Kate Rocks America 1978!

[Richard Bensam <rabensam@earthlink.net>]

SHANDRALYN@aol.com wrote:

><< And somehow, in the face of the fact that
> it has been more than twenty years since she last performed in the U.S.,
> it falls to me to accept the fact that she may never tour, and that I must
> reconcile myself to the idea that the studio recordings are the closest
> contact any of us Yanks might have with our beloved singer. >>
>
>You mean she actually has performed in the US? I've never heard about it...
>of course, if it was 20 years ago, I was too young to attend, but still...
>Wow.  I just never thought she made it over here at all.

Kate performed on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, with Eric Idle as guest host, on 9
December 1978; in addition to performing Them Heavy People and The Man With
The Child In His Eyes (sitting on top of a piano played by future David
Letterman sidekick Paul Shaffer) she also appears, if you look *very*
closely, as an extra in a comedy sketch at the start of the show.  (As
Chris points out, there is coverage of this and just about every other
television appearance by Kate ever -- some with transcripts! -- at the
Gaffaweb site, address listed below.)

I actually knew some people who were in the studio audience at that SNL
broadcast -- they didn't like Kate at all, but never missed an opportunity
to remind me that they had been there and I hadn't.

Apparently, although it boggles the imagination, Kate and band played a
warm-up gig earlier that week at a club in downtown Manhattan, billed as
the KT Bush Band (as they had been known in their pub-rock days).  Funnily
enough, I vividly remember searching through the newspaper that night at 1
AM, as soon as SNL was over, to see if this "Kate Bush" person was going to
make any live appearances in town...but I was later told that the gig had
been less than a dozen blocks from my house.  To think that Kate once
played that close to my home, and I missed it simply because I'd never
heard of her!


RAB

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