FEATURE:
Enter, Stage Right
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during her Before the Dawn residency in London in 2014/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/Rex Features
Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn at Six: A Grand Spectacle I Wish I Had Seen
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ALL of us can list various concerts…
that we have not been able to attend that we wish we could have gone to; to turn the clock back and be in the audience! For me, I would have loved to have been in New York in 1993 when Jeff Buckley was playing at the Sin-é café. Those intimate, extraordinary sets he played there were fascinating and, although I would have been ten and I live in the U.K., to have gone to one of those gigs would have been something! On a more realistic level, on 21st, March, 2014, Kate Bush announced that she would be taking to the stage – the first large live event since her 1979 show, The Tour of Life. Before the Dawn, if anything, was more of an extravaganza than The Tour of Life! I have seen breakdowns of both shows, and it seems like the ambition and scope of the 2014 residency was even wider and more eye-opening than her 1979 tour. Of course, few people would have attended both shows to compare in a realistic way, but Bush was not going to make a return to the stage – in terms of a big set; she performed live a few times post-1979 – and do something minor or familiar. I think a few people complained that there were relatively few ‘hits’ on the setlist for Before the Dawn. One of my biggest gripes is how radio stations tend only to play Bush’s singles, and we never really get to hear the album tracks!
I will bring in a couple of reviews for Before the Dawn soon but, on 26th August, 2014, Bush stepped onto the stage at the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith – a venue she performed at in 1979 as part of The Tour of Life (though it was the Hammersmith Odeon then). Unlike The Tour of Life, Bush was not limited in terms of what she could include in her show. Her only tour was created after just two albums, so Bush included most of those two albums in that show, in addition to a couple of songs that would feature on her 1980 album, Never for Ever. With ten studio albums under her belt by 2014, Bush was not going to bring in material from The Kick Inside, and Lionheart, but she had a lot of options. I think everyone was desperate to see 1985’s Hounds of Love represented on the stage, and The Ninth Wave – the album’s conceptual suite – was almost written for the stage – Bush had been keen to do something with the songs in terms of a film, so I can imagine the opportunity to bring The Ninth Wave to the stage was too hard to resist! Act One delivered a mix of hits and lesser-known songs. Lily (The Red Shoes) introduced the show in stunning fashion, before moving into Hounds of Love (Hounds of Love), Joanni (Aerial), Top of the City (The Red Shoes), Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) (Hounds of Love), and King of the Mountain (Aerial).
I do love the fact that there were a couple of tracks from The Red Shoes in the first act, as that album remains underrated, and Bush re-recorded songs from that album for 2011’s Director’s Cut. Perfectly, after that strong and comparatively straight first half of the first act, we then moved into The Ninth Wave. Some would have felt that the best way to segue would have been to have a track from Hounds of Love ending that first half, but Bush knew what she was doing! Everything that appeared on stage, as Bush said, was a dream and in the imagination of the woman/Bush. The first snippet we see is a video interlude of And Dream of Sheep – this is Bush/the heroine in the water and waiting to be rescued, whilst the following songs – Under Ice, Waking the Witch, Watching You Without Me, Jig of Life, Hello Earth, and The Morning Fog – are realised on the stage. As first acts go, few stage shows have been as ambitious and dramatic! I have a lot of love for The Tour of Life, but Bush did not have a conceptual suite like The Ninth Wave in her pocket back then, so she was threading together individual tracks in as dramatic and visually-arresting ways as possible, whereas the story of The Ninth Wave – a woman being lost at sea and willing herself to stay alive before being rescued – carries so much emotion and punch!
I will finish this feature by talking about the people who attended Before the Dawn and why I rue the day I did not get a ticket but, from 26th August to 1st October, 2014, audiences in Hammersmith were being electrified and stunned by the stage return of a musical deity! If Bush had gone out and performed a series of hits and something like that, people would have flocked and the reviews would have been tremendous. As it turned out, the audiences were in for something much more rewarding, stimulating and well-though-out! Act Two was a beautiful mirroring of the second half of Act One. This is one of the big reasons why I wanted to see Before the Dawn: Bush’s two conceptual suites, The Ninth Wave, and A Sky of Honey, realised in full on the stage! Both are very different in terms of their tone and narrative, so the music and staging for each suite was very different. Such a tonal shift could have been risky and ill-judged in lesser hands, but the relief and beauty of A Sky of Honey was the perfect comfort after the harrowing drama (and eventual relief) of The Ninth Wave. It is almost as though Bush’s heroine survived a torturous time at sea and, years down the line, she is sat at her rural home and enjoying the pleasures of nature and peace – reflecting on the past and embracing the here and now.
The ten-track Act Two - Prelude, Prologue (extended), An Architect's Dream, The Painter's Link, Sunset, Aerial Tal, Somewhere in Between (extended), Tawny Moon (performed by her son, Albert McIntosh), Nocturn (extended), and Aerial – brought in the nine tracks from A Sky of Honey as it appeared on Aerial, with the addition of Tawny Moon (a song that got its first airing and would have made for a remarkable album inclusion!). It is great that her son, Albert (Bertie) performed with his mother, and he was instrumental in urging Bush to return to the stage. When she performed an encore, she played Among Angels (50 Words for Snow), and Cloudbusting (Hounds of Love). The live album is sensational, and it also includes the track, Never Be Mine – it was recorded without an audience, for the purposes of filming.
Supported by a wonderful crew, and backed by some wonderful actors and musicians (including David Rhodes – guitar, John Giblin – bass guitar, double bass, Jon Carin – keyboards, guitar, vocals, programming, Omar Hakim – drums, and Mino Cinélu – percussion), it is no surprise that Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn sold out all of its twenty-two shows! Those from the world of music, acting and arts flocked to see the show. One suspects some went because it was the must-see musical event of the decade, whereas there was genuine passion and love from many others – including actor Gemma Arterton and musician Anna Calvi (both of whom appeared on the BBC shortly after seeing the show on one of the nights to give their reaction).
The reviews, unsurprisingly, were glowing! There was a certain weight of expectation on the shoulders of someone who had not performed in such a manner for thirty-five years. After preparing Before the Dawn for eighteen months or so, it is clear that whatever was delivered to the audiences was going to be full of craft and love. In their review, this is what The Guardian observed:
“Backed by a band of musicians capable of navigating the endless twists and turns of her songwriting – from funk to folk to pastoral prog rock - the performances of Running Up That Hill and King of the Mountain sound almost identical to their recorded versions - but letting rip during a version of Top of the City, she sounds flatly incredible.
You suspect that even if she hadn't, the audience would have lapped it up. Audibly delighted to be in the same room as her, they spend the first part of the show clapping everything she does: no gesture is too insignificant to warrant a round of applause. It would be cloying, but for the fact that Bush genuinely gives them something to cheer about.
For someone who's spent the vast majority of her career shunning the stage, she's a hugely engaging live performer, confident enough to shun the hits that made her famous in the first place: she plays nothing from her first four albums.
PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/Rex Features
The staging might look excessive on paper, but onstage it works to astonishing effect, bolstering rather than overwhelming the emotional impact of the songs. The Ninth Wave is disturbing, funny and so immersive that the crowd temporarily forget to applaud everything Bush does. As each scene bleeds into another, they seem genuinely rapt: at the show's interval, people look a little stunned. A Sky of Honey is less obviously dramatic – nothing much happens over the course of its nine tracks – but the live performance underlines how beautiful the actual music is.
Already widely acclaimed as the most influential and respected British female artist of the past 40 years, shrouded in the kind of endlessly intriguing mystique that is almost impossible to conjure in an internet age, Bush theoretically had a lot to lose by returning to the stage. Clearly, given how tightly she has controlled her own career since the early 80s, she would only have bothered because she felt she had something spectacular to offer. She was right: Before The Dawn is another remarkable achievement”.
Nearly six years to the date Kate Bush stepped onto a stage familiar to her to kick-start Before the Dawn, I sort of have these pangs of regret. When the tickets went on sale, I was working, and I set off for the day and assumed that, when I had my lunch break, there would be tickets free – that was naïve, of course!
Perhaps my love for Kate Bush was not quite as strong in 2014 as it is now, but I was a super-fan back then. I have heard from a few people who attended that night – in the form of online testimony -, and everyone came away with the same sort of impression: that Before the Dawn was one of the greatest live shows they had ever witnessed. I have the live album of the show, and it is great to hear the reception the audience afforded Bush, and the incredible atmosphere. One can imagine being there with her but, unless you were fortunate enough to be in attendance on one of the nights, one lives vicariously through the album. In any case, it is clear that Bush was eager to return to the stage after so long away, even if there were nerves on her part. I want to finish with a couple of interviews Bush provided in 2016 – the live album was released that year -, where she discussed various aspects of the show. When speaking with The Independent, Bush talked about taking control of the show, her son’s involvement, and why she did not release a DVD of the show (and still has not to this date):
“It’s a measure of the dedication with which she approached the project, and of the degree of logistical control she exercised over proceedings.
“The big thing for me, and it has been from quite early on, is to retain creative control over what I’m doing,” says Bush. “If you have creative control, it’s personal. What I didn’t want to do was step into someone else’s show. Also, that was what was exciting for me, the idea of putting this big visual piece together. Though there was the most extraordinary team of people working on the show: there wasn’t a single person on that team that didn’t have very important input on what the show became.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/Rex Features
This includes people like novelist David Mitchell, who wrote the dialogue for some scenes, and her son, Albert McIntosh, who not only acts and sings in the show, but was crucial to its conception and realisation.
“Bertie’s input was absolutely huge on this show,” she says. “His input of ideas was very creative and intelligent, he was a large part, creatively, of the show. I would run all my ideas past him. For instance, I had this idea to have this helicopter flying over the audience, and he said, ‘Maybe it could be more abstract, maybe it should just be a light’, and I thought, ‘Oh yes, that’s so much better’, and from there we took the design further with the lighting designer.”
The shows, of course, were a huge success, and fans – especially those unable to acquire tickets – keenly awaited the release of some visual record. But sadly, there are no such plans beyond the new CD package.
“People are surprised that there’s no DVD of the show,” says Kate, “but I’d like to mention this live album that Elton John put out, 17-11-70, which was something that I loved so much. To have an album where you could imagine what the show was, I found that incredibly exciting, and in a way, this live album is almost more representative of what it was like to be at the live show”.
One of the reasons why Bush did not perform live (a lot) after 1979 is because she wanted to create albums and keep moving forward. She rarely looked back, and touring songs that she had already recorded might not have been as appealing as making new music. 2011’s Director’s Cut was a rare look back for her – Bush reworking songs that she felt could be given new light and quality, years after the originals were recorded. To bring Before the Dawn to the stage and, essentially, revisit the past through a staged show would have been something she wrestled with prior to 2014. When Bush spoke with FADER, she was asked about her relation with her older songs, and which technical achievement she ranks as her favourite:
“You really dug into the archives for your 2014 live shows. How has your relationship with your older material evolved?
Well, part of the decision to do the live shows was because it was such an interesting challenge to work with the two narrative pieces [“The Ninth Wave” and “A Sky of Honey”], rather than just doing a bunch of single tracks.
It was within such a specific context, because [the setlist] was very much put together for a live event. Through that process, the songs naturally evolved because I was working with a band, a lot of whom I never worked with before. I just chose tracks that I wanted to do, that really worked with the band, and to keep it really focused in a rhythmic way.
Although the music was always kept as the lead, I didn't want the visuals to feel separate. What I had hoped was that what had been created was an integrated piece of theater that worked with the music — that it wasn't just music that had theatrics added to it — that there was a real sense of it being something that worked as a whole.
Do you have a technical achievement that you're most proud of in your career?
I'm really proud of what we did with those live shows, because it was very ambitious and I didn't know if it would work. It was a very complex technical show that involved the most incredible team of people. The most intelligent, sensitive people. Fantastic band, actors, everybody there had something so special to bring to that show, and I think the response that we got was more than you could ever wish for. I'm so pleased that we did it.
It was a very humbling experience, really. Every night you had a completely different audience, and every night they were so warm. It really meant so much that they liked it. It was very moving, because it felt like the audience came on that journey with us, and, each night, it was a slightly different journey”.
I will leave things here, but I was keen to mark six years of Before the Dawn – slightly before the big day -, as it is a live show that still reverberates, and, naturally, people are looking ahead to see what Kate Bush’s next move will be – whether it is a studio album or, less likely, something live. Before the Dawn was a magical and once-in-a-generation live show and, regret on top of regret, I really…
WISH that I was there!