Friday, March 28, 2014

I GOT TICKETS!

I just booked tickets to see Kate Bush, live on stage, on Saturday September 27th, at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, performing her Before The Dawn tour, previously here. I got up at 2AM Pacific time, an hour ago, to make sure I could purchase tickets on-line when they went on sale at 9:30 GMT... before they sold out.


I am still shaking a little, and have received my email confirmation already, so I can breathe easier.
It is very hard to describe what this means to me, and I am sure a lot of people out there won't understand or may simply view this as another rock concert by some singer or other. But I have been a Kate Bush fan since I saw her on "Saturday Night Live" in 1978. As her albums became increasingly more complex, more emotional, more experimental (for lack of a better word) and the lyrical content became more involved with psychology, inner worlds, metaphysics, a sense of personal spirituality and mysticism, much of it inspired by literature, art, and film, I became more of a fan. Her concerns resonated with me. In a way, she created her own, vast mythology. Her album "The Dreaming" was a major force for me, not only musically, but in a much broader artistic sense, with its stories of Aboriginal Dreamtime, magical human to animal transformation, the disastrous effects of colonization and war on indigenous cultures, and the grander concepts of love and loss set against a fictionalized account of famed magician Houdini's death. She heavily used a synthesizer that was new at the time, called the Fairlight, which was one of the first digital samplers. But true to form, Kate used it in startlingly new and inventive ways.

And of course her follow up, "The Hounds of Love," contains what I consider to be her masterpiece, a concept suite called "The Ninth Wave" which is a devastating story about the experience of a woman lost at sea and her near-death. It is profound, moving, and sweeping in scope... so far beyond what any mere "pop" or rock music or musician can usually accomplish.

With each successive release, Kate has never failed to capture profound moments (listen/watch and read the lyrics for her song "Moments of Pleasure"), and the absolute cosmic joy and tragedy of being alive in this reality. Hers is a special mind and heart and talent, and I am beyond moved that I am going to actually see and hear her play these songs which have such lives of their own, songs that reverberate out through time.

It is 3:30AM and I am heading back to bed to dream of this September when I will be mere yards from Kate, sharing her genius with us. Thank you Kate, for coming back to the stage after so long away (35 years). You certainly did not have to tour since you are THE Kate Bush, a legend... but I am supremely glad you did. I never thought I would see you live, so this is, to sound corny, a dream come true. See you in September.


http://www.katebush.com

Kate Bush is magic. Kate Bush taught me how to fly.

UPDATE: According to the BBC, The Telegraph and The Independent, all 22 nights sold out in under fifteen minutes. I feel doubly lucky to have tickets.

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