For the first time in 35 years, Kate Bush will be performing live later this year.
She'll be taking up residency at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, West London, for 22 shows starting in August and running to Oct. 1.
The entire run was sold out in 15 minutes when they tickets went on sale Monday (that's 77,000 tickets sold), confirming her legendary cult status as one of rock's most unique and captivating female artists.
When the Eventim Apollo was known as the Hammersmith Odeon, the then-20-year-old Bush wrapped up her first and only tour there in May 1979.
I worked at the Hammersmith Odeon for three nights a week during the fall and winter of 1991 during my own six-month residency in London after graduating from university. I started at the candy and soft drinks counter on the main floor but quickly moved up to the bar on the second floor. Some of the acts that played during my stint there included Bob Dylan, Toto, Iron Maiden, Suzanne Vega, Tangerine Dream, Hall and Oates and Level 42. The last show I worked was Motorhead. Always enjoyed working the heavy metal concerts because the only request at the bar from fans was for cheap beer and lots of it.
My sister and I had a brief chat on Facebook about loading up a credit card and making our way to London in September to see Kate before coming to our senses. We'll just wait for the live DVD in 2015 instead.
Hopefully Peter Gabriel comes out one night to do Don't Give Up and Games Without Frontiers with her and maybe Elton John joins her for Rocket Man or Candle In The Wind, which she covered in the late 1980s, or Snowed In At Wheeler Street, a song they sang together on her last studio album in 2011.
One of the highlights of her 1979 tour was James And The Cold Gun from her first album The Kick Inside. The live version is a rocking epic that stretches nearly nine minutes long, featuring her unusual vocal style and her love of the weirdly theatrical. Hopefully it's still on the set list in 2014 for a 56-year-old Kate to rip through. Check out the 1979 version at http://pgc.cc/1hlpUDj.
