Kate Bush: Before the Dawn

When: Tuesday 23rd September

Where: Hammersmith Apollo

Why: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Oh it’s gonna be the way you always dreamed about it, but it’s gonna be really happening to you.”

Even as I was sitting in my terribly-far-back seat, next to my best friend with our faces painted in Babooshka style and our hair massively backcombed, downing rosé to simultaneously calm myself and hype myself up, I still couldn’t quite believe that I was about to see Kate Bush live. The whole audience seemed strangely tense, as was I – as tense as I had been months before, when I couldn’t sleep for fear I wouldn’t be able to bag tickets when they went on sale the next morning. And then – the incantation from Lily began – “Oh thou, who givest sustenance to the universe…” And on she stomped, leading her entourage like a barefooted, black-gowned pied piper of madness. The rest is honestly a blur. But the best blur of my life. 

The whole evening was madly theatrical: the name of the show (Before the Dawn) appeared above the entrance to the Apollo, not her own name. The first six songs formed a more traditionally gig-like section, like the most insane warm-up you could imagine – and although Hounds of Love is one of my all-time favourite songs, I was concentrating far too hard on absorbing every second of it to fully enjoy it, and it’s the soaring, staggering King of the Mountain that stays in my mind as just literally mind-blowing. 

The Ninth Wave, staged somewhere within a shipwreck and a whale’s ribcage, floating on the sea and under the ice, was ridiculous; assaulting the senses and making you feel like you’d been tossed over waves of adrenaline and shipwrecked somewhere in Hammersmith. Featuring scary fish people, a helicopter with searchlights zooming around the audience, poetic confetti cannons, a floating buoy and a skit with heavy emphasis on burnt sausages, it was enrapturing and immersive. Bush didn’t dance as such over the course of the evening, but the whole thing was still undeniably physical and she was all over the shop while staying note-perfect and sounding just like herself. Concluding with The Morning Fog was a joyous celebration of all on stage being together and restored, and this translated to the happily swaying audience who seemed frankly relieved to have survived.

After a stunned and giddy interval (us not her), A Sky of Honey was soothing and a balm to the senses (and thankfully the Rolf Harris part was beautifully replaced by Bush’s son Bertie), and featured gorgeous lighting effects and projections of birds that I wish I could have playing constantly in the background of my life. Just everywhere I go. The pace increases towards the end, becomes dramatic and almost brutal – a tree slams straight through the grand piano, causing whoops and gasps – and in true dramatic Kate fashion, she metamorphs into a black winged bird to bring the piece to a close. “All of the birds are laughing… Come on let’s all join in…”

Kate herself seemed on the toppest form – engaging and charming, betraying not a jot of her previous famous stage nerves. She was quirky and confident, understated but accessibly cool. You literally wanted to be up there with her, flapping about on the stage, throwing your shoes into the lake and running up that hill. She ended on the incredible Cloudbusting to my huge joy, and after the most deserving of standing ovations we continued shrieking long after we’d run out of the Apollo and into the night. 

Brixpig x