When I first clapped eyes on Kate Bush,
I was thirteen and barely formed. I saw her - this wild, graceful, exquisite
girl - on Top of the Pops, on the pages of Smash Hits and on her LP covers. And I listened to her. I ignored the critics who complained that
she wailed, who compared her to a banshee. I knew better than that. She sang
about Heathcliff and kites and periods and all manner of elemental things with
a pure, otherworldly and totally unforgettable voice. And I recognised instinctively what she
was saying. Her music, her words, her art spoke to
me as a girl, as a teenager, as a twenty-something, as a thirty-something.
Now, thirty-six years on and I perch on the edge of my seat at Hammersmith Apollo
not quite believing my eyes. Her band starts up and she marches on, understated
and barefoot, with her singers. It is clear that this is the KT
Fellowship – and that includes the audience. She opens with pulsating, prophetic
Lily and from the crowd
breaks an astonishing wave of affection. We are ecstatic. The
years collapse and the tears fall. I am thirteen years old again.
She performs a handful of hits
including Joanni, Top of the City, Running Up That Hill and Hounds of Love until, being unconventional
Kate, her raw and joyous King of the Mountain is interrupted by a sinister
stage invasion: a tall wiry man whirling a bullroarer, scattering Kate and her
band. He is the storm bringer. The set is changed, a tempest erupts and we
realise something extraordinary is about to happen. The visual song-story of
The Ninth Wave begins.
Kate reappears, singing the
crystal-clear, mournful And Dream of Sheep wearing a life jacket, floating in a
tank and projected against a desolate sea. I am immersed, overwhelmed, in her sound-scape as the tragic drowning unfolds. The stage is colonised by her Fish
People, mime artists and actors, pulling us through the story with movement and
subtleties that challenge me to keep up. The lights, the effects and the sound
are astounding - designed to enthrall us and wrestle our emotions. Kate's voice
is rich, soft and angry, yearning and mellifluous as she takes us down through
Watching You Without Me to Jig of Life, and from Hello Earth to the terrifying
sinking depths of the inevitable. And suddenly, The Morning Fog breaks amid a sunrise as band and performers assemble around her to lift us with the
melodious promise of an awakening, a re-birth. We need the interval to
recover.
She greets us in the second half with Aerial's A Sky of Honey, painting the picture of a summer's day with vision and sound, from dawn and daybreak, through a
perfect afternoon to dusk when a huge tawny moon – this interlude sung by
her son Albert – rises in darkness under a sky of diamonds. I sit dumbfounded,
my mouth open. The stage becomes a metaphor for the whole earth as she
celebrates the power of nature, of sunlight, sea, sky and
birdsong. She takes us to a garden under water, linking us briefly back to The
Ninth Wave, and then to soar through the sky, rising with endless flocks of
birds. We hear church bells. We revel with her in the
seemingly benign pastoral scene. And then as the pageant reaches its crescendo, I realise the true meaning of Aerial – there’s something dark, something
primeval and rather sinister. We see chaos and possession and nature turning on us,
violently. Then finally, Kate breaks free. She flies.
She finishes with an encore of Among Angels –
during which I could have heard a pin drop - and the radiant Cloudbusting. I leave
the auditorium stunned, weeping, speechless. Kate Bush's talent and art is so
innate and unique, generous and encompassing that to attempt to describe it further will break its spell, make it lose its potency. It's not just about the
music.
Outside, on the billboard of
Hammersmith Apollo, the sign simply says 'KT Fellowship presents Before the
Dawn'. Kate Bush has absolutely no need to have her name up in lights.
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