*** LIVE BOOTLEGS MEGA-ARTICLE *****

[rhill@pnet01.cts.com (Ronald Hill)]

[Do not resond to me here.  Use rhill@netrun.cts.com.]





KATE BUSH LIVE BOOTLEGS

        by Andrew Marvick (IED), Ronald Hill, Doug Allen, Woj, and Barth
Richards. 

        This is a compilation of various messages from Love-Hounds, done by
Ron Hill who takes responsibilty for any errors that may have occured during
editing.


        There are five main sources for the material on the live bootlegs.

        1) The official _Hammersmith_Odeon_ videotape.  The best sounding
boots simply are recorded off of the laser-disk.  So far, no audio recordings
off of the un-edited film have surfaced (the un-edited film has only been seen
at the 1985 convention). 

        2) Fan-recorded tapes from the Bristol, Paris, Manchester, London
Palladium, and Amsterdam concerts.  Note that there is only one known tape
from each of these concerts, although they have been released in different
formats.  The sound _is_ abysmal, there are no bootlegs of the 1979 concerts
that have good sound. The best-sounding one that includes all the songs and
incidental bits and pieces is probably the Manchester concert (a two-LP set,
though only a little less complete than the _Dreamtime_ 3-LP set). But they're
all miserable.  They feature not only songs, but a chant, readings by John
Carder Bush, and incidental bits of music, all of which were heard while Kate
changed costumes in between songs during the concert. Specifically, there are:
a heartbeat passage preceding "Room For the Life"; an ethnic chant performed
by the band in unison; two synthesizer introductions to songs; three brief
readings by John--one known as "Two in One Coffin" (preceding "The Kick
Inside"), the others passages of unidentified prose (perhaps by John); an
arrangement of Satie's 1st "Gymnopedie", which is used to frame "Symphony in
Blue", and a short jam session by the KT Bush Band. Also of note is the live
version of "Egypt", which sounds very different from the LP version. 


        3) Kate. This was a forty-five minute TV special which aired in
England on December 28, 1979; sometimes called the "Christmas Special". In
addition to a couple of lip-synchs of LP tracks and one or two new vocal
performances of old songs, several new and unique bits of music appeared on
this show. They include a brief introduction, an arrangement of part of
Satie's "First Gymnopedie" (as an introduction to "Symphony in Blue"); an
early version of "December Will Be Magic Again"; a choral introduction for
Peter Gabriel (Kate's guest on the show--he sings "Here Comes the Flood"),
sometimes referrred to as "Peter, the Angel Gabriel"; a brief bit of blues
piano; and a duet with Peter of Roy Harper's song, "Another Day". 

        4) There are a few clips from other live Tour of Life shows on three
different TV programmes: the Tour episode of _Nationwide_ (UK TV); a German
programme called _Kate_Bush_in_Concert_ (which has some songs from the Hamburg
and Mannheim concerts); and a Swedish show called _Rockdrotting_ (with a few
songs from the Stockholm concerts). All are in mono TV sound, however. 

        5) Bill Duffield concert.  A modified Tour of Life show, staged at
London's Hammersmith Odeon on May 12, 1979 for the benefit of the surviving
relatives of Bill Duffield, Kate's lighting director for the Tour, who had
died in an accident at the very beginning of the tour.  The concert featured
Steve Harley, Peter Gabriel.  In addition to songs from The Tour of Life, this
concert featured Let It Be, sung by Steve Harley, Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush
;"Them Heavy People" with verses sung by Harley and Gabriel; "The Woman With
the Child in Her Eyes" sung by Harley and Gabriel; Gabriel's "I Don't
Remember" sung as a duet by Gabriel and Kate; and Harley's "Come Up and See
Me", sung by Harley, with Kate and Gabriel on backing vocals. 
        See _Japanese_Fan_Club_EP_, _If_You_Could_See_Me_Fly_ and
_Passing_Through_Air_.


ALBUMS

        _Japanese_Fan_Club_EP_ The more common yellow-vinyl edition is not the
original version of this disk.  The _actual_ record, as put out by the
Japanese fan-club (now apparently defunct and succeeded by a different group
in Japan), was a simpler affair: a red flex-disk with a white sleeve. On the
disk where a label ordinarily would go was a KT symbol in silver. The disk had
John's spoken message first, followed by Kate's brief message, followed
finally by the excerpt from the live performance of "Let It Be" from a fan's
in-audience (i.e., pirated) Walkman recording of the benefit concert for Bill
Duffield. (The other singers on that track are Steve Harley and Peter
Gabriel.) 

        _Wow_ : a two-record set containing a poor stereo dub of the
Hammersmith odeon video's audio track and a mono dub of the BBC tv special
_kate_ (one on each record).  This is probably the first KaTe booTleg,
appearing in 1982 or early 1983 and was put out by New York based bootleggers.

 
        _Moving_ : beautiful re-packaging of _Wow_.  Equally poor audio
though.  Made in the UK. 
 
        _Live in Paris_ (1984): single LP containing excerpts of the Paris
concert.

        "Kate Bush Live in Europe 79 & 80" is a double album credits as being
from the non-existant Fan Club of Taiwan.   This also appeared as a cassette
tape.  One record is the soundtrack to the"Kate Bush Live at the Hammersmith
Odeon" video tape, and the other album is the soundtrack to the hour long
Christmas special called "Kate" that she did in 79.  

        "Kate Bush Live in Europe 79 - 80" a re-packaged three-record set that
consists of: 1.) a true stereo transfer to vinyl of the whole of "Live at
Hammersmith Odeon"; 2.) a transfer of the television sound track from Kate's
1979 Christmas special (the same TV-hum-filled audio track heard on the
various video copies), which originally appeared along with 1.) as the
above-mentioned two-record set called "Wow"; and 3.) a copy of part of a 1979
Paris concert, which previously appeared as the above mentioned Paris LP.  All
of these records were pressed by the same bunch of people, under several label
pseudonyms, most often "Rock Solid Records" and"International Records" of New
York.


     _A Bird in the Hand_ (1986) is _the_ worst ripoff of all the KT boots.
Don't buy it unless you have never heard anything from the Hammersmith concert
video at all before. All it is is an _edited_ transfer of the Hi-fi audio
track from the video-cassette of the Live at Hammersmith Odeon film.
Furthermore, the stereo channel separation is virtually completely lost in the
boot version, although the pressing (surface noise) is o.k.  But this
particular bootleg doesn't even include the whole 53-minute soundtrack! Only
about nine songs (perhaps eight are listed, but as IED recalls nine are
included on the record) are transferred, even though other boots have a better
stereo transfer of the entire soundtrack on single disks. So steer clear!
        The cover boasted two fine early photos in blue ink with pink borders.
Interestingly, this bootleg is marked: "cover produced in U.S.A., 1986"; and
according to the labels, the record's alias is "Don't Let Me Go".

        _Under the Ivy Bush_.  (1988)  This one features quite slick
packaging, although the photos used are obviously from positives. The cover is
of the Japanese-_TKI_ pink leotard shot (uncropped, of course). The album is a
hodge-podge, but is quite interesting.  It bears the misleading label
"previously unreleased live German tracks."  This refers to tracks one and two
which are simply mono tapes of the LP tracks of "Running Up That Hill" and
"The Big Sky" as used by Kate for lip-synch performances. The only differences
between these and the LP tracks are that these are in terrible low-fi TV
sound, and they include a studio audience cheering at the beginning and end of
the lip-synch tracks. By the way, these two tracks are taken from Kate's
appearance on the German TV show "Peter's Pop Show", which was also
re-broadcast on a French program, both of which aired in the fall of 1985.
     Track 3 is another matter altogether. It is a live version of "James and
the Cold Gun" that has never appeared in any boot or video that IED has seen
before. It's not from the Hammersmith film, nor is it like the "On Stage"
version of the Hammersmith version, nor is it from the Bristol or the Paris
shows. The sound is better than average for bootleg live material, and it's a
really confident, loose performance.
     Tracks 4 and 5 are just the Satie "Gymnopedie" and "Symphony in Blue"
from "Kate", the 1979 Christmas special. However, the audio on these tracks is
_far_ superior to that on the earlier bootleg transfers of the "Kate" program.
     Side Two starts off with "The Man With the Child in His Eyes" from the
"Kate" program.
     Track 2, Side Two is just an excerpt from the German documentary on Kate
called "Kate Bush in Concert". You can hear the last words of one of Kate's
answers to an interviewer's question, which segues into the live version of
"Violin" from the TV program's filmed excerpts of the Mannheim and Hamburg
concerts.
     Track 3 is just the "Hammer Horror" from the Tour of Life. (The specific
concert is untraceable, really, because this recording of the song was made by
Kate in the studio with the KT Bush Band specifically for the Tour, so that
she wouldn't have to worry about singing for at least one song in the show,
which left her a bit freer to dance during that song. Consequently this track
is identical in all the concerts).
      Track 4, Side Two begins with some bootlegger's idea of a joke: it's a
phrase from an interview Kate gave for the German TV film "Kate Bush In
Concert" (IED believes), which the bootleggers have _backwards-masked_! The
words that Kate utters, when played backwards, are: "...will be totally
believed by an awful lot of people." Ha ha.
     Track 5 is a pre-tour live version of "Wuthering Heights", taken
(probably) from one of the two German TV shows on which Kate appeared to
perform the song in 1978. The sound, again, is quite good for a transfer from
TV.
     Track 6, the last track on the album, is again a reasonably clear
transfer from a thin, mono TV original. This one, however, is something
special: the live version of "Under the Ivy" which Kate performed solo,
accompanying herself on piano, in Abbey Road Studios for the satellite
broadcast of a special edition of the U.K.  TV program _The Tube_.
     That's it. Altogether a pretty queer collection of tracks, but not
without value or interest.

 
        _Live_in_Bristol_ (1988): two record set containing the entire Bristol
concert as well as some bits of John Carter Bush's poetry.  Nice package, poor
audio.
 
        _Live_in_Amsterdam_ : a single lp containing most of the aborted
Amsterdam concert which was cut short due to KaTe's flu attack.
 
        _Kate Bush Live in Manchester, April 10th, 1979_.  (1988) This album,
a two-record set from our old familiar NYC-based bootleg outfit, is exactly
what it claims to be.  The record is not as complete a record of the Tour
programme as the bootleg 2-LP set of the Bristol concert (which is a virtually
unedited copy of the entire concert), since it only contains twenty tracks,
and some though not all of the incidental music and prose-readings are
missing.  But it _is_ a different performance, and Kate and the band are in
unusually
fine form. The sound is boomy on the bottom and weak on the treble, but it
still manages to create a strong atmosphere and presence, and the album,
overall, is considerably more listenable than, say, the Paris concert
bootlegs, which have extremely muffled and distant sound. "Moving" is
extremely beautiful and ethereal in this performance.

        "What Katie Did at Amnesty International".  (1988) This is a
seven-inch bootleg.  It has a b&w cover design on high-quality cardpaper, with
red and black lettering in a type-face that is meant to imitate the style used
by Peter Gabriel for several recent singles. The photo, too, is a
nearly-abstract b&w shot of a figure moving down a street (not Kate), sort of
like the blurred shots on some of Gabriel's _So_ singles covers. The record
itself features the live performance of "Running Up That Hill" from the
_other_ night (as opposed to the one which is included on the official _Secret
Policeman's Third Ball: The Music_ LP), but of course the sound is very poor
in comparison with the Amnesty LP track. The real selling-point of this
bootleg is its b-side, a crude but quite listenable recording of the live
version of "Let It Be" which Kate gave at the Amnesty concerts. It's not
earth-shaking, but it's a _huge_ artistic advance on the performance of the
same song which Kate gave with Steve Harley and Peter Gabriel in 1979.  This
is a very thoughtful and well-thought-out interpretation, and Kate sings all
but the second verse this time around (IED can't say for sure who the male
singer in this version is, but supposes it could be a very hoarse Gabriel?).


        _Kate_Bush_Live_at_the_London_Palladium_1979_  (1988) is a 3-record
set from what looks like the same old New Yorkers.  On this album they go by a
name they deserve, "Pharting Pharoah Records". The album design is
particularly noxious: on the front cover it features the famous (and
copyrighted) photograph of Kate with ivy in her hair; and on the back, a
collage mixing official photographs taken from music magazines (including the
KBC Newsletter) with shots from the nude photo session of "'lookalike' Kate
Simmons" which originally appeared in a Autumn 1982 U.K. edition of
_Penthouse_ Magazine.  As IED understands it, the photos and story appeared in
the UK edition of _Penthouse_ only; and the article was filled with teasing
insinuations that left the reader in little doubt they were supposed to think
it was Kate ("young doctor's daughter from Kent"; "been composing since she
was a child"; etc.)
        As for the use of one of those photos on a bootleg LP cover, it
doesn't surprise IED at all. There's zero evidence that the people who make KT
boots are fans. That's highly unlikely, in fact. In the first place, any real
fan would do a much better job of organizing the tracks, listing the titles
correctly (there are no fewer than eight mistakes on the cover of the
three-record set), etc. And in the second place, a real fan wouldn't even sell
a bootleg in the first place!
        However, there is no reason that IED can see for doubting the
authenticity of this album's contents. All 24 songs from the Tour of Life
concerts are included (spread over three records), as well as virtually all of
the "incidental" music and poetry/prose readings, readings, chants, etc. (The
Bristol bootleg, in its recent vinyl incarnation, manages to fit roughly the
same amount of material into two records, but who's counting?)  The sound of
the Palladium set is no better than you'd expect, but the source does
sound different from those of any of the other albums. As a result, it seems
relatively safe to accept that this set originated from the London Palladium.

     _Temple_of_Truth_ is to be _avoided_ unless you are so devoted a fan that
you must have any Kate item no matter what its quality. _Temple_of_Truth_ is
simply an excerpt from an unidentified (and unidentifiable) Tour of Life
concert. The sound of the recording is the _worst_ of any of the several live
concert bootlegs of Kate's Tour of Life, and it doesn't even contain half the
programme. Do not buy this album.

        If_You_Could_See_Me_Fly_ (1988) (NOT to be confused with the CD of the
same name) is a single lp containing excerpts from the Bill Duffield concert
from 1979, features Steve Harley and Peter Gabriel (organized to benefit
Duffy's family following his death early in the tour). Also included two early
demos of "Babooshka" and _Let_It_Be_ from the Amnesty show.
        The quality of the Hammersmith material is marginal.  The Amnesty show
track is better, but not great.  The two studio takes of "Babooshka" are
pretty good, though they crackle as if they had been lifted off another vinyl
disc.
        This is a European pressing and has a black, white, and gold cover
with a composite photo of a Fred & Ginger like pair dancing on a typewriter
keyboard.
        The tracks and credits are listed as shown below.  Recorded live 12
May, 1979 at the Hammersmith Odeon, London, except where noted.

side one:
--------

Let It Be
(Lennon-McCartney)
  Kate Bush-vocals
  David Gilmour-vocals, guitar
  Pino Palladino-bass and others
  Recorded live, March 28, 1987 at the Palladium, Amnesty Festival

The Girl/Man With Child In Her/His Eyes
(Bush)
  Kate Bush-3rd lead vocals, piano
  Peter Gabriel-1st lead vocals
  Steve Harley-2nd lead vocals

Here Comes The Flood
(Gabriel)
  Peter Gabriel-vocals, piano

I Don't Remember
(Gabriel)
  Peter Gabriel-lead vocals,piano
  Kate Bush-synthesizer (solo), back-up vocals
  Paddie Bush-guitar
  Stuart Elliot-drums
  Del Palmer-bass

side two:
--------

D.I.Y.
(Gabriel)
  Peter Gabriel-lead vocals, piano

The Best Years of Our Life
(Harley)
  Steve Harley-vocals, acoustic guitar

Make Me Smile
(Come Up And See Me)
(Harley)
  Steve Harley-lead vocals, lead guitar
  Kate Bush-back-up vocals, piano
  Peter Gabriel-back-up vocals, acoustic guitar
  Paddie Bush-rhythm & lead guitar
  Del Palmer-bass, back-up vocals
  Stuart Elliot-drums

Let It Be
(Lennon-McCartney)
  Kate Bush-lead vocals
  Peter Gabriel-lead vocals, guitar
  Paddie Bush-vocals, guitar
  Del Palmer-vocals, bass
  Stuart Elliot-vocals, drums

Babooshka
(Bush)
  Take 1 & 2
  Kate Bush-vocals, piano
  David Gilmour-engineering, drum programming on Take 2
  both takes recorded at David Gilmour's own studio in 1974


        _Live_in_Japan_ (1989) is a seven-inch single featuring (on the
a-side) Kate's live performance of _Moving_ from the Seventh Tokyo Song
Festival, which was held at the Budokan on June 18, 1978. On the b-side are
Kate's performances of abridged versions of two Beatles songs,
_The_Long_and_Winding_Road_ and _She's_Leaving_Home_. The latter two songs
were taped at Tokyo's TBS G Studio on June 23, 1978, for airing on the
programme _Sound_in_S_. All three songs are accompanied by a large orchestral
group (including full string and wind sections), and for _She's_Leaving_Home_
Kate pre-recorded her own background choruses.
     The sound is surprisingly good, and is in stereo (although it may be
simply a stereo recording of the original mono tracks). There is a good deal
of "toppiness" to the sound (distortion of the higher frequencies), but for
the most part the recordings are quite listenable.
     The cover is of hard, glossy card-stock, with a close-up copy of a 1978
publicity shot of Kate on the front, and a copy of the close-up of the
"radiating eye" from the front cover of the official UK single release of
_The_Man_With_the_Child_in_His_Eyes_ on the back.
     Kate's performances are extremely professional, with no hint of
uncertainty about intonation or anything--although at the very end of
_She's_Leaving_Home_ Kate finishes a beat later than the arrangement evidently
indicated, a mistake no doubt prompted by what must have been minimal
rehearsal time and poor orchestral direction. (Anyway, the error does not
damage the performance, since the arrangement ends at that point.) Kate's
voice is at its most spectacularly _high-pitched_ in all three performances,
and she
does manage to add two or three interesting little melodic flourishes to the
Beatles songs, despite their abbreviated length.
     All in all, IED agrees completely with Peter FitzGerald-Morris, who
called this bootleg "a treasure". 



LIVE CDS

        _Kate_Bush_Live_ (or _Live_At_Hammersmith_1979_). (1989) By its
physical make-up IED strongly suspects that it is a product from the same
group who have been putting out the now-famous Beatles _Back-Track_ and
_Off-White_ CDs. The package of this KT CD is a normal jewel-box, with a
hard-card cover (folded over once), and four colour photographs of Kate on the
front. The track listings are almost completely accurate and are clearly set
out. The photo/track- listing card is very sharply printed and glossy. Also on
the cover is a red official KBC "KT" symbol--though of course this is _not_ an
official producet. 
     The CD contains fifteen tracks. The first twelve are simply the same old
_Live_at_Hammersmith_Odeon_ audio-track, though this time it has been very
well lifted from the new Japanese edition of the laser-disk, which features a
digital re-mastering of the original analog tapes. Track thirteen is the live
performance of _Running_Up_ That_Hill_ from the _Amnesty_International_Secret_
Ball_:_The_Music_ CD. Track fourteen is the live performance of _Breathing_
from the _Comic_Relief:_Utterly_Utterly_Live_ CD. And track fifteen is the
track _This_Woman's_Work_ from the _She's_Having_ a_Baby_ soundtrack CD. The
three extra tracks are re-mixed so that the applause from the end of the
_Hammersmith_ tape fades into the applause from _Running_Up_That_Hill_, and
ditto for _Breathing_. The only error in the track-listing is in the
identification of the two live tracks as both coming from 1988. Actually both
are from at least a year earlier. No big deal. The sound of all these tracks
is exceptionally good even for a legitimate release, and unheard of in the
history of Kate Bush bootlegs. Nevertheless, its price may be considered very
high by many fans, especially those who already have these recordings in their
original, legitimate configuration.
        Front cover:  four color pix, including a second take from the pose
used for the US cover of "The Kick Inside" and three others most likely from
those sessions.  Inside face:  the famous EMI publicity photo for that album. 
Cropped, some (ref. Vermorel p. 62).
        Cover Title:  Kate Bush Live.  Title on disk:  Kathy Live from
Wuthering Heights (Neutral Zone [Korea] NZCD89010), AAD.
        Back photo, the still used for the "Hammersmith" video and the KTBand
logo.  Correspondence address:
                Neutral Zone Digital Recordings
                140 Rue de Rennes
                75006 Paris France


        _Performed_Live_In_London_1979.  The hammersmith film soundtrack, good
but not as good as _Kate_Bush_Live_.
 

        _Feel_It_Live_ (1991).  The Hammersmith film.

Title:      Feel It Live
Author:     Kate Bush
Media:      CD [ADD]
Order No:   LLRCD 092
Company:    (R) Living Legend Records
            (C) 1991 Multi Coloured Music, Italy
Track List: - Moving (3.38)
            - Them Heavy People (3.58)
            - Violin (3.22)
            - Strange Phenomena (3.14)
            - Hammer Horror (4.35)
            - Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbreak (3.38)
            - Wow Wow Wow (4.06)
            - Feel It (2.59)
            - Kite (6.16)
            - James and the Cold Gun (8.32)
            - Oh England My Lionheart (3.15)
            - Wuthering Heights (4.42)

        Notes: Recorded live in concert 1979
        On the cover is the note - 'We apologize for the non excellent quality
of the recording, which has been realized with sixties amateur equipment'.
        Comments:   Although the above note implies that this is a bootleg the
CD is listed in German import catalogues under the number (036-092).  The
quality is very good except that in a couple of places a 'surface noise' can
be heard, as though this is a digital copy of a record. This noise is minimal
and does not distract from the well edited performance. 

        [Could the author of the above entry contact me as I lost your name]

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