Last night,
Kate Bush played
her first concert
since 1979.
It’s the first of 22 planned performances she’s giving at London’s Hammersmith Apollo theater, which is great news for her fans who can afford to fly across the to see her, but not so great for the rest of us (if we cross our fingers and maybe we’ll get a concert film out of it).
Reading about it as a man who, as a teen, had the image seen above on his bedroom wall has me thinking about those live performances we never got to see because fate intervened–the concerts from the artists who touched our lives that were just too far away to get to and we missed with the optimistic assumption that they had to end up playing closer to us eventually.
But time doesn’t always mesh with your plans. Every single original member of The Ramones is dead. We can still see Queen with Adam Lambert, but we all know that it’s not quite the same.
Bush is an interesting case though, because–like The Beatles before her–her stage was the recording studio and her revolutionary music videos, which had to take the place for the live performances her fear would not allow her to give. The folks lucky enough to be there at one of those 22 performances is getting the chance to see something unique and special–not the jaded spectacle of a touring hack, but an actual event.
What are the live performances you missed that you most regret? What are the ones that you most wish you’ll be able to see someday?
Beastie Boys-I would give up every concert memory to have seen Adam Yauch before he passed.