And Finally Artist News Gigs & Festivals Live Business

Coachella audience not smart enough for Kate Bush

By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 11 April 2017

Coachella kicks off this weekend, so the New Yorker has published a lengthy article on the ins and outs of how the festival works. This includes the possibly hypothetical suggestion that Kate Bush could have played the festival in 2015 but was turned down.

Head of WME’s music division Marc Geiger makes the claim while giving an example of the negotiating process with the festival’s founder Paul Tollett.

“I’ll say, ‘Kate Bush!’ and he’ll go, ‘No!’ and we’ll talk through it”, explains Geiger. “I’ll say, ‘She’s never played here, and she just did 30 shows in the UK for the first time since the late 70s. You gotta do it! Have to!’ ‘No! No one is going to understand it'”.

Bush, of course, did indeed perform a run of shows at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2014 – 22 though, not 30. Her first live shows since 1979, the multi-media performances included puppetry, video, magic and other theatrical elements, as well as a bit of singing. To be fair, it doesn’t sound like a festival-friendly show at all. I think Tollett has a point.

It wouldn’t have been just Tollett who needed to be convinced though. Assuming this situation is anything other than hypothetical, it would also have relied on Bush being eager to take her show on the road. She only got around to doing interviews about the concerts two years later, when the live album was eventually released, which doesn’t suggest a keenness to get ‘out there’.

Anyway, I’m sure David Guetta turned in something very similar to a Kate Bush show when he played Coachella that year. Speaking of which, the article also contains an interesting discussion on trying to work out how popular EDM DJs are, and a surprisingly fascinating section on the poster’s font sizes.

Read it all here.