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Tour of Life

The Tour of Life, also known as the Lionheart Tour or even the Kate Bush Tour, was Kate Bush’s first, and until recently only, series of live concerts. The name, ‘Tour of Life’, was not coined until after its completion, with all promotional material referring to it simply as the Kate Bush Tour.

Consisting of 24 performances from Bush’s first two studio albums The Kick Inside and Lionheart , it was acclaimed for its incorporation of mime, magic, and readings during costume changes. The simple staging also involved rear-screen projection and the accompaniment of two male dancers. The tour was a critical and commercial success, with most dates selling out and additional shows being added due to high demand. Members of the Kate Bush Club were provided with a guaranteed ticket.

The tour was to become not only a concert, but also incorporating dance, poetry, mime, burlesque, magic and theatre. The dance element was co-ordinated by Bush in conjunction with Anthony Van Laast – who later choreographed the Mamma Mia! movie and several West End smashes – and two young dancers, Stewart Avon Arnold and Gary Hurst. They held morning rehearsals for the tour at The Place in Euston, after which Bush spent afternoons in Greenwich drilling her band. Off stage, she was calling the shots on everything from the set design to the programme art.

The band playing with Kate Bush on stage consisted of Preston Heyman (drums), Paddy Bush (mandolin. various strange instruments and vocal harmonies), Del Palmer (bass), Brian Bath (electric guitar, acoustic mandolin and vocal harmonies), Kevin McAlea (piano, keyboards, saxophone, 12 string guitar), Ben Barson (synthesizer and acoustic guitar), Al Murphy (electric guitar and whistles) and backing vocalists Liz Pearson and Glenys Groves .

The tour started on April 2 with a tragedy. The highly experienced lighting director Bill Duffield fell through an open panel high on the lighting gallery. He would die of his injuries a week later. Despite this, the tour still went on. A fundraising benefit concert was added to the schedule, taking place on 12 May 1979 to raise money for Bill’s family and featured Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley, for whom Duffield had also worked.

The shows featured almost all the songs from Kate Bush’s two albums, divided into three ‘Acts’, in the following order:

Moving Saxophone Song Room For The Life Them Heavy People The Man With The Child In His Eyes Egypt L’amour Looks Something Like You Violin The Kick Inside

In The Warm Room Fullhouse Strange Phenomena Hammer Horror Kashka From Baghdad Don’t Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake

Wow Coffee Homeground Symphony In Blue Feel It Kite James And The Cold Gun

Oh England My Lionheart Wuthering Heights

2 April 1979: Arts Centre, Poole (UK) 3 April 1979: Empire, Liverpool (UK) 4 April 1979: Hippodrome, Birmingham (UK) 5 April 1979: Hippodrome, Birmingham (UK) 6 April 1979: New Theatre, Oxford (UK) 7 April 1979: Gaumont, Southampton (UK) 9 April 1979: Hippodrom, Bristol (UK) 10 April 1979: Apollo Theatre, Manchester (UK) 11 April 1979: Apollo Theatre, Manchester (UK) 12 April 1979: Empire Theatre, Sunderland (UK) 13 April 1979: Usher Hall, Edinburgh (UK) 16 April 1979: Palladium, London (UK) 17 April 1979: Palladium, London (UK) 18 April 1979: Palladium, London (UK) 19 April 1979: Palladium, London (UK) 20 April 1979: Palladium, London (UK) 24 April 1979: Konserthuset, Stockholm (Sweden) 26 April 1979: Falkoner Theatre, Copenhagen (Denmark) 28 April 1979: Congress Centrum, Hamburg (Germany) 29 April 1979: Theater Carré, Amsterdam (Netherlands) 2 May 1979: Liederhalle, Stuttgart (Germany) 3 May 1979: Circus Krone, Munich (Germany) 6 May 1979: Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris (France) 7 May 1979: Mercatorhalle, Duisburg (Germany) 8 May 1979: Rosengarten, Mannheim (Germany) 10 May 1979: Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt (Germany) 12 May 1979: Hammersmith Odeon, London (UK) 13 May 1979: Hammersmith Odeon, London (UK) 14 May 1979: Hammersmith Odeon, London (UK)

On 24, 26, 28 and 29 April, In the Warm Room, Kite, Oh England My Lionheart, and Wuthering Heights were dropped from the set because Kate was suffering from a throat infection. The 12 May concert had a very different setlist because this was a benefit performance ‘In Aid Of Bill Duffield’, featuring guest stars Steve Harley and Peter Gabriel. ‘Fullhouse’ was not performed on 13 and 14 May.

Critical reception

As the tour rolled out around the UK the reviews were euphoric: Melody Maker called the Birmingham show “the most magnificent spectacle ever encountered in the world of rock. (…) I hadn’t expected to be impressed by her as a singer, both she and the band were nothing short of immaculate”. According to Sounds, the show was “so finely realised that it’s beyond criticism”.

Two official recordings were released from the tour, both recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon in London: first, the On Stage EP was released in September, and some time thereafter a 60 minute video ‘Live at the Hammersmith Odeon’, featuring 12 songs from the set followed.

There are also numerous so-called ‘Bootleg’ recordings made available from various sources – although most of them are audience recordings of dubious quality.

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• August 19, 2017

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Inside Kate Bush’s Tour Of Life: “She created this whole massive world”

Kate bush’s collaborator on the ground-breaking tour of life reveals how the pair brought the singer’s unique vision to the stage..

REHEARSING KATE BUSH’S Tour Of Life was nearly the end of then budding illusionist Simon Drake. He was emerging from under a walkway at the back of the stage, when a section of plywood slid loose and cracked him on the head.  “I was knocked right out,” he recalls today. “And I came to with Kate sort of holding me in her lap. I was sick for a couple of days.”

READ MORE: Kate Bush’s 50 Greatest Songs

Drake was lucky. If one of the section’s metal braces had hit him. he might not have lived to tell the tale. It was, sadly, one of several instances where the ambition of Bush’s staging for her single tour as a star outstripped the experience of the team lashing it together, a situation that ended in tragedy after the warm-up show at Poole Arts Centre, with the fatal fall of young lighting engineer Bill Duffield.

It was an outcome unthinkable in the innocent pre-dawn of Drake’s involvement with the tour, which had begun the moment he first heard Wuthering Heights on the radio in January ’78. Bowled over, Drake – a former plugger at Decca and EMI – sent a note to Bush through Capital Radio producer Eddie Puma.

“I knew Eddie was seeing her that night. I just wrote that the record was amazing and if she ever toured, I wanted to be a part of it.”

Later, Drake invited Bush to a magic show he was performing at J Arthur’s, a club at the “wrong end” of the King’s Road, Chelsea, a party for Roxy Music. “I was on a little half-circle stage. And I distinctly remember her sitting there watching me, sat on her own.”

She was a pioneer. There wasn’t anyone doing anything quite that ambitious. Simon Drake

Subsequently, Drake was invited to tea-fuelled meetings at Bush’s flat in Lewisham. He watched the singer scribbling designs for the ankh-shaped set that later clobbered him (“she’s very aware of esoteric matters”) as the pair swapped ideas for bringing Bush’s already theatrical songs to the stage.

“She was a pioneer,” says Drake. “There wasn’t anyone doing anything quite that ambitious then. Maybe Peter Gabriel with Genesis. Certainly not with that amount of dance. Now it’s normal.”

Drake’s key scenes with Bush included two ‘dancing cane’ demonstrations on L’Amour Looks Something Like You and Strange Phenomena, and a spidery turn as a crazed fiddler during Violin.

“The violin was Kate’s own from when she was a kid. I cut out a bit of the back and put homemade pyro in it. The idea being I’d play the violin so fast, it would start smoking.” For the paranoid murder fantasies of Coffee Homeground, Drake had two liquids – one pink, another yellow – that turned black when mixed: “You know, like a poison. Then I’d come up behind her and try to strangle her. They were all these rather ‘panto’ attempts at assassination.”

Drake and Bush dubbed the assassin ‘Hugo’. The vibe was Berlin ’30s cabaret, Paris Moulin Rouge. “He’s partly based on ‘Valentin The Boneless One’ who you see in a couple of paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec with this very big, pointy chin, pointy nose and cheekbones.”

The tour itself – 24 shows between April 2 and May 14, 1979 – was a roller coaster: traumatic for Bush on account of Duffield’s death and the exposure to her own mounting fame. “I mean, fans would almost throw themselves in front of the coach,” says Drake. “It was scary.”

Factor in the demands of the show – its athletic challenges, the costume changes – and it’s miraculous that only one health scare (Bush lost her voice temporarily in Sweden) threatened to end the tour prematurely. “She was amazing every night for two and a half hours,” says Drake. “I mean, extraordinary. She created this whole massive world.”

Drake’s work on the Tour Of Life proved the beginning of a rise through the showbiz ranks, and a relationship with Bush that continued, providing magic at several of her son Bertie’s birthday parties. In 1990 and 1991 he acquired another level of fame fronting Channel 4 TV show Secret Cabaret, and at 67 continues to make a career from magic at the heart of Simon Drake’s House Of Magic. In 2014 he was pleased to receive an invite to Bush’s Before The Dawn residency at the Hammersmith Apollo. Why does he think it took her so long – over 37 years – to get back on the stage for a comparable run of shows?

“I don’t know. I can only guess,” says Drake. “Basically, a production like the Tour Of Life is hard to control. The fact that when she did do anything again, it was all in one place, with a stage crew from more of a theatre background, something extremely controlled, I think that’s probably a clue. For someone like Kate, who’s that good, it’s hard for anything to be good enough. It’s just got to be better.”

What did he make of the show? “I was so pleased and proud to see her do this incredibly grownup version of what she’d done all those years before. It was really like walking into a dream, wasn’t it?”

After the gig, Drake was ushered into VIP drinks, then the super-VIP drinks, “which was weird – only six people in there.” When Bush entered with Bertie, they hugged and she asked what he thought, whereupon Drake endeavoured to reassemble his blown mind.

“I just said, Fuuuuuuck! And she said, ‘Is that all you’re gonna say? Fuuuuuck?’”

Simon Drake hosts private and occasionally public shows at his own London theatre, where Tour Of Life memorabilia can be found. See  h ouseofmagic.co.uk

“I’m not a star. I’m still just me…” Get the latest issue of MOJO to read the full story on Kate Bush early metamorphosis, from childhood songwriting to becoming an art-pop phenomenon. More info and to order a copy HERE .

Pictures: Getty

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Kate Bush's only tour: pop concert or disappearing act?

O n 14 May 1979, Kate Bush played the final date of her first-ever tour. A six-week jaunt around Britain and mainland Europe, the Tour of Life was an extraordinary, hydra-headed beast, combining music, dance, poetry, mime, burlesque, magic and theatre. After the final show at the Hammersmith Odeon, the backstage talk among the "cast" and crew turned to America and the further, wildly inventive leaps forward Bush might make next time.

Over three decades later, "next time" has yet to arrive. Bush has not played a full concert since that night at the Odeon, and the Tour of Life has turned out to be the tour of a lifetime. "I thought we were going to go around the world," says Brian Bath, who played guitar with the KT Bush Band. "It just fizzled into doing bits and bobs for TV and songs for a new album. It was such a shame. The Americans would have loved it."

A little over a year earlier, Bush had announced her arrival with the single Wuthering Heights, as strange a song as any that has spent four weeks at No 1. With her striking looks, high vocal register and Lindsay Kemp-inspired dancing, her impact swiftly moved beyond the confines of the music press. Auberon Waugh declared himself a fan and, according to one of those immeasurable statistics by which fame is quantified, in 1978 Bush was the most photographed woman   in Britain.

She initially made her mark as a visually unique performer, but her live experience was limited to a smattering of pre-fame pub gigs with the KT Bush Band in and around London, a few original songs sprinkled among covers of the Beatles' Come Together and the Rolling Stones' Honky Tonk Woman. The Tour of Life promised to be a more ambitious, more sophisticated affair. With scant regard for the stripped-down sensibilities of the post-punk era, it was to be an unashamedly theatrical enterprise.

The dance element was co-ordinated by Bush in conjunction with Anthony Van Laast – who later choreographed the Mamma Mia! movie and several West End smashes – and two young dancers, Stewart Avon Arnold and Gary Hurst. They held morning rehearsals for the tour at The Place in Euston, after which Bush spent afternoons in Greenwich drilling her band. Off stage, she was calling the shots on everything from the set design to the programme art.

In March 1979, the production moved to the Who's vast sound stage at Shepperton in the west London suburbs, and finally to the Rainbow Theatre in north London for full technical rehearsals. The set was dominated by a large ribbed screen – intended to represent an egg – on to which slides and film footage could be projected. A central ramp sloped down to the front of the stage, with the band tucked away in the shadows on either side. Bush often sang from a large three-dimensional egg, upholstered in red satin, which could be rolled on and off stage. The symbolism was intended to evoke the womb, the origins of life.

An independently creative woman in what was still a very male world, Bush battled against a widely held prejudice that she was little more than a novelty puppet whose strings were being pulled by some unseen svengali. As such, the tour came to be seen as a testing ground for her talent. It sold out well in advance and the BBC's early-evening magazine show Nationwide sent a film crew to cover the build-up to the opening show on 3 April at the Liverpool Empire.

Brian Southall, then head of artist development at EMI, was also there to "fly the flag" for the company. He recalls Bush being "terribly, terribly nervous, but the show was just extraordinary. We didn't quite know what we were letting ourselves in for, this extraordinary presentation of her music."

Few other artists had taken the pop concert into quite such daring territory; its only serious precedent was David Bowie's 1974 Diamond Dogs tour. There were 13 people on stage, 17 costume changes and 24 songs – primarily from her first two albums, The Kick Inside and Lionheart – scattered over three distinctly theatrical acts. Her brother John declaimed poetry, Simon Drake performed illusions and magic tricks, and at the centre was a barefoot Bush, still only 20 years old.

For Them Heavy People she was a trench-coated, trilby-hatted gangster. On the heartbreaking Oh England, My Lionheart, she became a dying second world war fighter pilot, a flying jacket for a shroud and a Biggles helmet for a burial crown. Every song offered something new: she moved from Lolita , winking outrageously from behind the piano, to a top-hatted magician's apprentice ; from a soul siren singing of her "pussy queen" to a leather-clad refugee from West Side Story. The erotically charged denouement of James and the Cold Gun depicted her as a murderous gunslinger, spraying gunfire – actually ribbons of red satin – over the stage. There was no room for improvisation. The band was drilled to within an inch of its life and Bush never spoke to the audience, refusing to come out of character. "She was faultless," says set designer David Jackson. "I don't remember her ever fluffing a line or hitting a bum note on the piano."

As the tour rolled out around the UK the reviews were euphoric: Melody Maker called the Birmingham show "the most magnificent spectacle ever encountered in the world of rock", and most critics broadly concurred. Only NME remained sceptical, dismissing Bush as "condescending" and, with the kind of proud and rather wonderful perversity that once defined the British rock press, praising only the magician.

However, the mood of the tour had been struck a terrible blow early on, after a low-key warm-up concert on 2 April at Poole Arts Centre in Dorset. While scouring the darkened venue to ensure nothing had been forgotten, the lighting engineer Bill Duffield fell 20 feet through a cavity to his death. He was just 21. Bush was shattered, and contemplated cancelling the tour. "It was terrible for her," says Brian Bath. "Kate knew everyone by name, right down to the cleaner, she was so like that, she'd speak to everyone. It's something you wouldn't forget, but we just carried through it."

Owing to demand, the tour ended with three additional London concerts at Hammersmith Odeon, following 10 shows in mainland Europe. The first night became a fundraising benefit for Duffield's family and featured Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley, for whom Duffield had also worked. They joined Bush on several songs, ending with a spirited, if rather ramshackle rendition of the Beatles' Let It Be. The second night was filmed for the Live at Hammersmith Odeon video release, which most involved agree never quite captured the essence of the Tour of Life, and the way in which it rejected the orthodoxy of the typical rock concert while simultaneously suggesting a template for its future.

Looking back, the most striking aspect is how ahead of its time the Tour of Life seemed. With its projections, its pioneering use of the head-mic, its multimedia leanings and its creation of a narrative beyond the immediate context of the songs, it was a significant step forward in the evolution of live performance. On Hammer Horror , Bush even performed to playback, an unheard-of conceit at the time but nowadays almost the norm for any show with significant visual stimuli.

Bush seemed born to play live, but the third night at Hammersmith Odeon now appears to have been a final curtain call. Despite the very occasional cameo – her last live appearance was in 2002 with David Gilmour at the Royal Festival Hall, singing the part of the "Evil Doctor" on a version of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb – she hasn't toured or played a headline concert since. She came closest in the early 1990s, announcing at a fan convention her intention to play gigs in 1991; Bush is a longtime fan of The Muppet Show, and there were rumours she had contacted Jim Henson's company to discuss working with her on a new stage show.

However, the plans came to naught. Instead, her innate gift for performing was channelled into lavish videos and one patchy short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve.

The draining experience of conceiving, organising, rehearsing, performing and overseeing the Tour of Life may have outweighed any desire Bush had to repeat the experience. "I think it was just too hard," said the late Bob Mercer, the man who signed her to EMI in 1976. "I think she liked it but the equation didn't work. These are not conversations I recall ever having with her, but I went to a lot of the shows in Britain and in Europe and I could see at the end of the show that she was completely wiped out."

The mechanics of touring certainly didn't appeal. Bush's dislike of flying has been an active ingredient in her decision not to perform on a global stage, and having endured a promotional whirlwind throughout 1978 and 1979 she found that the lifestyle – airports, hotels, press calls, itineraries, entourages and precious little solitude – sabotaged the way she wanted to live her life and conduct her career.

Others suggest that Duffield's death weighed heavily; or that the tour, which was largely self-financed, was too expensive; or that, having shown her hand so impressively, she felt no need to do it again. "People said I couldn't gig, and I proved them wrong," she said. And as Brian Southall points out, "It did pose the problem: follow that."

They are all plausible theories, but at its heart the tour exposed an aesthetic conundrum. Bush is essentially a child of the studio, preferring to work over time at her creative impulses in silence and solitude. Like an author, the connections with her audience occur privately, conducted as a conversation rather than a mass declaration. The results have frequently been bewitching and yet, in a career with an abundance of creative peaks and critical praise, her reluctance to perform live remains a source of deep regret, particularly following the extraordinary promise shown on the Tour of Life.

"It's a tragedy she didn't go back out touring, an absolute tragedy," says Jon Kelly, who co-produced Bush's first three records. "A huge loss to the world. Like a star dying early."

Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, by Graeme Thomson, is published by Omnibus Press

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Live Review: Kate Bush's First Show in 35 Years

By Pitchfork

Before the dawn, let's go back 35 years. “The Kate Bush show that's been wowin' 'em is a tribute to… the old-style ideology that defines the relationship between artist and audience as purely that between worshipper and worshipped,” wrote NME 's Charles Shaar Murray of Bush's first tour in 1979, during the aftermath of England's punk heyday. He continued in this vein; he wasn't a fan. “The Kate Bush experience is an exercise in the time-honored art of battering an audience to death and making them like it.”

Popular memory now records Kate Bush's Tour of Life as a high watermark for the live rock experience, an extravaganza of song, dance, and mime featuring headset microphone innovation (bow down, Madonna) and a stylized womb-egg (take that, Gaga). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the whirling dervish behind it was considered an anomaly during punk, her work being about imagination and detail rather than crude, simple style. By 1985's Hounds of Love , though, she was a globally successful icon who had mastered a wide-eyed brand of art-pop while turning songs about nuclear war from the point of a foetus ("Breathing"), dead soldiers from the perspective of a bereaved mother ("Army Dreamers"), and the restless search for knowledge by feckless humans ("Sat in Your Lap") into UK Top 20 hits.

There are other bits of Murray's review that won't find favor today, but his points about idolatry and excess ring true on the opening night of Bush's 22-date Before the Dawn run at London's Hammersmith Apollo. Fans scream at the stage before the show starts, and when the lights go up, they whoop like a soccer crowd. When Bush appears, there is barely any oxygen left. This is a Second Coming, all right.

But this gig is about more than a night out: It's about what one woman's return means, what it represents. Born within a month of Madonna and Michael Jackson, Bush remains a rare female embodiment of complete creative control, something she established when the music business was a proper business. She was the first woman to write and perform a British #1 ("Wuthering Heights") and have a British #1 album ( Never for Ever ), and she's also produced her own work since 1982's The Dreaming . She still defines her career, resolutely, on her own terms, but this doesn't mean it's not right to gawp at her uncritically—although tonight's gig is a great one, it isn't perfect.

Before the Dawn begins with "Lily", from 1993's The Red Shoes . Everything else aside, Bush's presence alone is surreally moving. Here is a 56-year-old woman who looks like a 56-year-old woman, in a long black coat, black hair trailing down her back, singing to us. She doesn't look like an idol at all. There'll be too much discussion about her beauty, of course—Robert Plant, an artist similarly sexual in his younger years, and on his own path, never gets that now—but it is wonderful that she looks as she does on the stage. This isn't kowtowing to convention, after all. This is mum doing whatever the hell she wants.

Nevertheless, the start of the show underwhelms. The first seven songs of the set are delivered simply and plainly, Bush's band lining up conventionally behind her. A mixture of hits ("Hounds of Love", "Running Up That Hill") and album tracks ("Joanni", "Never Be Mine") shimmer out one by one, lit diamonds in a stage set sparkling in basic configurations. The biggest shock is her 16-year-old son, Bertie, being pointed out in the backing singers. The band, and Bush's voice, also wobble at points; her singing is definitely not note-perfect tonight, despite what others have said. Nevertheless, it remains a lovely, special thing, like a whisper up the spine, especially over the high notes in "Top of the City". It's just enough to carry this opening section, which lacks theatrical weight.

Then comes the “wind whistling” during "King of the Mountain", and—bang—everything goes crazy. The band's drummer is suddenly stage-front and spotlit, swinging a rope. Smoke and yellow paper fly out from guns on the stage. The paper features the poem on which The Ninth Wave—the suite of songs on Hounds of Love 's second side—was based. You realize the first seven songs were a MacGuffin, an elaborate ruse. The effect is jolting and astonishing.

From The Ninth Wave section of last night's show. Photo by Ken McKay. Copyright Noble and Brite.

What follows is the greatest part of the show, as the story of a woman lost at sea is brought to dramatic life. Projections of waves toss and surge on a screen, as do heavier ones, on the stage floor, wrought in fabric. The set is like a whale's mouth, huge teeth bending in, with a back projection of our girl in her lifejacket. Dancers in strange steampunk costumes menace the stage; at the end of the set, they carry Bush away in tragic and terrifying fashion.

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By Nina Corcoran

Then there's a man phoning the coastguard, and Bush's husband and son in their living room, arguing about dad burning the dinner. This set-piece begins embarrassingly, before taking another dramatic turn: Bush turning up behind the door, unseen, in black, like a ghost. What would happen if she was lost, we all wonder, as her stunning songs, performed stunningly, ram this message home. It's an incredible half hour.

The second half of the show is given to a lesser-known suite: A Sky of Honey, from 2005's Aerial , about the progress of a perfect summer's day. The stage concept is similarly ambitious: A wooden boy mannequin, manipulated by a man dressed in black, is trapped in a strange place, before something happens to him—there is the suggestion of blood, pain, and dramatic light. There is a narrative about mothers and sons here, which packs a proper punch, but Bertie Bush is also here again playing a painter. His presence, especially when he's singing, feels rather heavy-handed, and as the other songs aren't particularly strong, this part lags. Maybe too much son, mum. It's OK though. Kate Bush is only human.

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-honored 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. Some were good, and some great, long to linger in the mind. And if the screaming stops long enough, we may even appreciate them, too.

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By Alphonse Pierre

This Day in ’79: Kate Bush Kicks Off Her First Tour

40 years ago today, Kate Bush kicked off her very first concert tour, one which lasted for a little over a month and left audiences speechless with the way Bush had expressed her creative vision.

With her popularity rising rapidly as a result of her albums THE KICK INSIDE and LIONHEART, the time for Bush to tour had arrived, but although she was offered the chance to open for Fleetwood Mac, she decided that she wanted to headline her our show, one which would utilize audio technology, narrative storyline, and visual productions to deliver a combination of music, dance, poetry, mime, burlesque, magic, and theater.

Yes, that was quite the elaborate plan Bush had, but she wasn’t the sort of artist who said, ‘I want this, this, this, and this, now you go make it happen while I take a nap.” No, she was reportedly involved in virtually every aspect of the tour, from the design to the rehearsals to the performances.

The tour technically kicked off in Poole on this date in 1979, but it should be noted that it was always considered to be a warm-up gig. The show itself went well, but it proved to be a difficult evening in the end, as Bill Duffield, the lightning engineer for the tour, was killed after falling from one of the stage and seating structures at the venue. It’s notable that the May 12 date of the tour was turned into a benefit concert for Duffield’s family, with Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley performing that evening as well.

The so-called “Tour of Life” was a smash success, and if you’d like to get a feel for how it went, check out this video, which – thanks to a very industrious fan – features a performance of every song played during the course of the tour.

There was one significant problem with “The Tour of Life,” however, and that was the fact that it so exhausted Kate that she opted out of doing it ever again. Well, unless you count the residency she did at the London Apollo, that is, but even at that, it still took her 35 years to give it another go!

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On Wednesday 3rd September a 5 month (and 35 Year) wait was over as I got to see one of my all time favourite musicians, Kate Bush. When 7.45pm came, so did Kate, leading a procession of her backing singers, including son Bertie, and launching straight into Lily, from The Red Shoes album. This, and nearly all subsequent songs got a standing ovation. Next up was a storming version of Hounds of Love with was received with rapturous applause. Kate's voice has matured over the years and now has a rich, mellow timbre, probably another reason why she wasn't going to perform any material from her first four 'high pitched vocal' albums. The other numbers in this first set were Joanni, Top of the City, Running up that Hill and King of the Mountain. It was now that problems set in, the next part of the gig was going to be 'The Ninth Wave' which makes up the second side of the Hounds of Love album and is a narrative piece written to be played as a whole but it just started with a film of an Astronomer calling the coast guard to report a missing ship when it stopped and we were told there were technical difficulties and we would have first a 10 minute, then a thirty minute break. This soon passed and we were back to the show starting with a canon fire of confetti out into the audience of tissue paper with an excerpt of Tennyson's poem, 'The coming of Arthur' on it.

Kate's image is on a screen at the back of the stage floating in the pitch black sea wearing a life jacket and off stage she starts singing 'And Dream of Sheep' , lip-synching perfectly and then it was through the rest of the songs that make up 'The Ninth Wave' with the stage full of waves made of silk, Ships Buoys, Fish People and even a representation of a rescue helicopter flying over the audience, its search beam flicking over the sea of people.

Then it was our second and scheduled interval, a chance to catch your breathe and retrieve pieces of confetti from the stage and aisles. The second half was the performance of A Sky of Honey, from the Aerial Album, with son Bertie taking the part of the Painter and directing what happened on stage. And again it was a visual feast with an artistes wooden model controlled by a puppeteer, church bells, Blackbird's song and when we got to Aerial, a crashing crescendo with two huge trees that fell from the roof, one which impaled Kate' grand piano and then Kate herself turning into a Blackbird and briefly taking off from the stage before the lights went dark. This resulted in a huge ovation from the audience, the noise was deafening ! The expected encore was listened to in total silence as Kate played Among Angels (From 50 Words for Snow) solo at the piano before leading audience in an ecstatic rendition of Cloudbusting ! And then it was over, a magical,emotional,crazy,dreamlike, vision of this women's work. Worth waiting 35 years for, you bet !

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The last time Kate Bush went on tour was the year I was born so it seemed surreal that in 2014 she decied to hold a residency at the Hammersmith Apollo. First things first - her voice has held up amazingly well, I was stunned by how strong her vocals were on songs like 'Hounds of Love'. Unlike other artists this was not a Greatest Hits but a strong focus on her 1985 album 'Hounds of Love' and the 20 years later 2005 'Aerial' album.

Kate took an entire section from each album and followed through with a visual and musical experience.

The 'Ninth Wave' portion of the show had far less singing but more dramatics. I commend her use of staging, actors and video but there were a couple of parts that were cringe-inducing like the dramatic scene between her son and his father and it lasted probably about 10 minutes too long. Hearing the second part of the Aerial LP live was absoultey amazing in particular 'Sunset' and teh Spanish guitars through to the gorgeous 'Nocturn'. I loved the use of the live puppeteer operating the wooden puppet which helped to create quiet an unsettling and eerie image that ended with the entire on stage band, singers and actors wearing very creepy bird masks. The show lasted just under 3 hours with a 20 minute interval and she ended with a magnificient 'Cloudbusting' which felt like the perfect end to a show many never thought would ever happen.

After almost 37 years of being a huge fan I finally got to see Kate Bush sing her songs live and what an evening. No songs from the first four albums but some truly amazing performances and the most emotional concert I've ever been to. The first few songs were Kate singing with the band as a straight rock show, looking relaxed and as if she was enjoying it as much as the audience. They then moved on to an extended visual show around the Ninth Wave - the second half of the Hounds of Love album. By the time that had finished we had had an hour and a half that in itself would have constituted a great show but that was only the first half. The second half was based around A Sky of Honey with bits from 50 Words for Snow and a solo piece from her son Bertie - great voice if a bit more on the theatrical side. The whole thing was again based around a visual performance that enhanced the experience. For the encore Kate sang alone at the piano and then the finale was back to the Hounds of Love album with Cloudbustin. All in all a wonderful evening and we are back again tomorrow. Hopefully this will stir her interest in live performances and we'll see further shows - and new albums!

If anyone tells you they know what a Kate Bush live show is like, frankly, they’re either one of the luckiest people in the world, or they’re an outright liar. The singer, inarguably one of the most influential in the last thirty, forty years of modern music, has been strictly a studio based artist for so long that live shows have not been performed with any regularity since her one and only ever tour, way back in 1979. It’s no wonder then that news of her return to the stage was greeted among her fanbase as if it was the second coming of some soprano voiced Messiah. Reportedly, she retired from the stage in the late Seventies due to wanting more control over the final product - something only a retreat to the studio offered - and as such, one can expect attention to detail to be of utmost importance when she makes her live comeback. From the footage available of those long mythologized shows of yester year, with Bush crawling around the stage as if climbing a horizontal mountain, her otherworldly voice as spellbinding as her piercing stare, anyone lucky enough to grab a ticket for the forthcoming nights is in for an unparalleled treat.

So. I thought the staging and her voice were amazing. I thought all the song choices were perfect and didn't 'miss' the real oldies.. (in fact there were quite a lot of nods to the classics that haven't been picked up on) Real thought in that set and lighting design visually and aurally perfect..

I know she's not a lithe 19 year old (who is?) but I wished she had stood still a bit more. Especially in the first half when she just waddled about like a drunk at a bus stop. And I wish that both the concept pieces had been played as continuous works rather than breaking it up to give room for applause.. It lacked urgency - especially the 9th Wave. But some real WOW moments, some seriously swoonsome moments, and the ending of Ariel crystallised in about one minute why we love her . Really felt in the presence of something special.

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This Day in 1979 Kate Bush Begins First + Only Tour with 22 Songs

• Live Debuts
• Last updated: 17 Jun 2022, 20:36:10
• Published: 2 Apr 2020, 21:52:58
• Written by: Asal Shah
• Photography by: Pete Still
• Categories: Live Debuts Tagged: Kate Bush The Tour of Life Kate Bush at Poole Arts Centre

No artist has left a mark on the avant-pop world quite like Kate Bush. The English singer and artist started out in her career very young, writing her chart-topping, debut single "Wuthering Heights" at the ripe age of 19 in 1978.

The song still remains a favorite in 2020 as does her other hits like "The Man with the Child in His Eyes," "Running Up That Hill, " This Woman's Work," "King of the Mountain"... The list goes on because her innovative sounds were well ahead of their time and transcend genres, even in this day and age.

Bush has only done one legit concert tour throughout her 40+ year career - The Tour of Life in 1979. Today, April 2, marks the day when she kicked off the month-long tour in Europe with a warm up concert at Poole Arts Centre in Poole, England.

The tour was in support of her two studio first albums, both of which dropped in 1978 - The Kick Inside and Lionheart.

The 22 song setlist was divided between the two albums, opening every night with "Moving" and closing with an encore of "Wuthering Heights." She also included the first ever performances of songs "Egypt" and "Violin," which were later released on her third studio album, 1980's Never for Ever.

The performance was unlike any before, with each show featuring visual projections, multiple costume changes and incorporating miming, magic and poetry readings during the costume changes, aiding in the narrative storyline and making the concert feel more like theatrical production.

She also introduced new technology to the astonishment of fans and critics alike, being the first singer ever to use a wireless headset microphone so that she could dance while singing. She choreographed the show herself with Anthony Van Last and dancers Stewart Avon Arnold and Gary Hurst.

The show was divided into four sections and she did two encores every night. At her show in London, she covered "Let it Be" by the Beatles as the second encore with Peter Gabriel. This particular show, taking place on May 12th, also saw her performing other songs with Gabriel including: "D.I.Y.," "Here Comes the Flood," and "I Don't Remember."

Check out the setlist from the kickoff show below:

Bush never toured again, but she did do residencies in London, one in 1987 and the most recent one in 2014, titled "Before the Dawn."

Since Bush has always remained a prominent figure in music - influencing the likes of current artists like Weyes Blood and FKA Twigs - if she ever toured again, we would welcome her with open arms!

Watch an entire set from the tour right here:

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Most played songs.

• Them Heavy People ( 35 )
• Wuthering Heights ( 33 )
• Moving ( 32 )
• The Man With the Child in His Eyes ( 32 )
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake ( 31 )

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503 people have seen Kate Bush live.

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The story behind Kate Bush's first No.1 album, Never For Ever

From cheating husbands to saving the planet, Kate Bush explored a diverse range of subjects on Never For Ever, ensuring it was far more than just a pop record. We dissect the themes behind her chart-topping third album.

‘I’ve been out before, but this time it’s much safer in.’ – Breathing

It was her 70s swansong, which opened up all manner of possibilities for her 80s explosion. Much as 1979’s The Tour Of Life remains legendary in the collective memory/imagination, afterwards Kate Bush avoided live concerts until her triumphant return with the Before The Dawn shows some 35 years later. She had been uncomfortable with EMI’s visual emphasis on her sexuality, and felt she’d been rushed on her previous album, Lionheart . 

So after the Christmas 1979 TV special, where she’d premiered some of these Never For Ever songs, she began to ease away from promotion (thus acquiring priceless mystique) and took control, with her family, of her business affairs. In the studio, she became an auteur. The success of Never For Ever was therefore a crucial confidence boost, lighting the pathways for her subsequent transcendent work. 

It was the first album by a British female solo artist to top the UK album chart (straight in at No.1), and the first by any female solo artist that wasn’t a compilation. She had a lot more up her skirt than the cats, bats and butterflies pictured on the sleeve, but here was where her swans truly took flight.

A more bitter than sweet love story, coming from somewhere between Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and Rupert Holmes’ Escape (The Pina Colada Song). Bush told Australian TV that the wife of the tale tests her husband’s loyalty by sending him “scented letters” from a young temptress, but he becomes so besotted with the fictitious creature she’s dreamed up that their relationship is ruined. (Nowadays they’d just Snapchat each other.)

The traditional English folk song Sovay, involving a woman in disguise, was another inspiration, having fascinated Kate since childhood. In the video, she played the wife, while the double bass symbolised the man (John Giblin’s fretless bass was a key element of the track). The sound of glass breaking at the end (she smashed up crockery at Abbey Road, later apologising with chocolates to the studio’s kitchen staff) was an early use of a sample made on the spanking new Fairlight CMI synth to which Peter Gabriel had introduced her. (There were only three in the UK at the time.)

The song became a UK Top Five hit, and thus her biggest since Wuthering Heights. Kate’s admitted that she didn’t realise that ‘babushka’ is the Russian word for grandmother, and many shared her misapprehension that the word signified a series of dolls of decreasing size placed one inside another. ‘Matryoshka’, the technically correct phrase for that, wouldn’t have scanned or been half as catchy. 

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DELIUS (SONG OF SUMMER)

Inspired by a viewing of Ken Russell’s 1968 TV movie Song Of Summer , wherein the madcap director covered the final years of famed English composer Frederick Delius, when, sick, blind and paralysed, he suffers and bemoans Christianity. Russell claimed it was his best work, and reviews used words not commonly associated with him, like ‘subtle’ and ‘sensitive’. Similarly, the film examined the dichotomy between Delius’ monstrous ego and the delicacy of his music. “It stayed in my head,” Kate told Russell Harty, when a guest on his TV show alongside Delius’ confidante Eric Fenby (a character in the song). “It was responsible for me getting into his music as well. I can’t understand why I didn’t listen before – it’s so beautiful.” Pushed on whether Delius would’ve approved of Kate’s song, Fenby said, “Well, [he] was a great individualist. He would have accepted that as a very gracious tribute.” 

“Art is pure emotion,” added Kate, at no point looking likely to emulate Grace Jones in committing violence upon Harty’s person. 

Subtitled For Bill , and dedicated to the memory of Bill Duffield, the lighting director tragically killed in an accident at a show in Poole on Kate’s The Tour Of Life (the first of the three London shows was repurposed as a benefit for Duffield’s family, with Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley guesting). Stars who’d passed away in recent years are also named in the song: Marc Bolan, Minnie Riperton, Keith Moon, Sid Vicious and Sandy Denny, as well as Buddy Holly. ‘Bolan and Moony are heading the show tonight’ , she sings, picturing a kind of celestial great gig in the sky. There’s a quote from Shakespeare’s Othello , too, in ‘put out the light, then put out the light.’ In the year of release Kate said in her fan club newsletter, “It’s… a comfort for the fear of dying,” adding, “It’s tongue-in-cheek, but it’s a great thought that if a musician dies, his soul will join all the other musicians, or a poet will join all the Dylan Thomases…” Poignantly, Bill was honoured again – ‘can you turn the lights up?’ – at the end of Moments Of Pleasure from The Red Shoes.

ALL WE EVER LOOK FOR

That new toy, the Fairlight, gets a healthy work-out here, with samples ranging from Hare Krishna followers chanting to birdsong (which would come back big time on Aerial ). With allusions to the pressures placed on children by their parents, it’s, Kate wrote to her fan club, “about how we seek something, but in the wrong way or at wrong times – so it is never found”. We all quest for our own elusive butterflies, but the lyrics include references to ‘another womb’ and ‘our own tomb’ , as well as ‘a drug’ and ‘a great big hug’ . “It’s not about me,” Bush told the Sunday Times . “It’s about family relationships generally. Our parents got beaten physically – we get beaten psychologically. You do get faced sometimes with futile situations. But the answer’s not to kill yourself. You have to accept it, you have to cope.” Possibly the only track where a performer’s brother gets mentioned in the song and plays the koto on it. 

As premiered, rather startlingly, on that Christmas 1979 TV special, Egypt is a naïve but effusive love letter to an idea of a country, rather than an accurate travelogue. Bush saw it as “an attempted audial animation of the romantic and realistic visions of a country”. With its by rote, hacky mentions of the pyramids, the Nile and feline gods ( ‘my pussy queen knows all my secrets’ ), it’s a classic example of the way Bush’s unapologetic, wide-eyed sense of wonder can sometimes elevate what would be cheese in a less gifted artist’s hands into a piece of no little power. “Each song has a very different personality,” she mused. 

THE WEDDING LIST

In François Truffaut’s 1968 film The Bride Wore Black , based on a Cornell Woolrich novel, Jeanne Moreau played a widow who hunts down the five men who killed her husband on her wedding day. Critics panned it at first, and even Truffaut said they were right. Kate begged to differ. ‘I’ll get him and I will not miss!’ she shrieks, almost gleefully, relishing the thrill of gun-toting vengeance. “(It’s) about the powerful force of revenge,” she said in her newsletter. “An unhealthy energy, which in this song proves to be a ‘killer’.” Despite that evidence that her comedy skills were sub-par, the listener can, given her committed performance, totally believe in her hitting ‘headlines’ with a ‘passion crime’ . In the TV special, Kate’s crazed, blood-stained performance, in (white) wedding dress, was half bonkers ballet, half Hammer Horror . 

Often cited as Bush’s “punk” track, though in truth its raunch is rather mild, akin perhaps to Don’t Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake from Lionheart . Its theatrical rock elements were portrayed during that TV special, Bush wearing black bat wings and red headdress, accompanied by two backing dancers dressed as, um, cellos. It was, like most of this album’s songs, the last time she performed it. It was “for all the mad fiddlers from Paganini to Old Nick himself” she said, taking the tactile instrument love of The Saxophone Song from The Kick Inside even further. As if gripped by synaesthesia, she’s carried away by the violin, which fills her up ‘ with the shivers and quivers’ . She enjoys the bow screaming to her, so much so that she asks old Nicky (Satan, presumably) to ‘whack that devil into my fiddlestick!’ You didn’t get that kind of sauce with Vera Lynn. Irish master fiddler Kevin Burke guests. 

THE INFANT KISS

Another clinch with gothic horror brought on by late night movie viewing, this was inspired by evergreen spooky classic The Innocents , the 1961 Jack Clayton film starring Deborah Kerr, itself based on Henry James’ 1898 novella The Turn Of The Screw. Therein, a governess comes to suspect the two children she’s watching over, in a potentially haunted house, are possessed (there’s a fan-made video for the song online using scenes from the film, which Kate has approved). “The governess,” she penned in a 1980 newsletter, “is torn between the love of an adult man and child who are within the same body” (it’s creepy in so many ways). Bush recorded a French version, Un Baiser D’Enfant, two years later.   

NIGHT SCENTED STOCK

Named after an ornamental plant, this is a sub-minute interlude created entirely from layered vocals, serving as a prelude to Army Dreamers. A then-novel experiment that others would run with. It was sampled in 1990 by German DJ Loopzone on Les Enfants Du Paradis.  

ARMY DREAMERS

This insistent waltz decries the effects of war, centring on a mother, rattled by guilt as she grieves for the loss of her son who was killed on military duty. She wonders if he could’ve been a rock star or a politician, if she’d been able to afford him a guitar or ‘ a proper education ’. Weirdly, the single was longer than the album track (which fades). Insanely, it was banned by the BBC during the 1991 Gulf War. Bush rocked camouflage gear in the video. The song’s been covered in numerous languages, from Hebrew to Finnish.

“I wanted the mother to be a very simple woman who’s obviously got a lot of work to do,” she told Flexipop! at the time. “She’s full of remorse but has to carry on, living in a dream. Most of us live in a dream.” She also told interviewers that it wasn’t “specifically” about Ireland. “I’m not slagging off the Army,” she said to ZigZag ’s Kris Needs. “It’s just so sad that there are kids who have no O-levels and nothing to do but become soldiers, and it’s not really what they want. That’s what frightens me.” 

An eerie, thoroughly prog trip back to the womb was a curious choice as the first single and teaser for a new project (it stalled at No.16), but uncompromisingly confirmed that Bush was now taking a firmer hand in decision making. Again her telly watching played a part as she cited a documentary she’d seen on the perils of nuclear fallout (fragments of spoken word describing the flash from a nuclear bomb can be heard). It’s interwoven with fears that the mother’s smoking may also damage the foetus (as if the kid didn’t have enough to worry about, with the apocalypse and all). No wonder Kate, in the video, wants to get out of that rather low-budget plastic bubble. ‘ We’re all going to die! ’ cries a background voice. 

Upon release, in the fan club letter, she called it “a warning and plea from a future spirit to try and save mankind and his planet from irretrievable destruction”. She told ZigZag it was “the best thing I’ve ever written, the best thing I’ve ever produced – my little symphony”, while Smash Hits elicited the quote, “We’re all innocent. None of us deserve to be blown up.” 

Roy Harper had a backing vocals credit. Talking to Melody Maker ’s Colin Irwin, Bush said, “When I heard Pink Floyd’s The Wall I thought there’s no point in writing songs any more because they had said it all. When something really gets you, hits your creative centre, it stops you creating… After a couple of weeks I realised that [they] hadn’t done everything […] Breathing was definitely inspired by the whole vibe I got from hearing that album, especially the third side. There’s something about Floyd that’s pretty atomic anyway.”  

This article originally appeared in Prog 114.

Chris Roberts has written about music, films, and art for innumerable outlets. His new book The Velvet Underground is out April 4. He has also published books on Lou Reed, Elton John, the Gothic arts, Talk Talk, Kate Moss, Scarlett Johansson, Abba, Tom Jones and others. Among his interviewees over the years have been David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Bryan Ferry, Al Green, Tom Waits & Lou Reed. Born in North Wales, he lives in London.

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• The Kick Inside
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Welcome to the official Kate Bush website, presented by FISH PEOPLE :

We're delighted to announce a whole bunch of reissued albums in unlimited editions on physical formats. We’ve redesigned the website to show you what's available.

“In a virtual world where no-one knows what’s real, there are people out there who want to feel the music in their hands”

The Escapologist Edition

Fish People are delighted to announce the special presentation of The Dreaming album, featuring the original remastered audio, 2018

The Baskerville Edition

In addition to the reissues there are two special presentations of the Hounds of Love album featuring the original remastered audio, 2018

The Boxes of Lost at Sea

For more details, please visit the Hounds of Love page.

“I hope you enjoy these reissues. A great deal of care and thought has gone into them.”