The first of Kate Bush’s 22 highly anticipated Before The Dawn shows took place last night, and London has already seen a dramatic uptick in puffy sleeves and peasant skirts, as fans from all over the world flock to see their idol—many of them for the first time. (Bush’s last live show was in 1979.) Cameras, cell phones, and tablets were prohibited in the theater, but you know that people snuck their iPhones in anyway. A video shared on Gawker shows people totally losing their shit after Bush capped off the show with “Cloudbusting,” the second single off of her best-known album, The Hounds Of Love.
The Guardian reports that time has only increased Bush’s theater-kid tendencies (tendencies she shares with many of her fans, so it’s cool). Its write-up mentions fish people, a dry ice machine, “dancers in lifejackets attacking the stage with axes and chainsaws,” a rant about sausages, mannequins, giant paper airplanes, and all the heavy-handed visual symbolism a performance major could ever ask for.
Here’s the setlist from last night’s inaugural show, courtesy of Pitchfork:
Lily
Hounds of Love
Joanni
Running Up That Hill
Top Of The City
King of the Mountain
And Dream of Sheep
Under Ice
Waking The Witch
Watching You Without Me
Jig Of Life
Hello Earth
The Morning Fog
Prelude
Prologue
An Architect’s Dream
The Painter’s Link
Sunset
Aerial Tal
Somewhere in Between
Nocturn
Aerial
Among Angels
Cloudbusting