Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Kate Bush, British pop singer, returns to the stage after 35 years

Ecstatic fans have welcomed British pop singer Kate Bush back to the stage for her first show in 35 years.

The crowd stood and roared with approval as Bush, dressed in black, entered the stage with her back-up singers and opened with her 1993 song Lily, followed by Hounds of Love.
More than 80,000 tickets for the 56-year-old's 22 shows at the Hammersmith Apollo, where Bush last performed in 1979, sold out in 15 minutes when they went on sale in March.

Second-hand tickets had been advertised online for more than $1,650.

Among the crowd was Brisbane teacher Vicki Skehan, who said she had spent about $16,500 on a business-class plane fare to London, accommodation and tickets for two performances.

"So far, so good," she said during the interval of the show, adding that Bush's voice was "still fantastic, and if anything sounds better, with more depth".

The theatrical show included video, a helicopter and a sea rescue scene. It ranged over the three decades of Bush's career with songs such as Oh England My Lionheart and Babooshka.

Bush finished the concert with Cloudbusting, receiving a final standing ovation after being on stage for nearly three hours.

"Thank you very much for such a warm and positive response," she said.

The performance made the front page of many of Britain's newspapers, with the Daily Mail describing it as a "triumphant return" and the Guardian calling it "unbelievable".

"There was undoubtedly only one artist who would have had the bloody-mindedness, nerve and beautifully skewed imagination to pull it off," wrote the Mirror.

Eleven of Bush's albums have risen into this week's Top 100 albums chart for sales, with her greatest hits collection, The Whole Story, reaching number eight, according to OfficialCharts.com.

Her most recent release, 50 Words For Snow, also saw the biggest week-on-week percentage increase of 810 per cent and has sold 155,000 copies so far, the charts company said.

The singer had asked the audience in advance not to use phones or cameras during the performance, and the rule was strictly enforced.

Reluctance to play live
Bush burst onto the scene in 1978 at the age of 19, when her debut single Wuthering Heights went to the top of Britain's singles chart and stayed there for four weeks.

The song's distinctive soprano vocals and ethereal video divided audiences, but Bush cemented her reputation as one of pop's true innovators with follow-up singles such as Running Up That Hill.

Artists as diverse as Tupac Shakur, Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten, Bjork and Coldplay have all cited Bush as an influence.

Her 2011 album 50 Words For Snow was the last of 10 album releases, but her only tour took place in April and May of 1979.

Despite the success of the Tour of Life, a theatrical spectacle involving magicians, poetry and 17 different costume changes, it would take her three decades to go back on tour.

Various theories were put forward to explain her reluctance to play live including a lack of artistic control, a chronic fear of flying and the anguish caused by the death of a roadie during one of her 1979 shows.

But she told the BBC in 2011 that it was the physical strain of her energetic shows which had put her off.

She singled out her teenage son Bertie, who sang and acted in the show, for giving her the confidence to perform.

"The adventure's only just begun," she told him onstage.

The ambitious staging and a voice untouched by time meant "the long wait felt worth it", the Independent wrote.

"It's quite stunning, undoubtedly the most ambitious and genuinely moving piece of theatrical pop ever seen on a British stage."

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