does do live, just not very often.

Kate singing live on
stage in 2002

So to see Kate Bush live on stage at the Hammersmith Apollo this last week was a real privilege. I managed to see her on two dates - her second show on Wednesday, August 27th, and her third on Friday, August 29th. In years - decades - to come, people will talk about being one of the lucky ones to have seen Before the Dawn, and others will be just as jealous as those today who never saw Kate's Tour of Life in 1979.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD...
So, what exactly is Before the Dawn? For a start, you certainly get good value for money - the show kicks off at 7.45pm and you don't get out until just shy of 11pm, with only a 20-minute interval in between.
The first half kicks off with a set list of six songs, which Kate performs as if it's a run-of-the-mill rock concert. This was surprising in itself, as most people were expecting a magnificent spectacle of eye-popping proportions, an expectation no doubt fuelled by the media build-up and the deafening silence and secrecy surrounding the show before it debuted.
The six songs were a mix of hits - Running Up That Hill and Hounds of Love - and lesser known album tracks, but great fan crowd-pleasers - the rocky Lily and Top of the City from her 1993 album The Red Shoes, along with the ethereal Joanni from 2005's Aerial. Joanni is not an obvious choice, and is perhaps the weakest aspect of Before the Dawn as the band rather drowns out Kate's voice, which for this track needs to be in her lower register. Still, the fact fans would never expect her to perform Joanni live makes it all the more pleasing.
Song six is the overlooked classic King of the Mountain, Kate's 2005 comeback single which sports a memorable ululating melody and soaring chorus. And as the song reaches its climax, Kate sings about the wind whistling through the house and that a storm is rising.
And that's where everything goes bonkers. There is an explosion of wind and sound, a thunderous change of scenery, and the auditorium is transformed into an epic, filmic visualisation of The Ninth Wave, the exemplary second half song suite from 1985's Hounds of Love album, something Kate has always wanted to visualise - and this is her chance.

The suite is about the sinking of a ship called the Celtic Deep and how all but one of the passengers are rescued - that one being a lone female, played by Kate. The Ninth Wave is made up of seven tracks which tell the story of the drowning woman, and Kate's live interpretation of it is inspired, spectacular and predictably eccentric.
She manages to portray the ocean on the stage using billowing sheets, and the props and effects come thick and fast - there's video footage of Kate in the ocean wearing a life jacket singing the beautiful And Dream of Sheep, there are sea creatures with skull-like heads, there is a helicopter which trains its blinding searchlight across the audience, an entire sitting room floats onto stage for Watching You Without Me, and the skeletal remains of a ship frame the entire movement.
Even if you've never heard The Ninth Wave before, the story it tells - and Kate's visual interpretation of it before your very eyes - is a sight to be savoured, and the product of a truly unique, eccentric imagination.
After the interval we get a just as visually splendid tour de force for an interpretation of A Sky of Honey, the song suite from the second half of Kate's Aerial album.
A Sky of Honey is, in itself, a triumph of atmosphere as it depicts the passage of time from a summer's afternoon to the following day's dawn, via the dusk "somewhere in between" and the twilight of the witching hour.

For this suite the stage is dressed with a forest of beech trees, a spinning full moon, a pair of giant double doors, and a painter's canvas the size of a building. As Kate sings and harmonises her way through the nine tracks of A Sky of Honey - imitating birdsong along the way - her 16-year-old son Bertie portrays an artist trying to capture the beauty of the ever-shifting landscape as day moves into night, before the dawn.
I wouldn't say he has the best singing voice, but one thing's for sure - he's a promising young performer and has obviously got his mother's theatrical genes. He even gets his own song, a new composition called Tawny Moon, which is enjoyable enough but I couldn't help wanting to hear his mother sing it instead.
Another star of the Aerial section is a little wooden man, like those used by artists to capture human posture, operated as a puppet and who interacts with the band and Kate as the music plays. He is given personality by the expert puppeteer, who manages to portray the inanimate object's curiosity, timidity, fear and, at one surprising point, depravity so well. And there's a surprise in store for the audience when the puppet comes magically to life.
A Sky of Honey's style takes in ballad, soundscape, pop song and even trippy dance music and by the end of it you really do feel like you've experienced the passing of day to night to day, through the uplifting lens of Mother Nature. This is the product of a woman in touch with who she is, her own femininity, and her place in the grand scheme of things. Kate Bush is nowadays a true Earth Mother.
Kate brings the show to a close with an encore of the delicate Among Angels from 2011's 50 Words for Snow (which lets the audience experience the simple but beautiful coupling of just Kate's voice and a piano) and the rousing Hounds of Love single Cloudbusting, complete with its refrain "I just know that something good is going to happen", famously sampled by Utah Saints in 1992.
Before the Dawn is more like theatre than a concert. Sure, it's musical, but Kate has managed to fuse drama with audiovisuals, stage effects with dance, props with mime to produce a truly unique experience, which is what makes her as an artist so special. You won't have seen anything like Before the Dawn before, and in this day and age, that is pretty rare.
As for the naysayers who reckon she should have just come on, sung Wuthering Heights, Babooshka and Wow, well... anyone can do that. The Kate Bush impersonator who was entertaining the queueing crowds outside the Apollo can do that. Heck, even Noel Fielding can do that.
And yes, while it might have been nice to see the actual Kate Bush sing them, it wouldn't leave you with the same sense that you've seen something unique, something enriching or entertaining as Before the Dawn does.
I don't want to see Kate Bush cavorting about in a white flowing dress or flailing her arms around like a human helicopter. She did that 35 years ago. I want to see Kate Bush now, in 2014, not a tribute act.
Before the Dawn certainly raises the benchmark for any other musical artists with an ambition to interpret their music live, and I predict that we'll see more shows like Before the Dawn from other, lesser performers, inspired by Kate Bush's astounding vision. And that can be no bad thing.
Let's just hope Kate doesn't leave it too long to surprise and inspire us all again.

Music is my radar

Thursday, April 3rd, 2014

I don't go and see live music too often - most of the music artists I like are either dead or retired! But just recently things have changed, and some of the most prominent musicians in my life have re-emerged, either from obscurity or the grave!

Kate Bush... back on stage after 35 years

The biggest musical news of 2014 so far surely has to be the fact Kate Bush has announced her first live dates since 1979, and the media furore that surrounded people's difficulty in securing tickets to see this seldom seen genius.
Kate isn't to all tastes, but it's hard to deny that she has a towering songwriting talent and a totally unique voice. When her Before the Dawn live dates at London's Hammersmith Odeon went on sale last week, there was a mad scramble from fans across the globe to snap them up. She may be doing 15 dates, but that'll probably be it, so this is by and large a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see her live.
Luckily, I managed to get some, and I do feel ridiculously lucky to have got them when I see on social media so many heartbroken people who didn't. It was first come first served, and I was lucky enough to be served while they still had some stock in.
And so hubby and I will be off to Hammersmith in August to see the lady herself, and I really don't care what she sings, because it's Kate Bush! She could sing the Phone Book and it'd be beautiful (in fact she almost did just that on her 2005 track Pi, most of the lyrics for which are simply, well... pi! But done so beautifully!).
I'm secretly hoping for This Woman's Work (one of the most heartrending sad songs of all time), Running Up That Hill, Hammer Horror and Somewhere In Between - but really, she can sing what the heck she likes, because I'll be there listening!

Tori Amos... unrepentant

The other major live gig we're seeing this year is Tori Amos, too often cited as a poor man's Kate Bush but actually a prodigious talent who deserves much better classification than that. Tori has been going since the early 1990s as a solo artist but has evolved so much musically over the decades, in recent years even embracing classical scores and writing her own musical.
But it is the cheeky, daring raw emotion she pours into her music which marks her out, alongside her peerless talents at the piano and her soaring, ethereal vocals. We're seeing Tori in Manchester in May, and I'm looking forward to reconnecting with her after a few years drifting apart.
Album-wise, I'm looking forward to Blur frontman Damon Albarn's first ever solo album, Everyday Robots, later this month. I've followed Damon's career ever since the early days of the Britpop kings, Blur being my favourite band of all time, and while I've enjoyed his side projects such as Gorillaz and The Good, the Bad and the Queen, it is his individual songwriting talent, an ear for melody, which I gravitate towards.

Damon Albarn... solo after 25 years

His solo album sounds to be quite a sombre, understated affair, but I am still looking forward to what must be one of the most keenly awaited solo projects of recent years.
And then earlier this week they announced a "new" album by Michael Jackson. Well, I say new, but obviously he's been dead five years so these tracks are from the vaults.
I've always been a fan of Michael, ever since the 1980s (what child of the 80s wasn't?). He is a controversial figure, but at the heart of all the gossip and calumny was a clearly defined prodigy with a near unique talent for performance, and it's great that we can enjoy slices of that talent long after he's left us.
The album of eight "contemporised" songs is called Xscape and is out the same day as Tori's new album, Unrepentant Geraldines, so that'll be quite a big week!
My other musical mainstay is David Bowie, but he stole a lead on all the others last year when he made a comeback after 10 years with his fantastic album The Next Day. I look forward to more from him this year too, but there's no sign of that just yet. Live gigs, David...?
But if Kate Bush can come out of live performance retirement after 35 years and Damon Albarn can release his first solo album 25 years after his music career began, surely anything can happen!

Michael Jackson... Best not to ask.