Kate Bush has just announced her first tour in 35-years - cue much rejoicing from her fans, who are legion, thank to her back catalogue of eerie, bizarre music that bridges the gap between the rock of Fleetwood Mac, and the ethereal moodiness of New Wave, her near-operatic style of singing and bizarre music videos.
However, despite enduring cult popularity and a consensus that she is one of Britain’s national treasures – you’ll remember her song Running Up That Hill was remixed for the Olympic Closing Ceremony in 2012 – she’s not played a live gig since 1979. The Tour Of Life, which was taken to 28 venues in the UK in 1979, contained 17 costume changes, 24 songs and was full of actual magic tricks. It wasn't that she couldn't top it, but her increasing reclusiveness, and a tragedy early on in the tour made her hesitant to return to the live stage.
That’s all about to change, though, as today the reclusive singer announced she will do a 15-night residency at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. Cue a lot of people just a bit younger than your parents (Kate Bush herself is 55, having been born in south-east London in 1958) losing their collective shit.
So why is Kate Bush so great?
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She was the first British woman to get a number one with a self-written song. Wuthering Heights hit the top spot in the singles charts in January 1978. And if you’re in the mood for another interesting fact; she shares a birthday with Emily Brontë, who wrote the novel of the same name, way back when (1847).
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In 1978 she was the most photographed woman in the world. Contrast this with 2013’s Kim Kardashian, whose tangible talents aren’t quite so abundant…
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There was such a long gap (13 years) between her album The Red Shoes and her next track that novelist John Mendelssohn wrote a book about a group of avid Kate Bush fans waiting for her next album to be released. It was called, very creatively, Waiting For Kate Bush.
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She appeared on Delia Smith’s cookery programme. Seriously, here:
And she used the opportunity to talk about vegetarianism, which, at the time in the UK, was treated like something very weird and New Agey, like how we now treat clothes made out of hemp, parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids, or polygamy.
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A lot of today’s stars cite her as influences. Without Kate Bush there’d be no Lorde, no Lady Gaga, no Florence and the Machine, no Radiohead, no Bjork, no Goldfrapp, no Bat For Lashes…no Outkast! Ok, it’s not like we’re saying any of these acts were conceived to Babooshka or anything, but they wouldn’t be the same performers as we know them to be without Kate’s influence.
Oh and of course, this:
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Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.