KATIE'S CHOICE: Little Miss Tour Tease

[tannis]

KATIE'S CHOICE: Little Miss Tour Tease...

"We do want to tour again, we will tour again, because there are so many things we still want to do on stage..."

NEVER FOR EVER

Put out the light, then, put out the light.
Vibes in the sky invite you to dine.
Dust to dust,
Blow to blow.
Bolan and Moony are heading the show tonight...

But there are, in fact, no plans for another tour. "Maybe next year... I need five months to prepare a show and build up my strength for it, and in those five months I can't be writing new songs and i can't be promoting the album. The problem is time... and money."
... If the new album is a flop and there is no tour in prospect, Kate Bush has only the frequent impersonation of her on televisions (for which she is very grateful) to keep her in the public consciousness. She does not seem worried. "I'll just carry on performing. It's the only thing I know how to do."
Sunday Telegraph, "The Explosive Kate Bush", July 6, 1980
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i80_st2.html

Lots of possibilities for the stage show on this LP.
"Yeah, I'm dying to do another tour. The problem is money and time, and I have to make a decision very soon, what I'm going to do next: whether it's another album or a tour. I want to do them both so much."
Whichever one, it'll be the next year of your life.
"That's exactly it, and I think people find that hard to see. It seems the more I do things, the longer they take, especially if they're going to be done right, and, as you say, that's whole year. That's one of the reasons I'm not so quick about deciding."
ZigZag, "Fire in the Bush", 1980(?)
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i80_zz.html

Kate doesn't know when she'll be touring again. She enjoyed her one tour, and it gave her a thrill to choke the critics who'd suggested she'd be a disaster on stage, that she couldn't sing live. But it takes six months out of a year to rehearse and prepare for a tour the way she wants to do it, and will also cost her enormous amounts of money to stage.
"Not that I mind losing money on a tour--there are so many benefits from it--as long as we don't go bankrupt. We do want to tour again, we will tour again, because there are so many things we still want to do on stage, but we'll have to think about it very carefully because it will stop me doing a lot of other things."
Melody Maker, "Paranoia and Passion of the Kate Inside", October 4, 1980
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i80_mm.html

I: Did the tour (1979) change the way you felt about what you wanted to do in live work in the future?
KT: Yes, it did. I think it helped me tremendously because I felt that it worked and if it hadn't then it would have again totally changed my idea of live work. It makes me want to go on further, makes me feel that the show was an incredibly important starting point and yet it was quite embryonic in so many ways and there is so much more to do. The thing that worries me is when to do the live work, because of things like money and time that's taken up rehearsing as well as actually doing the tour.
I: Isn't it true that almost no matter what you charge, you're not going to make money?
KT: Well, I think probably if you do play in huge halls you can do it, but we didn't on the last tour, there was no way, mainly because of all the sets we had and huge crew to move the sets and theatrical props and things. I don't think we ever could make money on the tours that we do. But in so many ways that not important - as long as you can just break even that's fine. I don't really expect to make money because I make so much more out of doing it - I get so much more for myself than money.
I: You would never want to do a concert just singing with a microphone?
KT: Well, I've thought about it a lot and I think it is the ultimate way in so many ways to perform, because it's so simple and simplicity is what everything should be. But I do feel that I've got more to do in this area before I can then revert back to being just simple. It seems that nobody is really trying this area and I wanted to - especially connecting dance, theatre and music together. Because they are so compatible and Wagner did it very well a few years ago, so I would like to keep trying...
I: You mentioned there are some ideas for you now as you consider your next recorded work - do you think you will do more recording next or will you do live work or will you go home to the farm and think about it?
KT: As I was saying, I really don't know. I want to do both so badly - the logical move would be to tour next but I'm so worried about making that decision, it's a long piece of time to give away and I want to do an album so badly. It's very difficult for me at this time to choose. I hope that as the months pass now with this promotion the answer will clink in my head - it always does that at the last minute.
1980 NfE Interview - EMI (London)
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/im80_nf2.html

Kate Bush today sets up her own interviews, controls her own photographs, slavishly protects her fans through her club and, more so than ever, works on albums and tours at her own pace. And still we love her for it?
It's been two years now since what Kate calls her "Tour of Life", a massive circus of a tour that won't, repeat won't take place again until next year at the earliest.
Record Mirror, "The Shock of the New", September 1981
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i81_rm.html

"When I come out of the studio, it is a bit like being released from prison," she jokes. "I feel like a Martian. In the past, I would have gone straight on to a tour, a stage show or something. Now I decline the offers and spend time at home."
... "My plans for the future..." she muses. "Well, I want to get into films. And I want to do more on stage. I love staging my own shows, working out the routines, designing the whole package, and using every aspect of my creativity."
Company, "The Discreet Charm of Kate Bush", January 1982
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i82_co.html

[tannis]

KATIE'S CHOICE: Little Miss Tour Tease...

"I want to do a show next. It'll take at least six months to prepare, because there'll be so many levels to it..."

THE DREAMING

We're waiting.
We're waiting.
We're waiting...

"Now that the album is completed, it doesn't mean that my work has ended. There are so many things that I want to do connected with music, and I want to do them as soon as possible. In fact, I see myself being pretty well committed for the next couple of years. I'd like to do a show with both this and the last album, and there are a few videos as well, but I just don't know if or when I'll get the time.
"As for tours, well, I haven't got any planned, but I'm beginning to think about it. The last tour was so much effort, and it cost so much money, and we actually spent about four months rehearsing for it, so the thought of another one is a little bit daunting. It's such a big thing to commit yourself to--it's like a whole year taken out of your life. It scares me a bit."
Poppix "The Dreaming", Summer 1982
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i82_pop.html

Kate's contemplating touring again. She's thinking about some ideas, but so far it's gone no further than that.
"Planning the last tour took five months," says Kate. "Obviously I wanted to give more than just me and a piano."
Kate financed the tour out of her own money and she lost thousands.
"With forty people to look after, it was astronomical--but it was worth it. Well yes, I've made money, but a lot of that money goes into projecting my art."
"Getting Down Under With Kate Bush", 1982
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i82_smi.html

Never particularly a public fave, her last live shows were three years ago, and although she plans to do some in the future, they'll take at least six months to prepare.
Kerrang! "Bushy Tales", 1982
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i82_ker.html

"I wish I had a five-year plan, but I never plan too far ahead. I get into trouble because I always take longer to do things than I expect. That's why I knew I had to wait for another two albums' worth of material before doing another show... I want to do a show next. It'll take at least six months to prepare, because there'll be so many levels to it. The musical challenge will be the hardest I've set myself..."
A lot of people would like to see you just sitting at a piano and singing a set of your songs.
"Not nearly as many. It would be too easy, as if I couldn't be bothered to prepare a proper show. It wouldn't do anything for the blend of movement and music. That is what I really want to do. Music and movement together in a modern sense. People like it that you're not taking the easy way out."
NME, "My music sophisticated? I'd rather you said that than turdlike!", October 1982
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i82_nme.html

When are you going to play live again?
"Oh, I don't know. It's probably going to take six months to work it out, but I really want to. Now's the time, because I really wanted a new album before I could do another show again, so I could just work on these two albums and forget the two before. It's different stuff, so it wouldn't mix. I feel the new stuff is more suited to the kind of stage thing I'd like to do. The last show was really like a big experimental thing, to see what could work and what we could do, but it turned out a bit like a circus, all happy with a heavy bit here and there. I feel these two albums can make something more intense, but it's going to be so hard..."
ZigZag, "Dream Time in the Bush", 1982
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i82_zz.html

"We've not planned any concerts yet--I wanted another two albums before I could tour them again. Now I've got that with Never For Ever and The Dreaming, so it'll be nice to do another tour. The big problem is the dance as well as the singing when performing, as this does put a lot of extra pressure on me personally--but the determination alone to do the show always keeps me going."
Electronics & Music Maker, 1982
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i82_emm.html

We're waiting.
We're waiting.
We're waiting...

Her attitude to work is interesting. It's well known that the EMI machine has been good to her, allowing an extraordinary freedom in the running of her career. But there is still the pressure to promote herself, and she has wilfully taken a back-seat. She spent so much time working on The Dreaming that she knackered herself, and scrapped plans to tour.
New Musical Express, "The Barmy Dreamer", 1983(?)
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i83_nme1.html

As for plans of a tour in the near future, Kate replied that "I have really wanted to tour since the last tour we did. But I'm in a situation that if I don't do an album this year there will be too long of a gap between albums."
So you do have an album planed for release at the end of the year [HoL, 1985]?
"Yes, I'm not sure if it will make the end of the year, but hopefully the beginning of the next year. So that's the next thing. But I do very much want to do a show but as soon as I decide that there's an awful lot of problems, like where do we get the money for it?"
I was anxious to discover if she would ever bring her show to the States. "Well, you see again that depends so much on finance. We wanted to bring the last show to America but it really did cost too much money and at that time we were basically paying for it. As it was we were really losing money. We can't really afford to do more than one of that type of show. We were very careful about that."
Wireless, September 1983
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i83_wir.html

Will you be touring at all in the near future?
"I do want to. Quite honestly, until last year I couldn't start thinking about doing a show because I needed two albums clear of the last show to have enough new material. I was hoping to be able to start thinking about a show in 1983, but I got into time problems, because nearly everything I do takes me so long.
"If I had done a tour, I probably wouldn't even be writing songs for a new album until much later. And the general feeling was that it was too long a gap. So, I really just want to get this album out, and then I can start thinking about doing a show.
"But that's going to mean a lot of organizing. I won't even know how far, or where we'll be taking it until we've got an estimate on the cost. One of the big problems is money. The last show I did really did cost a lot. But, if a tour seems practical, I would love to bring it to America."
Voc'l, Late 1983
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i83_vocl.html

[tannis]

KATIE'S CHOICE: Little Miss Tour Tease...

"I just would like to continue saying that I would like to tour,
but I've no idea when..."

HOUNDS OF LOVE

"If I only could, I'd be running up that hill.
If I only could, I'd be running up that hill."

Kate is busy these days putting the pre-studio finishing touches on her fifth record. "I've been writing material for my new album - the songs are almost complete now," she said. "I hope to start recording in a couple of months when I've finished writing and tightening up the lyrics." As for the direction the record's music will take, she hasn't decided yet. She will venture to the U.S. later this year to promote it but not to tour. "It's a shame, but for now I don't see the possibility of a tour," she says with a sigh. "We can't afford to do it the way I'd want to."
Pulse, "Kate Bush Touches The U.S. At Last", April 1984
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i84_pul.html

After The Dreaming had been released, I was hoping for news of a tour from Kate, but alas no live dates have materialised. Her last live appearances were back in 1979 and I asked why she hadn't performed on stage since then.
"The main reason I haven't been able to do any gigs has been due to the time factor," Kate replies. "After the last tour, which basically revolved around the first two records, I didn't want to go back out until I had another two albums' worth of material. Never For Ever was the first of those, and then there was The Dreaming, but that took so much longer than I'd anticipated that I couldn't do a tour.
"And so now I'm doing another record, otherwise there would have been a two-year gap between albums, which is really much too long. Maybe if I'd managed to finish The Dreaming quicker, then I'd have done a tour. I wanted to, but the situation just didn't allow it."
As mentioned earlier, Kate's 1979 shows were extremely demanding, and I wondered whether she had actually enjoyed them.
"Oh, I loved playing live," she declares. "I really did. I learnt so much as a performer, a dancer, a singer and as a person. It was a bit scary at the time, and I was a little wary because everything was so new--even down to the mike I was using--but I really enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to doing another tour... To be honest, I tend to treat videos and live performances as very separate things," Kate answers, "because there is such a big difference. I enjoy the video side. It's very exciting and you can lie with lots of things; but I find that the excitement and challenge of playing live to much greater."
Women of Rock, 1984
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i84_wir.html

"Early next year is when I'm going to make a decision about touring. The commitment of time and effort is one of the big considerations. I think television can go a lot farther than I can on a tour. And a lot quicker... Theatre is quite a different world than film. Film is very intimate. It's just the camera seeing what it's pointed at. You can't see anything beyond that. But when you're on stage, people's eyes can wander from the ceiling to the floor, there's so much they can take in. In video, you have control."
Toronto Star, "Pop's Siren Puts Lyrical Tales On Film", Nov. 24, 1985
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i85_ts.html

Since her introduction, Bush has toured only once. She made a video of it and released an EP commemorating the event. She will likely not play a string of live engagements in the next year. She maintains she loves to perform to an audience but can't find the time between albums to properly mount the production to her exacting standards. She prefers the expediency of video and as if to compensate for her reclusiveness as a performer lavishes them with style and attention to detail...
While Bush may have been titillated by the excitement of that experience, she still isn't ready to repeat it.
"It's a matter of priorities. A tour can only realistically be done if you've put pieces of music on a record with as much care as possible and then do a show of that. It all comes from the songwriting, so the problem there is commitment and time. It's not that I don't want to do it, and I love the idea that people want me to tour, but it's highly unlikely at this point--it's something I can't even check out until sometime next year when I've got all this stuff out of the way."
Now - Toronto Weekly, "Kate Bush breaks out: Bush's bridges", Nov. 28, 1985
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i85_tw.html

With the current success of the album, she's on a promotional tour which will take her to Canada as well as New York.
"I really had no reason to come here to promote a record until now," she says. "Obviously promotion is a helpful thing, but unless the music is being picked up by people, there's nothing I can do. In a way my time is wasted. I'd rather be working on the next album at home."
Since she's acting as her own manager, Bush can implement that decision as well as her decision not to tour. She hasn't been on the road since she released her second album in England.
"I'm not planning a tour," she says. "It's an incredible commitment. Once you're committed, you're really talking about a year's worth of effort.
"Also, so many other things that I want to do wouldn't get done. Now that I'm at the end of this album, there are other things I'd like to do, like getting to another album and maybe experimenting with some visual ideas."
Billboard, "Kate Bush Ascends U.S. Hill", December 14, 1985
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i85_bil.html

Do you plan a tour, maybe a "Hounds of Love Tour"?
KT: I really enjoyed touring. I've only done the one tour way back, now, in '79. And the problem really was getting enough new material to do another tour initially. Getting enough material took me to the last album. The third and fourth album would be the two albums of new material that I would've toured. But at the end of the last album, it didn't feel like the right moment to take a tour around Europe. So, that's still a possibility for the future, but that's nothing that I can commit myself to. I just would like to continue saying that I would like to tour, but I've no idea when and I do hope that I get to do another one before I'm old and grey.
1985 Picture Disk, "Conversation Disc Series", abcd 012
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/im85_pd2.html

Y.B.: This makes more than five years since you last mounted a stage. Is there hope for 1986?
K.B.: I was hoping to avoid that question!!! I certainly want very much to play on stage again, but it's a decision for which the consequences are enormous, both financially and in terms of the amount of time and energy that are necessary. I've just given everything in me to complete this album and I'm not certain that it's for the best that I plunge into such a venture, all the more as I've received several propositions of an entirely different order, but which would not be compatible with a tour. As they say over here: "Allons voir {Wait and see}!"
Guitares et Claviers, "Englishwoman Is Crossing The Continents", February 1986
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i86_gec.html

[tannis]

KATIE'S CHOICE: Little Miss Tour Tease...

"There will be another tour, if not next year, the year after, and it will be marvelous. I guarantee you, we're going to be better than the last one..."

THE NINTH WAVE

She says,
Ooh-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na!
I'll be sitting in your mirror.
Now is the place where the crossroads meet.
Will you look into the future?

FACHBLATT: What about gigs? Is there hope?
KATE: That is quite weird, because I always want to, but somehow it never works out all right. Until the last LP I did not have enough material to appear with a completely new program. After I completed the promotion work for "The Dreaming" I had to think about whether to go on tour or to build my studio and to look at a new album. Well, now I am again at the end of the work for the album, make promotion, shoot videos and actually I would really want to realise the said film about the second side of the LP. If this somehow happens not to work then I'll think about a tour again...
Fachblatt Musikmagazin Nr. 11, "Kate Bush Reappeared", November 1985
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i85_fme.html

PADDY: Yeah. Question number eight. Will Kate tour again or will she contemplate on other ways of visually presenting her work?
JOHN: She's bound to tour again, obviously. But when, I don't know. I think she's faced with the situation now in which she can go three ways -she can do another album, she get a tour together, or she can concentrate on something more visual, which might be film or, I don't know, maybe an extended video. And until promotions for this album are finished, and that means making another video for every [next single???] and maybe another video for every single on [the planet???] she's not going to really know. So I suppose until the spring of next year she wouldn't really have any idea about what direction she's going to take. But of course yes, there's bound to be another tour, but when, who knows?
PADDY: Yes, and I promise you we are considering this very, very seriously. I mean it's not something that we're going to put off for ever and ever and ever. There will be another tour, if not next year, the year after, and it will be marvelous. I guarantee you, we're going to be better than the last one. [Laughter] That will be nothing compared to what we're going [to do???]
Kate Bush Convention, Romford, England, November 30, 1985
gaffa.org/dreaming/con_85.html

To go back on stage, would you actually have to get together some Irish musicians--perhaps even Planxty themselves!--to execute things like 'Night of the Swallow' and 'Jig of Life'?
"Oh, Planxty, wouldn't that be great! That would be fabulous. It would be incredibly difficult to do songs like that without Irish musicians. But I don't know, it would all depend on boring things like money; it would be terribly expensive to take a band like that on tour with you. 'Jig of Life' would be very, very different without a ceilidh band, though it could be interesting. But I am hoping the film project that I would like to do would get around that, as originally The Ninth Wave was written very much as a story, and ideally I would like to make a film of that, and then that whole side of the album with 'Jig of Life' would be very much covered, I feel. And so maybe for a show I would be doing the other new numbers and a selection of numbers off the third and fourth albums, because those would be more suited to live performance."
Musician (unedited), Fall 1985
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i85_swa.html

"It's a choice between two things I'd like to do next as a major project. Either a tour...But what I'd really like to do is put The Ninth Wave into film. That would easily be as time-consuming as a tour. I just don't know if I'd be able to get it off the ground. It's all talk and it might never happen."
ZigZag, "Lassie", November 1985
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i85_zz.html

Obviously, her many fans would love the chance to see her live. Is touring a possibility?
"I think that's the question that everyone is asking. I really would like to tour again, but it's an incredibly big commitment - financially as well as timewise.
"I'm not quite sure what I would want to do as a next project. It could perhaps be this film, or a tour or perhaps I'll go straight into another album. I don't really want to go from one intense project to another ... that just seems to be the way it is for me."
Georgia Straight, "HoL Has Her Running Up The Charts", 1985
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i85_gs.html

Listen, the other thing I must ask you about is touring. Because the last tour was tremendous. There again, all your own ideas, and the stage presentation was fantastic, and I'm sure one other thing all your fans must be asking is when are you going to do another one? In this country?
"This point in time is really a decision as to what to do next, whether it's a tour, or what I'd like to do next, if I could, which is to put the whole of The Ninth Wave, which is the second side of the album, onto film, but I just don't know how feasible or practical that is, with timing and whatever. [This project was eventually abandoned.] So I suppose really it's, um...at the beginning of next year, I first have to decide what comes next, but I don't think there's time for both."
How far have you got in putting The Ninth Wave into film form, would you say? How far have you got with that?
"Not very far, because since the album was finished there's just been so much work surrounding the singles that come out, the videos and the promotion, that I've really had no serious time to approach people and start seriously thinking about it."
But a tour is on the cards?
"Well, I wouldn't say that it was on the cards, no. I would just say that it is a possibility, and something I would still very much like to do, but, um...at this point in time, I couldn't say, because up until the end of the year I'll be promoting this record."
The Tony Myatt interview, Nov. 1985
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/im85_tm.html

[tannis]

KATIE'S CHOICE: Little Miss Tour Tease...

"My touring situation is a little unusual, to say the least..."

THE SENSUAL WORLD

I put on my pointed hat
And my black and silver suit,
And I check my gunpowder pack
And I strap the stick on my back.
And, dressed as a rocket on Waterloo Bridge--
Nobody seems to see me.
Then, with the fuse in my hand,
And now shooting into the night...

"I did a tour once," she remembers, squinting into the distant past. "I haven't wanted to do one since. Consequently a lot of people think that I hate touring, but that's not so. I absolutely loved it. But it was so exhausting mentally and physically that I was literally drained, wasted, afterwards. It took a long time to recover."
She gets away with murder when you think about it. One tour in a decade, then she retreats into her personal recording studio, leaps about in her own dance studio to her heart's content, evaporates into thin air for years at a time, then comes belting back into the charts like she's never been away. In any other artist this would be intensely annoying, sickening even. In Kate, it is endearing.
You Magazine, "Under The Burning Bush", October 22nd, 1989
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i89_you.html

"The idea is so unattractive when I think about what the tour took out of me," she says. "I haven't wanted to commit myself since." And, being the overreacher she is, she simply can't contemplate the straightforward band set that suffices for other pop stars.
Q, "Iron Maiden", November 1989
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i89_q3.html

Sadly Kate Bush won't be following up her only tour, now a decade away.
"I do think about it a lot. What's so silly is that I really enjoyed the last tour. I miss the human contact of an audience and I don't really feel like a performer any more. On the other hand, I was so tired after the last tour, it would have to be very special and I get very nervous. I'm scared too."
Tracks, "Love, Trust and Hitler", November 1989
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i89_tr.html

"My touring situation is a little unusual, to say the least," she says. "I've only ever done one tour, and that was ten years ago, and since then I've only concentrated on albums. I much enjoyed the tour. But touring is just re-creating music that already exists."
Rolling Stone, Random Notes, Nov. 1989
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i89_rs1.html

Only once, a decade ago, did Kate Bush expose herself to the intimacy of physical contact with her audience when she toured the UK. Since then she has refused all offers, not to mention pleas from her fans to repeat the process. Is this reluctance on her part due to a fear of giving too much of herself away?
"Ooh, is that deep! I think you're absolutely right. I loved touring, but it left me completely exhausted. Not necessarily at that stage, because I was going from the road straight into recording another album, but I did reach a point a couple of years after where I felt incredibly exposed. I felt really vulnerable...and I didn't like it. And, yes, I wanted to get those pieces of me back that I felt had been taken away.
"For me, that's what this type of exposure did - it made me feel like I'd lost pieces of myself. That I'd become a public person, and the private person - and that's who I really am - was actually getting very frightened and lost.
"I think this is a problem for any famous person, particularly for creative famous people. Creativity and sensitivity are very similar and you do have to be very, very strong. It doesn't surprise me at all that people go mad or become incredibly addicted to things. Because it's the psychological pressure of what happens to you when you're famous. Everyone sees the glamour, the fact that you have fame, lots of money, riches - it's all incredibly superficial stuff. Money is no longer a problem, it's more the psychological pressures which come in when you get famous that crack people up... The fact is that the last time I toured was ten years ago, yet people are still asking me whether I'm going to tour again. Why on earth haven't they given up? Why are they so patient with me? Why do they even care?
"And not to do an album for four years... for all those people knew I could've been off in the Bahamas, flying private jets. They didn't know I was actually in a studio, working hard."
RAW 32, Nov. 15 and 33, Nov 29. 1989
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i89_raw.html

Will you, after a ten year break from stage, go onto tour at last?
"I am honored that I am always asked for that after such a long time. Sometimes it, honestly said, annoys me, too. But it is really touching that people want to see me on stage after that long pause. Nevertheless - at the moment I have no plans for a tour. The expense would simply be too big."
Fachblatt MusikMagazin, "Kate Bush", 1989
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i89_fm.html#english

Of the last time she performed her material on stage, Bush says, "I suppose just after the tour I was at a point when I felt so exposed and so vulnerable I needed to retreat and just make albums--be a songwriter again. That's how I started. I lost a lot of confidence as a performer during the tour--I get very nervous about the idea of performing live."
Very nervous. That last tour took place in 1979, when the Hammersmith show was taped. And there doesn't seem much chance Bush will take The Sensual World to the stage. "I have no plans as yet," she said during a phone interview during her New York trip. "Because, really, I'm just too caught up with making albums, making videos. Live performance just kind of got left behind with me."
It would seem that Bush would keep up the concerts at least occasionally, if only to give her well-known love of dancing an outlet. But, she says now, "that's kind of been left behind" too.
Los Angeles Times, "The Baffling, Alluring World of Kate Bush", January 28, 1990
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i90_la.html

And now for the age-old question, the one that Kate doesn't like: what about touring? Kate has done only one tour in her career, way back in 1979, and though she said she enjoyed it, it looks as though she won't do it again.
"Why do people still ask me if I'm going to tour?" she say's, incredulously. "I haven't toured in ten years! I mean it's absolutely ridiculous!" Perhaps it's because she hedges so much about it, never quite coming out and saying that she'll never do it again.
"A lot of people of people think I hated touring, and that's why I haven't done it again," she acknowledges. "But actually I really enjoyed it. Sometimes I think I would like to, but I guess I'm scared of committing myself to something like that again. I found it very tiring, and it was really difficult for me to do anything for a very long time afterwards..."
As everyone who's seen Kate's videos knows, she definitely has an interest in the theatrical, and her live show was reportedly full of stage antics and special effects.
"I was very much influenced by dance and theatre at the time, and I really wanted to do something special with the show," she explains. "But recently, especially over these past two albums, it's been very important for me to spend time being a songwriter. I didn't want to be a performer. I didn't feel like a performer, and I didn't want to be exposed to all that it entails. I wanted to spend some tome alone at home and just be a songwriter and not be out there in front of everyone. I feel very exposed, doing that."
Music Express, "Woman's Work", Jan. 1990
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i90_me.html

I: Like seeing you perform live. Why have you avoided touring?
KT: I wanted to spend time being a songwriter. I didn't want to be re-creating songs that were already written in front of an audience. Touring is very much about real contact with an audience. It's also quite exhausting, and it's a big commitment. Writing music is completely different. It's very microscopic, very introverted. That meant so much more to me over the last few years than that [audience] contact. I think I've learned a tremendous amount about the process of writing and about myself. It really scares me, the idea of performing live, because I haven't done it for so long and the odd times I have I've felt uncomfortable. I'm terrified of committing myself at this point. But I'm actually starting to think, well, it could be fun.
Network, "The Sensual Woman", Feb/March 1990
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i90_net.html

But nowadays fans have to make do with her videos. It is 11 years. since her one and only tour.
"People are always complaining about that, "she giggles. "I don't hate live performing. I loved it. It's just that touring takes so much out of you. And I can't delegate. I get obsessed with every last detail. I've got to be choosing what colour socks the dancers are wearing, or helping to change the light bulbs. Besides, I get so tired of doing the same songs. I want to create music rather than recreate it night after night on stage."
Daily Mirror, "In A World Of Her Own", 21st March 1990
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i90_dm.html

Q: Your fans are among the most devoted in music. Lacking the feedback of a live audience, are you aware of many people's more than averagely intense interest in you and your work?
KT: It sounds really corny, but I feel so honoured that people into my music are so.. .. . patient. Their priorities are gorgeous; I don't feel there's a fickleness- they're happy with whatever i do. It's almost a form of love. When we did the shows last time(1979), I did love it. The contact with the audience was fantastic. But I did feel a tremendous sense of intensity towards me and I felt very exposed. I'm really quite a quiet, private person, and it was very difficult for me, and that's got a lot to do with why I haven't toured, which has left me without a great sense of contact with an audience. It's quite a surprise to me to think I'm a famous person. It jolts me and I think, Oh my God! Right now, I would like to have more contact with audiences again. I think it would be a nice thing.
Q/HMV special mag, "Follow That!", 1990
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i90_q2.html

[tannis]

KATIE'S CHOICE: Little Miss Tour Tease...

"I do really like the idea of doing some shows at some point..."

THE RED SHOES

A rubberband bouncing back to life
A rubberband bend the beat
If I could learn to give like a rubberband
I'd be back on my feet...

In lack of a new album, EMI issued a compilation LP 'This Woman's Work' in 1990, while Kate appeared at a fan club convention to announce that a brand new album would be out soon and that she'd be touring to promote it.
Further bulletins about the imminent arrival of the new album continued for the next three years without any evidence, while Kate continued to pop up occasionally on comedy shows and other people's albums.
At last the new Kate Bush album 'The Red Shoes' is released and it's fab!
Rock World, "Who's That Girl?", Oct. 1993
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i93_rw.html

Del tells what Katie Did
"ODDLY ENOUGH, the idea of this album," explains Del, "was to get it recorded quickly and get out on to the road with it." Kate's only previously played one short tour. "It didn't work out that way, but the idea did influence the way the album was put together. Because I wanted to concentrate on engineering and didn't want to be in the live band, I didn't play much bass on the album, and we used the same drummer and bassist - Stuart Elliott and John Giblin - almost throughout. A lot of the time we got them to play together live to create a consistent backing for a song, even if we had to go back and change that as the song developed."
Now, with plans for live performances of The Red Shoes shelved, listeners are left with an album which has a preponderance of tight, live-sounding tracks.
Future Music interview with Del Palmer, "Well red", Nov. 1993
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i93_fm.html

While admitting that the idea of doing some shows after the album was finished "was something I'd been playing with," the 35-year old Bush says, "I'd never really written the songs in view of playing them on stage." Does that mean there will, once again, be no tour? "I don't think I'd ever tour again," she says, flatly. "Though I enjoy travelling, I don't travel always very *well*. I loved doing the tour we did before (in 1979), I loved the performances and working with the band and the dancers ... but I didn't really enjoy the travelling. I do really like the idea of doing some shows at some point," she adds, emphasizing those last 3 words. "but when we finished the album I got the idea of doing the short film, and all my energies went into that."
Toronto Sun, "Kate Bush Weaves A Fairy Tale", December 14, 1993
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i93_tsu.html

"I'd love to do some shows, but the whole thing of touring is very daunting to me now," Bush says, pleading exhaustion from nearly three years' work in her home studio on The Red Shoes, a period that also saw her part with her long time partner, Del Palmer, and mourn the death of her mother, Hannah.
"I like travelling, but I don't like doing a lot of travelling in a short space. To do some shows would be great; I think it would be really good for me. There's nothing planned ... The only plans I have right now are just to take a break ...."
Toronto Star, "Singer's singer Kate Bush makes A Rare Appearance", December 14, 1993
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i93_tst.html

Is she ever going to tour in North America? Until now, the British singer's response has always been No. In a Toronto interview with Canadian journalists, the normal y media shy Bush said she may change her ways to promote her new album, The Red Shoes. "I'd like to do some dates at some point for this record," said Bush, 35, during a rare promotional visit. "But as of right now, I have no plans." Bush has never played outside Europe. She finished her last tour - which consisted of 30 full production shows which mixed mime, dance and music - in 1979. Aside from the occasional charity benefit, Bush has shunned the stage in favour of the studio.
"My reluctance to tour wasn't deliberate in a lot of ways," she explained. "There was a presumption that I didn't enjoy it, which wasn't true. I did enjoy it. It was an exciting time for me. But it was completely exhausting, and at the end of it I felt quite exposed. At the time, I was concerned that I was removing myself from writing songs and recording them, which is what I wanted to do at the time. I wanted to work more in the studio and learn about production."
Bush says that by the time she got past a long phase where she lost all desire to perform, she grew nervous about returning to the stage. "Now I've come back to the idea of doing it - especially over the last couple of years. If we did do something, I'd like to do something personal. The idea of standing here and just singing my songs more simply now appeals to me." If she decides to tour, she won't likely have to worry about filling seats.
Hamilton, Ontario Spectator, "Kate Bush: Will She Or Won't She?", Dec. 16th 1993
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i93_hs.html

The hits piled up, but 1979's Tour of Life might have been better titled The Only Tour Of Her Life, for she never did it again and major international success has always eluded her.
Q magazine, "The Big Sleep", December, 2001
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/iv01_q01.html

[tannis]

KATIE'S CHOICE: Little Miss Tour Tease...

"We're working on some ideas about doing some shows to promote this album, but it's early days..."

AERIAL

Could you see the aisles of women?
Could you see them screaming and weeping?

Mark: But you did this to tour... you'd always performed... and you'd danced... you jumped off the stage, and approached the audience and you did a tour. And yet for some reason, you withdrew entirely from wanting to perform. So why was that then?
Kate: No, no, I didn't. I think that's a general presumption, and quite understandable. I loved the tour, it was fantastic fun, but I didn't want to repeat a tour with the same material. So I thought okay, I got two albums up until that point. I thought I'd go and do another two albums and then do another tour. So it would all be fresh stuff.
Mark: Right.
Kate: But then, by the time I started the third album I’m starting to become involved in the production, and it became a much more time-consuming process. And I think by the time I got to the fourth album, which I had promised myself it would be the end of the fourth album I'd do the next tour, it had all gone off into a different tangent where I was really trying to learn how to put records together in a studio. And that was a very time-consuming process, and it kind of took me away from the whole world of wanting to do shows, really, for a while, I mean. And I've toyed with it on and off a lot, because I did enjoy it, but I think I found the writing process so interesting, that I wanted to stick at that really, and try and make something of that, and it takes a lot of time.
Mark: ... but you know, people can, there are a lot of people who still find, you know, the time to perform, perhaps the need to perform...
Kate: Of course!
Mark: ...that you don't have the need to go out and do this stuff in front of people?
Kate: No, I suppose, I don't. (Said in a very deadpan way)
(pause)
Mark: Was it ever... kind of... when you got a new album out...which... you're very proud of it and you know, the reaction is very positive. Is there any part of you that thinks "actually, I wish I could get out on stage and do this for people"?
Kate: Yes. (Said in an equally deadpan way)
(pause)
Mark: But you won't?
Kate: I don't know if I won't. Normally something else comes along to sort of take me away from even pursuing the idea the any further. Yes, I would I would like to do some shows.
Mark: So you wouldn't rule it out?
Kate: No, I wouldn't rule it out, but then, I haven't ruled it out for the last 20-odd years.
(Kate laughs)
Kate: And I haven't done it yet.
Mark: It just hasn't happened yet.
BBC Radio 2, The Mark Radcliff Show, November 7, 2005
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/iv05_bbc2_Mark_Radcliff_interview.html

"I never consciously gave up touring," she explains. "I only did just one, in 1979 and 1980, and I think other people gave up on me. I remember it as a fantastic experience, like being on the road with a circus. We're working on some ideas about doing some shows to promote this album, but it's early days."
The Toronto Star, "Lost and Found", November 5, 2005
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/iv05ts01.html

The singer, who has been described as reclusive and rarely performs live, allows that her maternal responsibilities make the possibility of a tour even less likely.
"I don't have as much time now because I've got other things to think about," Bush says. "We've got a lot going on based around where we live, and we don't want to disrupt that."
"Kate Bush picks it up in 'Aerial'", USA Today, November 18, 2005
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/iv05_usat.html

Kate Bush needed to be good in the studio, because by the time Never For Ever was released she had made a subconscious decision to quit touring. It was almost unheard of that an artist just three albums into their career should dismiss what was seen as a vital marketing tool. Only The Beatles had done it successfully before.
"I don't know how I'll cope with touring," she said shortly before she was due to go on the road. As unlikely as it may sound, the only tour Kate Bush ever did was the Lionheart tour, in 1979, with dates at London's Hammersmith Odeon and the London Palladium.
It was a stupendous effort, with Kate determined to take her whole repertoire to the boards-not just the music, but also dance and theatrics. Such was the scope of the elaborate and highly ambitious production that, almost inevitably, it wasn't without fault, and was decidedly patchy in places. As an event, however, those rare live performances still stand as some of the highlights in the history of live contemporary music.
Despite that, Kate felt and looked vulnerable performing live. It wouldn't take much, one felt, to put her off performing live altogether. Sure enough, she was devastated when her lighting director, Bill Duffield, tragically died after falling through a trapdoor at the Palladium.
After that tour it seemed that she had made an unspoken decision. It's difficult to escape the conclusion that her decision to permanently cease touring was concluded with the knowledge that the scale of the production she would have demanded would have taken an important part of her plan out of her control.
Kate thrives in a family environment, and touring would have meant adopting an extended family, which she was not prepared to do. Which could explain why, since then, she has thrown herself into working in the studio, and maintained an intensely private life.
"Stand By Your Mantra", Classic Rock magazine, December 2005 issue
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/iv05_classicrock.html

[tannis]

OPPORTUNITY LOST: Taking the easy way out...

Don't want your bullshit, yeah
Just want your sexuality
Don't want excuses, yeah
Write me your poetry in motion
Write it just for me, yeah
And sign it with a kiss...

A lot of people would like to see you just sitting at a piano and singing a set of your songs.
KT: "Not nearly as many. It would be too easy, as if I couldn't be bothered to prepare a proper show. It wouldn't do anything for the blend of movement and music. That is what I really want to do. Music and movement together in a modern sense. People like it that you're not taking the easy way out..." (NME, Oct. 1982).

In 1982 KaTe seemed determined to tour with NFE and TD, connecting dance, theatre and music together. However, had she done so, the opportunity cost might have been HOL and TNW. After all, the Lionheart Tour had taken her to unforgettable depths of fatigue. KaTe now preferred the video side: "It's very exciting and you can lie with lots of things"; and she toyed with the idea of making The Ninth Wave film.

KT: "I think television can go a lot farther than I can on a tour. And a lot quicker... Theatre is quite a different world than film. Film is very intimate. It's just the camera seeing what it's pointed at. You can't see anything beyond that. But when you're on stage, people's eyes can wander from the ceiling to the floor, there's so much they can take in. In video, you have control..." (Toronto Star, Nov. 24, 1985).

In 1989 KaTe dismissed outright the idea of touring, stating that "touring is just re-creating music that already exists". Gone was the musical challenge of blending movement, theatre and music; and gone was Paddy's convention guarantee. The idea of touring scared her silly but did not get her going; and KaTe no longer saw herself as a performer. Besides, it would be "terribly expensive", "incredibly difficult" and "a big commitment" to put together a HOL/TSW tour involving so many additional musicians - Bill Whelan, Donal Lunny, Eberhard Weber, The Trio Bulgarka, Nigel Kennedy, etc. etc.

By now, her fans were "completely mad" and KaTe was left asking, "Why on earth haven't they given up? Why are they so patient with me? Why do they even care?"

DANCER: "I can't go on. I am torn between what I was and what is to become of me. In these shoes, every step I take is laced with madness. They fill me with pain and confusion, and with thoughts that are not my own. I have danced their dances... together we tripped from a stage into the pit. I see me falling. I feel my fear. And yet I was never here..." (The Line, The Cross & The Curve, 1993).

Although The Ninth Wave film project was scrapped, KaTe's cinematic ambition was finally realised with The Line, The Cross & The Curve (1993). Despite its merits, KaTe later considered the film "a load of bollocks" (The Guardian, 10/28/05). The opportunity cost of The Red Shoes film had probably been The Red Shoes Tour. Which one would fans have preferred? ...

Bush says that by the time she got past a long phase where she lost all desire to perform, she grew nervous about returning to the stage. "Now I've come back to the idea of doing it - especially over the last couple of years. If we did do something, I'd like to do something personal. The idea of standing here and just singing my songs more simply now appeals to me..." (Hamilton, Ontario Spectator, Dec. 16, 1993).

In 2005 KaTe released Aerial: "We're working on some ideas about doing some shows to promote this album, but it's early days..." But the sun was setting on the idea of a show. Only the completely mad were still waiting; and KaTe, it seems, had taken the easy way out...

see more:
Kate Bush interview by Paul Gambaccini
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSQ6ispjgnU
...one of the nation's top live attractions!