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Kate Bush’s 1979 Tour of Life was the first and only tour she ever did. However, it was so unique in production that it changed expectations of live performance forever.
The story starts in July 1976, when EMI signed a 16-year-old singer songwriter who, they envisaged at the time, might make the same sort of waves at the likes of Joni Mitchell. She was a ballad singer, and while the idea of a tour was not out of the question, it would most likely see her sat at a piano, singing track after track for a predominantly female audience. Kate however, had other ideas.
Right from the start, Kate was determined not only to own her music but to define her own image – one that couldn’t be further from the Joni Mitchell-mould she was being guided toward. Between the years 1976 and '78, Kate took herself on a self-guided journey with stardom at the finish line. With a modest advance pocketed from EMI, she moved out of home to a flat in London, took up dance lessons with eccentric mime artist Lindsey Kemp, and focused her energy on building the sort of stage presence her music called for.
The release of her first single is an early example of Kate driving her own self-identified brand – against popular advice. Many don’t know, but it was actually the more commercially viable “James and the Cold Gun” and not “Wuthering Heights” that EMI had originally earmarked to break Kate into the public space. But Kate was adamant, and “Wuthering Heights” was released as her debut on 20 January 1978.
Wuthering Heights official music video
Who knows how the story might have developed if Kate had not been so self-assured. Luckily, we’ll never have to know.
“Wuthering Heights” entered the official singles chart at number 27 on 18 February 1978. Three weeks later, it was number one, dethroning ABBA’s “Take a Chance on Me” and making Kate the first ever British female singer-songwriter to top the UK charts.
The Kick Inside (Kate’s first album) peaked at number three in the UK charts, and it was decided that Kate would tour after the release of her second album Lionheart, due to be released in November 1978, less than a year after her debut.
It was around this time that Kate took her second major act of rebellion – turning down the offer to tour as a warm-up act to The Rolling Stones, for fear that she wouldn’t be allowed to create the spectacle she had envisaged on someone else’s stage.
Rehearsal for Tour of Life began toward the end of 1978, and it was clear from the off that this would be a performance like nothing any artist had given before, incorporating dance, poetry, burlesque, theatre and even magic.
“She was very determined about how her music was presented and performed – that was pretty obvious from her first album. So no one saw any reason to step in and stop it. She wasn’t prepared to do the conventional thing.” – Brian Southall, EMI
Kate was involved in almost every aspect of the show’s production, from the choreography (co-produced by Anthony Van Laast, along with two young dancers, Stewart Avon Arnold and Gary Hurst), to costumes and set, which would each evolve throughout the show.
The production was so ambitious that Kate’s sound team had to invent a new type of microphone, allowing her to dance and sing at the same time – something that no other artist had attempted in quite the same way.
Rehearsals ran through the winter as ticket sales boomed, compelling EMI to squeeze extra dates into the tour (members of the Kate Bush Club, Kate’s self-run fan group, were guaranteed tickets). On 2 April 1979, the company moved from their base in Euston to Poole in Dorset for a full dress run.
It’s here that tragedy struck. Lighting director Bill Duffield fell through an open panel high up in the lighting gallery, suffering detrimental injuries. He would die in hospital a week later. Kate was devastated, as were the rest of her crew. However, after open talks about cutting the show all together, it was decided that Bill would want the tour to go on.
The tour opened on 3 April 1979 in Liverpool at the Liverpool Empire, covering England and Scotland before moving through Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands and France. Every night was a sell-out.
With three acts, two encores and 17 costume changes, the show featured almost every song from Kate’s first two albums and was, to all intents and purposes, far more like a stage-play than a concert.
“I saw our show as not just people on stage playing the music, but as a complete experience. A lot of people would say ‘Pooah!’ but for me that’s what it was. Like a play.”– Kate Bush
The show began with Kate in a blue leotard, singing “Moving” with rippling lights around her. For “Egypt”, she emerged as a seductive Cleopatra. On “Strange Phenomena”, she was a magician in top hat and tails, dancing with a pair of spacemen. “Oh England My Lionheart” cast her as a World War II pilot and for “Wuthering Heights” she performed the same routine as the video, with dry ice fog adding to the haunting atmosphere.
Critical reception was overwhelmingly positive, hailing the tour’s progressive use of visual projections, audio and microphone technology, along with its narrative storyline which gave the performance a more immersive feel than you could expect from a traditional rock concert.
The tour closed back in London at the Hammersmith Odeon on 14 May 1979, where Kate dedicated a memorial concert to Bill Duffield featuring an altered set list with performances by Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley.
Kate never toured again.
"Touring is an incredibly isolated situation. I don't know how people tour for years on end. You find a lot of people who can't stop touring, and it's because they don't know how to come back into life. It's sort of unreal." – Kate Bush
If you still can’t quite picture the magic, you can actually watch a recording of the full concert on YouTube. Otherwise, the next best thing would be going to see the wonderful Mandy of Cloudbusting – a tribute group who regularly tour up and down the country.
No famous band or artist makes it to the top without leaving a few bitter gatekeepers in their wake. For The Beatles, it was drummer Pete Best, dismissed from the group in 1962, immediately prior to the Abbey Road recording session that brought the band to fame. American rock band Nirvana offer another cutting example, forcing guitarist Jason Everman out of the group after he had a fight with a drunk fan who jumped on stage during a show in 1989.
It’s a curse of fame, you could say, that no matter how much you might want to, it’s impossible to take everyone with you. And Kate Bush was no exception.
Many don’t realise that Kate did not simply materialise as a solo artist in 1978, but was in fact ‘discovered’ by Pink Floyd manager David Gilmour in 1973, when Kate was only fifteen. Fascinated by her raw talent and already unique musical style, Gilmour facilitated the early demos that led to Kate being signed by EMI Records in July 1976. However, it would be another two years before the world was introduced to the Kate we know today.
So what happened during those years? The answer, or one of them anyway, is The KT Bush Band.
The KT Bush Band was formed in 1977, and besides Kate, comprised three other musicians: Vic King on drums, Del Palmer on Bass and Brian Bath on guitar. There’s no denying that Kate’s personal development was always the sole purpose of the band – her first, nervous attempts to perform in front of an audience – though there was an unspoken understanding between them that the original band members would play a part in whatever came after.
“It was a phenomenon because it was so completely different from what anyone else was doing. I knew I just had to get involved in some way because this was going to be mega.” – Del Palmer
After a few months rehearsing in a barn at the bottom of the Bush family garden, the group began to tour. Between the months of April and June 1977, The KT Bush Band covered 20 venues in and around London, with a mixed setlist of covers such as ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’, ‘Come Together’ and Tracks Of My Tears’, along with a few early versions of Kate’s own songs, including ‘James And The Cold Gun’, ‘Saxophone Song’ and ‘Them Heavy People’.
It’s clear from interviews with the old band members, that they all believed very strongly in Kate’s talent and her future. And for the year they spent together, they made every effort to help her reach her potential.
Vic, the oldest member of the band, established himself as the band organiser – setting up the venues and often collecting Kate from dance classes to chaperone her to the gigs. Brian, an old friend of Kate’s brother Paddy, a seasoned session performer, became her sounding board as well as her voice of reason when an idea got out of hand. And Palmer – well, Palmer became a romantic partner.
But alas, The KT Bush Band was never meant to last. And when EMI came to see Kate perform at one of the band’s gigs, they quickly decided the time had come to make her break. The band was finished. The recording studio was calling.
“Being her band [on the first album] was mentioned, but then they started getting session guys in. Bye, bye band.” – Vic King
There’s little doubt in my mind that Kate would have preferred to have her band on the recording of her first album, and would have fought for them as best she could. But in the end, EMI’s decision was to bring in session musicians, replacing Vic, Brian and Del overnight.
And that wasn’t all. If being cut from the band was bad enough, EMI added salt to the wound by demanding the male trio hand over any evidence in the form of photos, posters and recordings of The KT Bush Band that they had accumulated over the past months, all-but erasing them from history.
“Everything had to be confiscated– ‘ or else’, I think the phrase was. They were all confiscated and disappeared. I was told at the time that nothing else could be put out, they didn’t want anything ruining her impact.” – Vic King
EMI’s motives, while obviously in the best interest of Kate’s future career, unsurprisingly, did not land well with the band. They felt used and misled. Bruised by what must have felt like a very personal attack on both their abilities as musicians and supporters of Kate as an artist. This was particularly true for Vic, who had perhaps given the most of himself to the venture.
Rare recording of the KT Bush band performing ‘Come Together’ by The Beatles, March 1977
Vic was still feeling bitter by the time The Kick Inside (Feb, 1978) was released. Bitter enough to turn Kate down when she invited him back for the Tour of Life, promoting her second album, Lionheart (Nov 1978).
“I said I was doing something else. I was annoyed about being kicked out of the band. There was the abrupt ending not being involved on the first album, and then suddenly you get a phone call. Looking back I probably should have said yes, but the pride said no. If Kate had rung up to explain the situation it may have been different.” – Vic King
But though the end was abrupt and Vic, Del and Brian never did become named, or even permanent members associated with Kate, there’s little question about significance of The KT Bush band in the making of Kate Bush. From the insight and support provided in rehearsals, to the kinship and comradery surrounding each performance, The KT Bush Band helped deliver Kate, an introverted teenager writing songs in her bedroom, to the stage. And how I’d have loved to have seen Kate perform in any one of those darkened pubs!
One of the first questions people ask when I tell them about In Search of Peter Pan is, ‘have you always been a fan of Kate Bush?’. And my answer invariably comes as a surprise. I’d never listened to Kate until after I started writing. In fact, I was about five chapters in before I finally sat down with my record player and listened to The Kick Inside from start to finish. What comes as an added shock is when I confess I wasn’t immediately taken by her.
Now, of course, having spent the best part of two years submerged in the Kate Bush fan scene, hunting down ticket stubs, rare interview snippets and watching back footage of what would be a once in a lifetime tour on repeat at three o’clock in the morning, I would say I’m pretty sold on the enigma that is Kate Bush. But still. Why Kate? Why base an entire novel around Kate Bush fandom if I wasn’t already a fan myself? Why not choose a different time, a different artist, a different obsession?
Kate Bush is far more than just her music. Kate emerged, a shy, softly spoken British artist in 1978, at a time when punk rock was marking itself the political voice of youth and ABBA was topping the charts. It was a time of discord and contradictions, with public service strikes, IRA threats, the rise of Maggie Thatcher and the harshest winter on record. People panic bought bread and Ford stopped making cars, Grease was the highest grossing film and the first test tube baby was born in Manchester. It was a period of unrest in every sense of the word, and in amongst it all was Kate singing in this high-pitched ethereal voice, moving in a way that could not then be compared with any other form of commercial dance. She was ‘alternative’, strange even. But seemed comfortable in being so and that, I think, is what made her so attractive.
When I set out to write this book I had one very clear theme in mind, and that was teenage fandom. Teenage fandom to the extent that my main character would base their entire identity on their idol, from the way they dressed and spoke, to the way they viewed themselves in relation to the world.
As it turns out, my MC’s idolisation extends so far that she permits her own identity to be completely cast aside, allowing others to know her as Kate rather than by her real name. She feels so at one with the image and persona she’s adopted that she forms connections with others based entirely on a shared obsession, speaking in lyrics and allegories, and in doing so stunting any opportunity for authentic connection or conversation. By taking fandom too far, my MC exacerbates her already burdening adolescent insecurities and denies herself the ability to take charge of her own sense of self. A classic bildungsroman journey with a soundtrack to bring it to life.
The only novel I’ve found to offer a similar trope was actually released during my writing process, and that was Andrew O’Hagan’s Mayflies. Set in 1980s Glasgow, Mayflies follows a group of teenagers on their journey to the “Festival of the Tenth Summer” – a festival commemorating the Sex Pistols’ first gig in Manchester. With themes of friendship, uncertainty during the rise of Thatcherism and failed fathers, O’Hagan adeptly portrays the gravity and absurdity of youth through the lens of what must be one of the most iconic cultural movements in British history – punk.
In film, Spike Island (written by Chris Coghill and directed by Mat Whitecross) was another source of comparison, conveying the story of a group of friends who idolize The Stone Roses and try to get into their seminal Spike Island gig without tickets.
Of course, music as a means of staking identity is a common theme in all mediums of storytelling, if not specifically attributed to a real living and breathing artist. And perhaps it’s foolish to be so specific. Alienating even? I hope not. But though there are a number of Easter eggs scattered throughout Peter Pan in the form of mis-quoted lyrics, snippets from interviews, outfits mimicking early posters and press-shoots, and even an unnamed character who, if you’re a true fan, you might recognise as one of Kate’s pre-fame bandmates, the book is not written solely for Kate Bush fans. It is a story of fandom, yes. But it’s also a story of growing up, of soul-searching, finding hidden meaning where there is none and of misinterpreting the world and yourself, and calling it freedom.
Okay, okay. Now that I’ve pontificated a little, let’s go back to the start. Why Kate Bush? The authorial answer is that Kate, her early works and her journey to stardom represented everything I needed my MC to feel about herself – her insecurity, sense of alienation, the desire to escape and the closely harboured belief that life has something new and exciting in store for her, all accumulating to a quiet state of imposter syndrome. At the start of my novel you’ll find a quote from Kate, taken from a 1993 interview in Details Magazine that I think encapsulates this perfectly:
“There is a person that is adored, but I’d question very strongly that it’s me.”
The writer's truth though (and trigger warning: this is going to sound really poncy), is that my MC led me to her. My newfound obsession with Kate bush was born, not through research for researches’ sake, but through getting to know my protagonist. By putting the needle back to the start of the record and listening from someone else’s perspective. And that is what I most love about writing. Taking my character by the hand and being led into an entirely new world, leaving my reality behind.
And on that note – calling all dreamers, delusionists and escape fantasists – I wrote a thing, and I think you might like it…
