Sara Nyman, a fan who asked for help with her thesis on Kate Bush fans a few months back, has let us know that her thesis is ready. She writes: “To all you Kate Bush fans, the Kate Bush fandom thesis is now ready and publicly readable! Please follow this link to read the thesis.
The author of the thesis would also like to thank each participant for taking part in her research project, and has written a personal letter to all Kate Bush fans. The link to the letter is here. Well done Sara!
Mark
As an American Kate fan myself, I found this to be interesting. Yes, Kate is a cult artist here but a much loved cult artist! Yes, she could have had more success here if she went on American TV more than once and opened for Peter Gabriel or any other art rock artist. But Kate has never been concerned about conquering countries. She knows she has fans here. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have signed with Anti-Records after Fish people messed up the American release of Director’s cut. To be fair, the 2014 shows were a residency, not a tour.
Steve Sauder
Nice paper! I hope the author does well at her school with it! I’m a Canadian fan who swore that if necessary, he would SWIM to London to see the Before The Dawn show (luckily, an airplane was available … ), we had 3rd row, centre stage seats for the Aug. 29th show, and it was a truly wonderful, life-affirming event! I’ve been to many concerts, but have never felt such an amazing connection, both with Kate and the musicians on stage, and with the people around us, who were every bit excited and in awe as we were. I’ve always loved Kate’s music since my first introduction to “The Dreaming” in 1980 (it’s an odd place to start an appreciation of her music, since The Dreaming was such a radical departure from her work before and, to a certain extent, after), and in Before The Dawn, she honestly sounded and looked better than I had hoped in my wildest fantasies – I mean c’mon, she has no right to sound as good as she does at the age of 53 – she hit and held notes on that stage that put singers still in their 20’s to SHAME. And for someone who has said in the past that stage performance frightens her, she was relaxed and warm and funny – a truly gifted artist who makes it look effortless on the stage. When she sat down at the piano for her wonderful “Among Angels” encore, after the stratospheric intensity of the “Aerial” finale, and nonchalantly commented “Oh look, the piano’s grown a tree!” … I knew she was enjoying herself as much as we were. She’s truly a national treasure in the UK and beyond.
Steve.