Category: Before the Dawn – Live 2014 Shows

In a piece about David Suchet’s upcoming West End role in The Importance of Being Earnest, journalist Baz Bamigboye spoke to theatre director Adrian Noble. It is mentioned that Noble is “helping Kate Bush to prepare for her upcoming concerts.” Read it here.

Adrian Noble was the Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990 to 2003. In addition to his theatre work, Adrian has also directed several successful London West End musicals including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Secret Garden.

His most recent opera productions include Cosi Fan Tutte, Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni for Opera de Lyon, Macbeth at the Metropolitan Opera, Carmen for the Opera Comique, Alcina at the Vienna State Opera, Xerxes for the Theater an der Wien and Simon Boccanegra for Rome Opera.

Peter Gabriel’s longtime guitarist, David Rhodes, has confirmed that he has been busy rehearsing with Kate and will be joining her for the Before the Dawn shows which start in August. From his official Facebook page this morning:

“Busy times. Have just spent the last eight days rehearsing with Kate Bush. Needless to say, a delight and a pleasure. Off to New York on Tuesday to play for PG at the Rock Roll Hall Of Fame shindig.”

Meanwhile singer Sandra Marvin has tweeted that she’ll be on backing vocals duties for Kate’s shows. On the day following the live shows announcement, she tweeted:

“My 3rd reason to be happy….Because my summer will be spent singing for @KateBushMusic in her UK Concerts!! EXCITED!”

It might all eventually seem real to us! Thanks for all the emails and apologies if we’ve been useless at getting back to you, we’ve been swamped. Some of the headlines from the last fortnight gathered here (with thanks to Tom Pilcher for scanning many of them). We’re slowly getting back to what I thought we’d mainly be doing around now and that’s selling the HomeGround books! Do spread the word on the books, they are wonderful. I am so proud of Peter, Krys and Dave and what they’ve achieved. – Seán

The following ‘report’ was fabricated by myself, Seán, earlier this morning. Thanks for taking it in the spirit it was intended! Obviously myself and HomeGround promise as always never to rely on rumour or unverified sources to bring you the latest Kate Bush news. Anyway, here is the FALSE report I posted this morning, for April Fools Day – Seán

A source this morning reports that Kate is working with the management of the Eventim Apollo to turn the venue into what is being described as a “controlled water environment” for part of her London shows. The Apollo, formerly the Hammersmith Odeon, seats more than 3,500 people and will require an extensive re-fit including under seat tubing for “splash effects” as well as an enormous “tropical” roof sprinkler system. Meetings are said to be taking place with at least one leading US film effects company to synchronise these effects at key points during portions of the show believed to be taken from ‘The Ninth Wave’ suite of songs.

Unconfirmed reports also suggest the production team have been instructed by Kate to hire an unprecedented amount of working life jackets for her run of shows which begin on August 26th and run for 22 nights. More on this development as we get it.

Other Kate-related April Fool pranks that we heard of included:

Radio Carmarthenshire & Scarlet FM Presenter Jay Curtis decided to announce on his radio show that singer Kate Bush had announced a further one-off special gig in Carmarthenshire this year, in addition to the 22 shows previously announced at the Apollo, Hammersmith, in London. Thousands of listeners gathered at a local ticket office to buy the tickets…

eFestivals claiming Metallica were to headline Glastonbury, playing Kate Bush songs: Gigwise they reported that the metal icons would be headlining Worthy Farm, claiming that Michael Eavis called them up to say: “Then it came to me, a way to have them headline and not be too metal, by not playing their own material. So that was it, proper job, Metallica will be headlining The Pyramid Stage this year, doing the classic Kate Bush album ‘Hounds Of Love’ in full, plus a selection of hits from Kate Bush’s back catalogue. Personally I’m shaking in my shorts with excitement!”

London Bridge Station this afternoon (Credit Colin Seimer)

“And now here we are. The first Kate Bush concerts since 1979. We can’t imagine what they’ll be like. All we can know is that they’ll be unlike anything anyone has seen before. And at the heart of them will be some of the most extraordinary, brilliant, moving, astonishing and incomparable pop songs of all time. And they’ll be sung and played and danced by a genius. That’s why everyone wants a Kate Bush ticket.”

(Tim Chipping on Holy Moly)

Kate’s PR has tweeted that the tickets for Kate’s live shows in August to October 2014 basically sold out this morning in 15 minutes. However a few hours later persistent fans were still surfing the Eventim site picking up the last few tickets dropping back for sale after their original purchasers could not complete the transaction for one reason or another.

Kate said this morning: “I’m completely overwhelmed by the response to the shows. Thank you so much to everyone. Looking forward to seeing you all later this year”.

Not all fans were able to purchase a ticket in the morning rush, though it is now quite clear that many reselling agencies were quite succesful. Unfortunately, despite stringent reselling safeguards, some ticket resellers are already seeking up to £2,500 for a single resold ticket. Plus extortionate “booking fees”.

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Dave Cross of HomeGround appeared on Sky News this morning to discuss the excitement (and mayhem!) just before Kate’s tickets went on general sale. Well done, Dave – you were great!

Watch Dave’s interview on the Sky News Sunrise programme here

From the Guardian website:

“Kate Bush has added a further seven shows to her residency at the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith. She will now be playing 22 gigs in all.

The extra nights are 20, 23, 24, 26,27 and 30 September, and 1 October.

Tickets go on general sale on Friday 28 March, limited to four per person. Fans who registered with Bush’s website were eligible to apply for a pre-sale allocation of tickets, all of which were sold within 30 minutes today.”

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I was asked to chat to Dave Fanning on RTE 2FM this morning, Ireland’s national broadcaster. Dave certainly fired plenty of questions at me but I tried to represent Kate and her fans as best as I could! You can hear it in the clip below. (with thanks to Peter for the audio clip)

Fun fact: Irish broadcasting legend, Gay Byrne, gets pulled into the conversation at one point as he wandered down the studio corridor. He famously interviewed Kate on her only Irish TV appearance on the Late Late Show in March 1978, but seems to have forgotten about it! I’ve included the clip of him chatting to Kate below…